If you look at Jimbo’s retentions and hires in terms of recruiting:
Gran, Coley, w/Stoops – triple teaming South Florida
Stoops – also experienced in TX and the West
Craig – Gulf Coast, including West Florida, south Alabama, coastal Mississippi
Trickett – northern Alabama, rest of Mississippi, Ohio Valley, and OL recruiting specialist
Hudson – mid-Atlantic, especially Carolinas
Dawsey – west coast of Florida
Haggins – Central Florida

The hole in this? Who’s recruiting southern Georgia and North Florida? Any candidate mentioned who doesn’t show ties or experience with that area should be dismissed as a possibility.

Possible non-eliminated on that basis – Travis Jones, currently New Orleans Saints assistant defensive line coach. Jones is proven recruiter including being recruiting coordinator at Appalachian State and LSU. He’s a Georgia grad and native of Macon.

by the time recruiting windows open post-Gator Bowl. Likely to be finalized by Jimbo before it becomes a possible distraction — meaning before the team returns to practice post-Christmas.

He’s wearing a pretty baggy shirt in the picture.

All joking aside, this is a good hire. Jimbo is assembling a great staff and I hope that it starts to show on the field next season. We’ll be breaking bad habits this spring, but we have some tremendous young athletes that may not have been completely broken yet.

that’s a trick question. Amato’s ability to collect a large check while building dissention amongst the coaches, avoiding recruiting, and coaching poorly for a period of three years will be very tough to duplicate. You have to do all that in order to get the “Executive Associate” title. Likely, Hudson just be “Assistant Coach of LBs”, and he’ll have to recruit and coach from time to time.

and some gaudy shades could fill his shoes.

and chains of authority, there should be no problems. All the titles were an issue due to the lack of clarity and delination.

Are more for making good position coaches happier with a fancier title and more pay, hopefully keeping them from bolting; the coordinators are already making big dough and the title is enough to them IMO. I know Bama’s two coordinators don’t have fancy titles, there are two other position coaches that do. At least that’s my theory.

you’d like some of your staff to be long term, but you also recognize the best, most talented, hardest working, most ambitious will be moving up the ladder.

It is rare that someone will bust their hump without the possibility of getting a better position. Some will do it for the love of it alone, but most will want to test themselves at a “higher position” — as a coordinator, as head coach. That’s why a Stoops comes here, a Hudson – they see it as a better chance to step toward a BCS head coaching job, especially one in a top conference, than staying where they are, or in Stoops case, taking that Youngstown State job.

you have 1 head coach, 9 assistants, 2 grad assistants, and a strength and conditioning staff. How a school distributes it’s assistants among “positions” and such is up to it alone.

So by the way you are counting, including the S&C coach (who cannot recruit off-campus and has assistants himself), we have two spots. Special teams is likely to be assigned to a currently hired coach who has other duties as well – Gran is expected to be the guy.

to keep the ball away from the other team. A pick-six is a mixed blessing b/c your defense has to get right back on the field. A 16-play 80-yd scoring drive is good on every* level. Long scoring drives establish your offensive rhythm. LSD’s disrupt opponent offensive continuity. LSD’s tire the opponents defense. LSD’s rest your defense. It’s all good.

*The one exception is when you’re more than one score behind late in the game.

Oddly he left for Alabama and then Steele would also eventually leave for Alabama; I believe Kines is now Texas A&M’s DC. Either way, he wasn’t a good fit here, another poor hire during the lost decade…

I don’t see why he needs to prove anything. OTHER THAN he can blend with the new staff and he still has the passion.

FSU’s had a long succession of DTs to the pros, up until recently, under Odell. The issue with the interior line is either passion or talent. Odell had only so much input into who’s recruited, someone else screened film for him as the position coach to have input on.

Another possible hold back that could have impacted the chain of DTs to the pros FSU had was the S&C system. That is being corrected (again).