AP Photo/John Raoux

Wisconsin head coach Bret Bielema paces the sidelines during the first half of the Champs Sports Bowl NCAA college football game against Florida State in Orlando, Fla., Saturday, Dec. 27, 2008

I have questioned many college football coaching hires over the years, and feel there is a fairly simple way to predict if your team's new hire will succeed or fail at the big-time programs. 

I started by looking for reasons why Bielema never should have been hired, which I go into more detail on my blog, here: http://wisconsinsportsfanatic.blogspot.com/2009/07/why-brett-bielema-never-should-have.html and have found some facts to back up my opinions. 

College Football has changed considerably in the last 20 years. Coaches salaries have skyrocketed and the old practice of hiring an assistant to take over for the head coach should become outdated. The job requires so many duties outside of football Xs and Os that the person hired needs to have experience at the position before taking over a high profile program, which Wisconsin had become before Bielema and this is what spawned the article. 

I am of the opinion that when hiring for big-time college football programs(teams consistently in the top 25 and always in contention for conference titles), the candidates should be limited to guys who have been the head coach at a previous school. I see a troubling trend in college that follows the NFL of, hire the hot new assistant. 

It seems that lately when these assistants take over, they usually have initial success due to the framework in place from the previous regime. But, over time, the program erodes, and that is quite evident with what has transpired at Wisconsin, Miami, and Notre Dame after Holtz. 

On the other side of this is when programs go out and get coaches who have worked their way up, there might be growing pains, but when their ways are established the program runs itself. Exs Florida, Ohio State, LSU and eventually Michigan. 

Some coaches who stepped into good programs w/o being a head coach before and the program eroded or is eroding:

Bret Bielema Wisconsin, Bob Davie Notre Dame, Larry Coker Miami. 

2001 backs this up, here were some new coaches and their success

Urban Meyer Bowling Green 2-9 to 8-3, he could coach from the start, but he still had to start at the bottom. 

Larry Coker Miami they went 12-0 in his first year, any argument to how this program eroded each year he was at the helm? 

Jim Tressel OSU 8-4 to 7-5, they took an initial dip, but is there any arguments to the fact that OSU is one of the top 6 programs in the country? 

Les Miles Okie St. 4-7 now one of the top coaches at a top 5 program in the country. 

Rich Rodriguez WVU 7-5 to 3-8, the program dipped when he first went to the Mountaineers, then he took them within an upset against Pitt from the NC game. 

Pete Carroll USC 6-6, now arguably the best program in the country. 

All of these coaches were hired in the same year and most have built some amazing programs at the same school or went on to build the program at their next step up. It also shows that initial success for the BigTime coaches means very little, as the best coaches will struggle the first year while they implement their program, while weaker coaches will take over an established program and struggle each year thereafter. This is why I find it comical that Rodriquez was on the hot seat after year 1. 

Washington made the assistant mistake in 2003 by hiring Gilbertson after Neuheisel, the program still hasn't recovered. 

Nebraska made the mistake with Frank Solich, after Osborne. 

Miami, Wisconsin, Notre Dame feel their pain. 

A couple of guys that I think that should be in line for some of the bigger programs are Brian Kelly and Mark Mangino who has taken a horrid Kansas program to a BCS game. Yet guys like Gene Chizik get the Auburn job after doing nothing at Iowa St for one year, and not being a HC before that. Then Bill Stewart takes over at WVU, watch that program erode. 

I just feel the practice of hiring the loyal assistant will not work in modern day college football. The position requires too much charisma. The head coach in college football needs to be the CEO, watching over everything and they need practice at this in smaller programs before stepping into the big time programs. 

I hope that when the Badgers go searching(soon hopefully, unless I am proven wrong), they go after someone who has done the job before. Or, they will have dropped so far that they need to go the assistant route. When the program is at the bottom, than the assistant route can work because it is the only choice left. I understand Barry Alverez was an exception, and I am very happy for that, but when he came to UW, the Badgers were a dumpster-fire and there were no expectations. 

Discuss this topic and more with me over at: http://wisconsinsportsfanatic.blogspot.com/