Vanderbilt is awful and Locksley is going to his 3rd straight bowl after winning 2 in a row
What point are you even making here
The first - Chesney = Vanderbilt - means I think of that as a lack of ambition, often shown by academically oriented schools who don't compete at the top level of their prestige conferences. Like Duke or Northwestern in football for so many years, or Vanderbilt, the "Harvard of the South".
Mike Locksley was a coach that has not had a lot of success over his career. You point out that he has brought Maryland to 3 bowls, well, still his career record as a head coach is 30-59. He has won about a THIRD of all his games.
Neither would be a considered a "sure thing" if we ever hope to be Syracuse of the '80s and '90s again.
Mullen was as close to a sure thing hire as we could have hoped for. The only thing I can figure is the total amount of spend is beyond our means, or some of the key boosters had other favorites.
If it's not Chesney, well, he's supposed to be young, charismatic and relatable. Surely, we would have provided him a big raise and greater facilities than he's ever had access to. But something didn't fit there.
So, Sean Lewis, an actual former SU coordinator and his own head coach in the MAC, is not a candidate. OK. Neither is Tony White, apparently, OK. Maybe they think the challenge here is too hard, even if it provided them with a bigger level opportunity than either has had before. They have both coached here.
Candle, the MAC head coach, is apparently 2nd choice to a DB coach from NJ who has had a cup off coffee at the National Champions. That's like, Saban's staff at Alabama; it seems like everyone has been on it at one time or another.
If you look at it in that light, that's just not a good look, if that's the best we can do,