Quote:WMU has not been a "stepping stone" job for anyone since Bill Spaulding.
Right now it sure is with PJ, assuming he carries things out more or less as expected.
Quote:MAC schools are a place for up and coming coaches, coaches in the Twilight of their careers or coaches that were never good to begin with.
Yeah, but NIU went to a NYD bowl being a stepping-stone place. Basically 2 great QBs back to back required it, too. Can happen. Every year a mid-major goes to a NYD bowl, and at least to Some degree it's a stepping-stone career place (although with places like Houston & Boise they are stepping stones not to places like Illinois but instead to places in the upper P5 budgets, which takes longer to develop).
The good news is:
(a) Tons of coaches were fired & hired at the end of LAST season, which makes less hires this year wanted
(b) Illinois hired Lovie Smith -- PJ was destined to go to Illinois and would have gone for anything, but that plan was thwarted (as well as my PJ vs Cubit fantasy)
© We pay PJ high on the MAC scale. He's not going to go to high-level G5 so easily, and probably won't want to unless the $$ is at the top of the G5 list and about doubles his now (which probably won't happen)
If we don't win the MAC -- and a decent chance we won't -- I don't think PJ's going anywhere. Also, if we do win the MAC going 6-2/8-4 in regular season via being the top of a tie-breaker and beating a not-all-that-impressive MAC East winner in a barn burner... I still don't think PJ is going anywhere at the end of the season.
And with the loss of QB & WR stars at the end of this year, he's not going to be poised to leave next year either. But when you combine this year, next year, and the year after -- yeah, he's going at some point.
We could make a NYD bowl by being like NIU did for a while -- keeping a key coach to pass the torch to. But to surely keep it going, one needs the HC to stay for a while to let the next HC develop well.