One of my pet peeves is AD at major colleges hiring an assistant coach . Look at the last 4 coaches at Florida.

1-      Steve Spurrier   - Coached pro football, then turned a terrible program around at Duke, then he became a legend at Florida ( Wins a national championship )

2-      Urban meyer   2 years at Bowling Green , 2 years at Utah ( an undefeated season ) then becomes a legend at Florida and wins 2 National Championships

Both worked their way up with success at small college programs

3-Ron Zook   never a success as an assistant but is given the Florida job as his first head coaching gig   3 years and out

4-Will Muschamp  the coach in waiting at texas  , is given the Head coaching job at Florida, it is too early to tell yet, but from what I see, he could be another Zook. If you watch him on the sidelines he looks completely out of control

The first 2 worked their way up in small college programs, as head coaches, and then were given the big time job. The last 2 were given the Florida job without proving they could succeed at a small school

If you look at the 3 major Florida schools only Al Golden, at Miami worked his way up and turned a horrible program around at Temple !  Fisher at FSU and muschamp at florida walked right into the plumb job.

There are exceptions , like Bob Stoops, who helped Spurrier win a National Championship and has been a huge success at Oklahoma, Won a national championship, but I feel for every Stoops there are tons of assistants who fall on their faces, when given a major college program, as their first head coaching job !