The Cost of Success

[Rich K]

https://herosports.com/fbs-ken-wilson-h ... ents-cpcp/
https://herosports.com/fbs-danny-gonzal ... ment-cpcp/
https://herosports.com/fbs-andy-avalos- ... ment-cpcp/


Nevada:

Montana State Head Coach Brent Vigen
Brent Vigen is going to be a popular name when it comes to Group of Five head coaching searches for the next couple years. And that’s for good reason.

Vigen has been Montana State’s head coach since 2021. That first year, he led the Bobcats to their first national championship appearance since 1984. Last season, Montana State reached the national semifinals before losing to the eventual champion, South Dakota State. The Bobcats are now widely regarded as a top-five FCS program.

Vigen also knows the Mountain West. He was an offensive coordinator at Wyoming under head coach Craig Bohl from 2014-20, most notably coaching now-NFL star quarterback Josh Allen.

If Vigen was open to it, Nevada would be smart to consider hiring him.

Boise:

If Boise State thought about hiring Montana State’s head coach a couple years ago, maybe the athletic department will think about doing so this time as well.

Brent Vigen is going to be a popular name when it comes to Group of Five head coaching searches for the next couple years. And that’s for good reason.

Vigen has been Montana State’s head coach since 2021. That first year, he led the Bobcats to their first national championship appearance since 1984. Last season, Montana State reached the national semifinals before losing to the eventual champion, South Dakota State. The Bobcats are now widely regarded as a top-five FCS program.

Vigen also knows the Mountain West. He was an offensive coordinator at Wyoming under head coach Craig Bohl from 2014-20, most notably coaching now-NFL star quarterback Josh Allen.

Vigen would be able to provide a steady presence at Boise State.

New Mexico:

Brent Vigen is going to be a popular name when it comes to Group of Five head coaching searches for the next couple years. And that’s for good reason.

Vigen has been Montana State’s head coach since 2021. That first year, he led the Bobcats to their first national championship appearance since 1984. Last season, Montana State reached the national semifinals before losing to the eventual champion, South Dakota State. The Bobcats are now widely regarded as a top-five FCS program.

Vigen also knows the Mountain West. He was an offensive coordinator at Wyoming under head coach Craig Bohl from 2014-20, most notably coaching now-NFL star quarterback Josh Allen.

If Vigen was open to it, New Mexico would be smart to consider hiring him.

[Joe Bobcat]

If coach Vigen is smart (and he certainly appears to be very smart) he would not be open to an offer from Nevada or New Mexico. He would also not ask me for advice as to coaching positions he should entertain and hardly give a very short minute to any I offer unsolicited. My advice at this time is to stay at MSU forever.

[MSU01]

Boise would be a good move for Vigen, although I'm guessing they'd be more interested in MSU's previous head coach than the current one. Nevada and New Mexico...yikes, not so much.

[Cataholic]

Jay Norvel had Nevada on the right track. I don’t understand why they haven’t been successful otherwise. Stable university with almost 22,000 students. Population is growing fast with over 500,000 in the Reno Sparks area already. Fertile recruiting in California is nearby. Sacramento area has 2.5 million population and is only 2 hours by car. Decent facilities as well. The right guy could have them at the top of the MW for years. Has to be a better job than Wyoming.

[BleedingBLue]

Heard a rumor last week he was actually a finalist for the Colorado job last year. Not sure a piss poor MWC team would appeal to him.

[kennethnoisewater]

I'm a big fan of Vigen and everything he's done here. A job like Boise St would make sense. BUT he hasn't shown that he can turn around a bad program, which in my eyes takes a different kind of guy. Jeff Choate could sell sh!t to a cow, and he's the kind of guy who could take someone from bottom feeder to contender. It takes a guy who's really good at making people believe they are on the ground floor of something, and that's rare. Kids want to win now, not in 3-4 years. As much as I like Vigen, I don't see him being that guy who walks into a 4 star recruit's living room and gets him fired up about a bad program. Schools need to hire Choate THEN Vigen. Choate gets them rolling, Vigen perfects them.

There are plenty of cautionary tales out there of schools without much community and student support, where the coach just couldn't do enough to turn the program around. I actually think Hauck did a pretty good job at UNLV, but that's such a bad program that nobody was going to make it very good. I do think Vigen will be choosy, but I also don't think that means he'll wait a long time just because he hasn't moved around much in the past.

[Cledus]

I'm a big fan of Vigen and everything he's done here. A job like Boise St would make sense. BUT he hasn't shown that he can turn around a bad program, which in my eyes takes a different kind of guy. Jeff Choate could sell sh!t to a cow, and he's the kind of guy who could take someone from bottom feeder to contender. It takes a guy who's really good at making people believe they are on the ground floor of something, and that's rare. Kids want to win now, not in 3-4 years. As much as I like Vigen, I don't see him being that guy who walks into a 4 star recruit's living room and gets him fired up about a bad program. Schools need to hire Choate THEN Vigen. Choate gets them rolling, Vigen perfects them.

There are plenty of cautionary tales out there of schools without much community and student support, where the coach just couldn't do enough to turn the program around. I actually think Hauck did a pretty good job at UNLV, but that's such a bad program that nobody was going to make it very good. I do think Vigen will be choosy, but I also don't think that means he'll wait a long time just because he hasn't moved around much in the past.

Good perspective. To use an analogy, Choate is like the whetstones you use to re-profile a blade and then sharpen, and Vigen is the the stone you use to hone and polish the blade to a razor finish. Coaches who can do both don't stay long in the FCS and move up the ladder quickly.

As for UNLV, they're 6-1 right now and 3-0 in league play. It's probably not possible for 99% of the coaches to turn that program around. You've really got to hand it to their AD who found the 1% coach who can turn it around.

[Cataholic]

I'm a big fan of Vigen and everything he's done here. A job like Boise St would make sense. BUT he hasn't shown that he can turn around a bad program, which in my eyes takes a different kind of guy. Jeff Choate could sell sh!t to a cow, and he's the kind of guy who could take someone from bottom feeder to contender. It takes a guy who's really good at making people believe they are on the ground floor of something, and that's rare. Kids want to win now, not in 3-4 years. As much as I like Vigen, I don't see him being that guy who walks into a 4 star recruit's living room and gets him fired up about a bad program. Schools need to hire Choate THEN Vigen. Choate gets them rolling, Vigen perfects them.

There are plenty of cautionary tales out there of schools without much community and student support, where the coach just couldn't do enough to turn the program around. I actually think Hauck did a pretty good job at UNLV, but that's such a bad program that nobody was going to make it very good. I do think Vigen will be choosy, but I also don't think that means he'll wait a long time just because he hasn't moved around much in the past.

Good perspective. To use an analogy, Choate is like the whetstones you use to re-profile a blade and then sharpen, and Vigen is the the stone you use to hone and polish the blade to a razor finish. Coaches who can do both don't stay long in the FCS and move up the ladder quickly.

As for UNLV, they're 6-1 right now and 3-0 in league play. It's probably not possible for 99% of the coaches to turn that program around. You've really got to hand it to their AD who found the 1% coach who can turn it around.

I was actually just looking at UNLV’s record the other day. My initial thought was how in the world is UNLV 6-1? Upon further examination though, they have only played one team that is good, Michigan. The rest are some of the easiest teams in the nation. The next best team is probably Vanderbilt or Colorado State. They have some tests ahead of them with Fresno State this week, and both Wyoming and Air Force still on the schedule. I expect they will end up at 8-4 with their strongest win over Vandy, CSU or maybe San Jose. Still quite an accomplishment for UNLV, but I could see MSU with the same record with that schedule.