I kinda touched on this in another thread.
Chadwell was my #1 choice, so no surprise that I keep tabs on Liberty. What hurts about Chadwell for me is we were thisclose to hiring him, but financial commitments got pulled from GTAA if Batt was going in that direction. The whole "if he keeps his defensive staff it's a no go" was just smoke to cover for some people wanting their guy. People were also worried Chadwell was riding the back of his QB at Coastal...but look what he's doing with another QB. The man can coach football.
James Madison's Cignetti was on my list as well. JMU is also undefeated.
Willie Fritz has Tulane 10-1, and that one loss is to a team we got smoked by. We all know what happened with Fritz.
That said, I was also rooting for Key (under certain circumstances). I really like what he's building here. People need to understand that progress is rarely a straight line going up. Our offense is trending to be one of the better offenses in the country, and we have the most important building block any offense can have: a very good QB. Our defense needs a LOT of work, and Key will need to address that this offseason. The promising thing is Key did not wait to make a change, and he's shown he's willing to make hard decisions for the betterment of the program. I LOVE Chadwell's offense, and I think it would have given us that schematic advantage CPJ and Friedgen gave GT...however, I've always said there's more than one way outside of the option to give GT a schematic advantage. I like what Faulkner is doing, and I think this offense is only going to get better. We have some really exciting pieces, and we have some good pieces coming in this recruiting cycle. I was skeptical of the Faulkner hire, but I've been pleased with what I've seen.
GT is one win away from bowl eligibility, and we were close to having an 7+ win season. We don't know what Key's ceiling is yet. I think he can easily win us 8+ games a year. I doubt he misses many bowl games in the future. Is his upside as high as some others that GT was looking at? We'll see.