A leper colony is an attractive job for a doctor who has leprosy.
Anyone looking for a job needs to evaluate ... the facilities, the talent, recruiting strength, resources (fanbase, money, institutional support, etc). If you are in the Sun Belt, Tech is a great opportunity. If you are an SEC HC, not so much.
I recall Saban was being considered for a HC role a while back and he visited the campus and athletic facilities. (This is before he became SABAN.) When asked what he thought, he simply said, "I'm not coming here."
My point is Tech is not getting Deion, Urban Meyer, Bill Belichick, Dabo Swinney, or any of the half dozen splash hires tossed around. We are going to get either an up and comer or ... someone experienced and close to retirement. I imagine Fritz would love the job.
I think this is a really important point that alot of GT fans just like to pretend isn't true.
While there are only 69 P5 jobs, GT is not a highly attractive job within those 69.
GT is the smallest public school in the P5 and the 12th smallest overall in terms of undergraduate enrollment. It has a small alum/fanbase relative to most P5 schools.
It has a below average budget for a P5 school and above average debt.
It is harder to recruit at due to the type of school it is than the majority of its competitor schools. David Shaw had an interesting comment about Stanford recruiting. He said after Jr year transcripts became available Stanford usually has about 75 recruits nationally it can recruit. GT isn't quite that tight, but it is similar in that the pool it recruits from is significantly smaller than most of its competitors.
It has a divided fanbase with an 'old boys club' that provides alot of the funding but also wants alot of the say.
Realistically GT is at best a middle of the pack choice for a P5 spot and likely is lower than that, possible bottom quartile of P5 jobs right now.
GT was never going to be a spot that a 'proven' P5 coach was going to take a job at. It is a place that is likely going to have to hire a P5 assistant or G5 HC.
I feel like the biggest issue right now is possibly the internal conflicts at GT turning off coaching candidates. If candidates start to feel like the school and its fanbase are not likely to be behind his program, and not willing to open the pocketbooks to support it, then they are more likely to start second guessing whether they should take the job. Paul Johnson made that comment in his interview last week with the AJC. He said he hoped whoever GT hired, he just hoped they would get the resources necessary to compete or it won't matter who GT hires.
