• MARK HUDSPETH (Louisiana-Lafayette).
Age (years as assistant): 42 (12 years as an assistant, most recently as wide receivers coach at Mississippi State under Dan Mullen.)
Replacing: Rickey Bustle, who finally lost a nine-year battle to keep his head above water with a 3-9 flop in 2010. The Ragin' Cajuns won exactly six games in four of Bustle's final six seasons, but never more, and still have never been to a bowl game.
Best resumé line: Hudspeth is an outlier on this list because he does have relevant head-coaching experience, as the top man at Division II power North Alabama from 2002-08. The Lions were 66-21 with a pair of undefeated regular seasons on Hudspeth's watch, and earned a spot in the D-II playoffs four times.
Why here, why now? Save one season as offensive coordinator at Navy, Hudspeth's entire career has been spent in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi. With an SEC interlude under his belt, the Lafayette gig was the next rung on the ladder.
Grade: A–. Hudspeth has already won big on the college level, and comes from one of the most dynamic coaching staffs in the country last year. Even if ULL is a stepping stone, a bid to the GoDaddy.com Bowl will buy the locals' enduring affection.
Age (years as assistant): 50 (25 years, most recently as offensive coordinator at Michigan State.)
Replacing: Mike Haywood, who left for his ill-fated adventure at Pitt after leading the RedHawks to the MAC championship and the best single-season turnaround in the nation in his second year.
Best resumé line: Treadwell was one of the keys to Michigan State's breakthrough last year, taking over as interim head coach in the wake of boss Mark Dantonio's post-victory heart attack in September. The Spartans were 4-0 on Treadwell's watch, including the biggest win of the season, a 34-24 win over eventual Big Ten co-champ Wisconsin in the conference opener, and a convincing thumping of Michigan in Ann Arbor the following week.
Why here, why now? Treadwell played at Miami and returned briefly for a two-year stop as an offensive assistant in 1992-93; his Midwestern travels have also taken him to other schools in Ohio (Youngstown State, Cincinnati), in the MAC (Ball State) and the Big Ten (Michigan State). If Miami didn't hire him, the question would be why not?
Grade: A–. Treadwell's offenses have never set the stat sheet on fire in nearly a decade as an offensive coordinator, but he's been around the block, and after successfully keeping the Spartans on track in Dantonio's absence toward one of the best seasons in school history, the opening at his alma mater was the next logical step.
• KEVIN WILSON (Indiana).
Age (years as assistant): 49 (27 years, most recently as offensive coordinator at Oklahoma.)
Replacing: Bill Lynch, who was sacked after a last-place finish in the Big Ten last November, the 16th consecutive Hoosier head coach to leave Bloomington with a losing overall record.
Best resumé line(s): Wilson coordinated the highest-scoring offense in Division I history in '08, led by Heisman hero Sam Bradford. But his most enduring contribution may be his key role in the spread revolution as offensive coordinator at Northwestern, where he and head coach Randy Walker introduced the read option to smashing success in 2000.
Why here, why now? After failing to parlay the Sooners' success in 2008 into a head coaching gig (he was reportedly a serious candidate at Clemson and Mississippi State), Wilson may have felt it was time to jump while the window was still open. I'm not sure why else he'd take a job that's been stopping careers in their tracks for 60 years, unless he's just jonesing that hard to get back to the Midwest.
Grade: B+. For the Hoosiers, it's a clear win: Wilson has been one of the most respected and productive offensive minds in the country for years – so much so, in fact, that he seemed destined for a better gig when his time came. Indiana is a graveyard. Then again, any signs of life could be his ticket to the next rung up the ladder.
• STEVE ADDAZIO (Temple).
Age (years as assistant): 51 (16 years, most recently as offensive coordinator at Florida.) Replacing: Al Golden, on his way to bigger things at Miami after raising the Owls from perennial doormats – they were 0-11 before his arrival in 2004 and 1-11 his first season – to serious MAC contenders with 17 wins over the last two years, Temple's best two-year stretch since 1978-79.
Best resumé line(s): Addazio's spent 13 of the last 16 years at Syracuse, Notre Dame and Florida, coaching in six BCS bowls and earning a pair of national championship rings as Florida's offensive line coach in 2006 and 2008.
Why here, why now? Addazio is a native Northeasterner: He grew up in Connecticut and built a high school powerhouse there during a seven-year stint as head coach of Cheshire High before moving into the college ranks at Syracuse in the mid-90s. His six-year tenure at Florida is his only venture into the South, and with Urban Meyer's retirement almost certainly leaving Addazio without a job in the transition to the Will Muschamp administration, the Northward migration is a logical move.
Grade: B. Gator fans still mourning over the corpse of one of the nation's most fearsome offenses may think that mark's a little high. But the expectations aren't high at Temple, and he's certainly not going to be rattled or overwhelmed by the pressure after his prior stops, especially compared to the castigation he endured in 2010. Consistent mediocrity can keep him in good standing in Philly for a good long while.
Age (years as assistant): 46 (25 years, most recently as receivers coach and assistant head coach at Ohio State.)
Replacing: Doug Martin, who resigned after seven years of trying (and mostly failing) to turn Kent's perennially wayward ship.
Best resumé line: The consistent upward trajectory: Like the guy who turned a paper clip into a car by trading up, each of Hazell's eight moves over the last quarter-century have taken him to a marginally better post, from a humble start as running backs coach at tiny Oberlin (Ohio) College in 1986 to Ohio State for the last seven years.
Why here, why now? Including his playing days at Muskingum College, Hazell has spent more than half of his football career in Ohio, and all of it in potentially key recruiting areas throughout the Midwest and Northeast.
Grade: C+ Hazell is another blank slate from a resumé standpoint because he hasn't been specifically in charge of anything since serving as Oberlin's offensive coordinator from 1989-91. But frankly, the main qualifications for overseeing one of Division I's most enduring black holes – Kent State has appeared in one bowl game in its history, under future Washington legend Don James in 1972 – are patience and enthusiasm.
• JON EMBREE (Colorado).
Age (years as assistant): 45 (18 years, most recently as tight ends coach with the Washington Redskins.)
Replacing: Dan Hawkins, who cleaned up CU's outlaw image but got the boot last season with one bowl game, zero winning seasons and a very memorable rant to show for it after five years.
Best resumé line: "Tight ends coach" doesn't carry much cachet, but Embree has played position coach for three All-Americans (Christian Fauria and Daniel Graham at Colorado, Marcedes Lewis at UCLA), two Mackey Award winners (Graham and Lewis) and one future Hall-of-Famer (Tony Gonzalez, during Embree's three-year stint with the Kansas City Chiefs).
Why here, why now? Embree is at the head of a concerted revival of the halcyon Buffs of the late 80s and early 90s, teams that put together six straight top-20 seasons with a pair of Big 8 championships and a national championship under coach Bill McCartney. The result is an organization that's "Colorado to the core": Embree played for McCartney in the mid-eighties and returned as an assistant in 1993; his staff includes five new coaches who either played or coached under McCartney, including both coordinators, Eric Bieniemy (an All-American running back on the 1990 national title team) and Greg Brown (secondary coach from 1991-93). Two other staffers, Steve Marshall and Jashon Sykes, were part of the program under Hawkins' predecessor, Gary Barnett. Even Embree's sons, Taylor and Connor, are both playing for former Colorado coaches at UCLA and UNLV, respectively.
Grade: C. Embree brings an "All in the Family/Return to Glory" vision and some NFL chops, for whatever that's worth. But he's never been a coordinator at any level, much less a head coach. If he wasn't an alum, he'd be Tim Brewster.
• BILL BLANKENSHIP (Tulsa).
Age (years as assistant): 56 (Four years as an assistant, all at Tulsa.)
Replacing: Todd Graham, who left for Pittsburgh after guiding the Golden Hurricane to their third 10-win season in his four-year tenure.
Best resumé line: Blankenship is a local legend for building Tulsa's Union High into a perennial Oklahoma power, racking up 14 straight playoff appearances, eight district championships and finally three state championships in Blankenship's final four years at the school. He quit after the third title in 2005 to pursue his goal of
Why here, why now? See above. Blankenship was a starting quarterback at Tulsa in the late 70s, has spent most of his coaching career in Tulsa and is arguably the biggest gridiron name in the community. He probably also came significantly cheaper than another homegrown candidate, former Oklahoma quarterback/current Arkansas offensive coordinator Garrick McGee, though Tulsa is private and doesn't release salaries.
Grade: C–. High school coaches aren't automatically doomed to failure, but the track record for into-the-deep-end plunges like this one isn't very encouraging. (Most recently, North Texas flamed out in three-and-a-half years under local high school baron Todd Dodge.) On one hand, his resumé says Blankenship is a proven winner. On the other, the most relevant section of his resumé barely exists.
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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
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