NDSU should of brought Saul in....
Told Richman he is going back to ASST Head Coach
Richman goes down to $140k
Saul gets $160k
missed opportunity!
NDSU TO FBS. HAVEN'T WE WON ENOUGH?
Yup, Northern is a premier D2 program in terms of fan support. They averaged over 3,700 fans per game last year. By comparison neither SDSU or USD could crack 2,300 (link).
Of course that begs the question why the "Bohl" in this scenario, Craig Sather - who is an NSU alum, would make the move to UND but no matter how you look at it Northern is a pretty cushy landing spot for Saul Phillips. Hopefully they don't get too attached to him down there is all I can say though.
If you want to spin it as him having a choice, sure you could maybe sell that and now he can show he can maintain a winning program whereas the other two are going to take a bit more work to build up (which is likely the reason Sather was picked at UND as he's shown he can do it on two separate occasions). But the choice for Saul wasn't UND/Idaho St/NSU, it was NSU/nothing at this point in time. He would have taken the first two in a heartbeat, but he didn't make the cut as a finalist at either one.
Regardless, I don't think Saul will be at NSU for more than a couple years, though if he gets another D1 head job, I think it will be a low major below the job he just left. Will be interesting to see the pay cut he took and how his contract is structured since NSU has to assume the same.
"Sometimes a concept is baffling not because it is profound but because it is wrong" E. O. Wilson
"I'm not crazy my mother had me tested". Sheldon Cooper
My boss hates it when I shorten his name to Dick, mainly because his name is Steven.
I don't know. I wonder how much Saul pursued either the ISU or UND jobs. I know he applied for at least the ISU job, but how serious was he about it? Did he ask for too much money? Or maybe ISU already had the guy they wanted before they opened applications(which is what I think happened). The ISU job went to an up and coming D2 coach from the Pacific NW, where ISU will likely be recruiting from. I wonder what happened at UND. Did Saul even actually apply? I honestly don't remember. Seems like a no-brainer for UND to choose Saul if he did unless Saul asked for something UND couldn't give. Saul has local name recognition, knows the other Summit programs better than Sather, knows DI better, and is comfortable with the recruiting region. I highly doubt Saul applied or made an honest push for the job. I suspect he has enough of a financial buffer from his Ohio years to wait a year for the right opportunity to come along(but probably not more than a year, and you don't want your name out of the game for more than that anyway).
And I think Saul's next job could be at the equal or higher level than Ohio. There were quite a few people with knowledge of the situation at Ohio that believe Saul wasn't given a fair chance there. It's very possible another mid-major program might view his mediocre Ohio years as a combination of bad luck(injuries) and a questionable or foolish athletic director. That of course assumes Saul does well at NSU.