Why are lower-level college coaches rarely discussed for jobs?

Jim Tressel says hold my sweater vest. 

Not really

No joke, a d1 linebacker coach told me in college and nfl it’s all about who you know not what you know.

You'll see coaches move from FCS or lower divisions to D1, but it's often to smaller schools (like Leipold to Buffalo) or dropping from a HC to OC/DC (like Moorhead to PSU). Every once in a while you get a Jim Tressel but that's few and far between.

I figure the main reasons you don't see those guys hired at bigger schools is two fold. One is lack of connections, which isn't a great reason. Two is they haven't proven anything at a high level, especially recruiting. You can hopefully tell how good a coach someone is at the lower levels (although it's not guaranteed to translate), but guys who are career lower level guys have never had to recruit against Bama, OSU, Clemson, etc. We know how important recruiting is nowadays and hiring a guy with no proven chops there is a major risk, one that could get an AD fired if they're wrong. Not saying that's the right reason to not make the hire, but that's probably it.

Teams like Michigan would rather see G5 or lower level P5 teams make those hires first to see how they do at a higher level. So I don't see Michigan making hires like that, but schools like Buffalo definitely should be taking those risks more often.

I think it's an interesting question. 

For example, Larry Kehres was HC at Mount Union (Div III) from 1986 through 2012. In those 27 seasons, Mount Union went 332–24–3 for a winning % of .929. Kehres led Mount Union to 23 conference titles, 21 unbeaten regular seasons, and 11 national championships. Over his final five seasons, Mount Union went 72–3 (.960).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Kehres

Obviously there are substantial differences between Division III football and I-A football—some of which Bambi mentioned above—but it's blindingly obvious that the guy was a damn good coach. Maybe it's not surprising that major P5 programs wouldn't look at a guy like that, but why not programs at the MAC or Conf USA level?

There aren't many examples of successful coaches making that jump. Its really more about perception than actual success. Would you have hired Harbaugh based on his success at San Diego? Probably not. The success at Stanford and 49ers is what made him a hot name albeit a very short run with both. Gary Moeller first coached at Illinois before coming back to become Bos offensive coordinator. He failed horribly. But when he took over as Michigan's head coach he did pretty darn well. My point is judging a coaches success or failure at a single program doesn't mean that person will succeed at a different program. I'm convinced that in order to be a great head coach you need to be able to recruit, have good in game management skills, and you need a little luck.

The most obvious answer is because there are so few creative thinkers or daring risk-takers amongst those doing the hiring.

Admittedly, this theory applies to most segments of society and is not unique to college football.

Risk and perception.

Risk avoidance by hiring decision makers. If a cautious hire doesn't work, the AD doesn't get fired. If a reach bombs out (cough Hoke cough), many heads roll.

They don’t have Jimmy Sexton as their agent and they aren’t tied in to the incestuous coaching search firm complex.

ADs are all empty suits now with no idea how to do their job, so they outsource everything to a search firm that hires from the candidates who are repped by the same 5 agents.

Brian Kelly and PJ Fleck come to mind as they both started at GVSU. Their jump to the D1 was however gradual. Michigan tried this with Brady Hoke and it didn't work out too well.

The perception is the smaller college coaches are just too big a risk as they command the larger salaries and buy outs, should they fail to deliver.

Gone are the days when Bo came in from Miami of OH for $19K in 1969 and with no buyout.

There have been very few examples of coaches who stepped up from the IAA (FCS) level to a Top 20 quality program - very few like Tressel aced the test (although with shady credentials from YSU and later at OSU). 

The majority have gone to middle of the road programs like KSU (Klieman), MSU (Muddy Waters way back in the early 1980s), CMU (Kelly who was a legend at GVSU) before stepping up to the big time if they passed the test.

Most of the power (top 20 talent teams) have either found success with upgrades from places Utah to Florida (Urban). But even that has been without peril - Dan Hawkins from BSU bombed at Colorado and is now at UC Davis.

I can't see our fanbase (or ND, Texas, etc. for that matter) go for anyone who wasn't a HC w/success somewhere else.

I consider us to be Oklahoma from 1989-1998 before they hired Stoops. Also, Texas from about 1986-1997. 

I heard about a guy once from a lower level school that changed a program and then lied to the the NCAA about cheating after having some success.  

ACC has 3 or 4 coaches that came up from FCS.  Brian Kelly, Hafley, I think Babers did.  Also, Coach Harbaugh  started in FCS.

I think oftentimes they come up to FBS as a position coach and work their way up so you just don’t hear about it as much.  Like Hafley, who was a defensive position coach in FCS, then a position coach in FBS, then a position coach in the NFL, then went back to FBS, then got a head coaching job.  We think of him as a DC at OSU, but his full story goes back a long way.

Kansas state has gone that route with Kleiman and so far he’s been average. Let’s see what he can do going forward the next 2 years

Simple: the same fallacy that exists in corporate hiring.

There are several completely valid reasons it's rare - and "lack of imagination" and "fear of risk" are not primary. 

- Recruiting. Critical part of CFB, and you'd have absolutely no idea if a lower-level coach could recruit top talent. Only exception to that would be someone who'd earned a rep for recruiting as an assistant prior to taking lower-lever HC job.

- Scale. Coaching a lower-level school is probably closer to HS than it is to big-time CFB. No idea if the coach was capable of managing a huge enterprise, hiring/managing a large staff, dealing with all the pressures of administration/media/alumni. 

- Talent-level. Turning mediocre athletes into a competent football team is a completely different skill than identifying/signing/training/honing elite athletes. Sure, the ability to teach football translates, but that's awfully thin.

Someone mentioned Bo earlier as an example that wouldn't happen today - and even then Bo was an assistant at OSU, and Miami was a known stepping-stone for future high-level coaches. More typical these days is the path followed by Urban Meyer, where a coach takes several steps before taking on a nationally prominent program (BGSU to [pre-Pac 12] Utah to Florida).

C'mon folks - NO ONE would be happy if Michigan's new coach were some complete unknown from lower level football. As someone above accurately noted, even a famous alum former NFL QB like JH wasn't considered ready for the Michigan job after his successful run at San Diego.

Michigan has had Tony Annese just sitting right there for all these years and now the guy is 60 and probably on the down slope of his career. He should have been the hire after Carr retired and I would bet anything Michigan's spread attack would have been before its time in the BIG. Instead they tried that theory with RR and we all see how that went. Now all these years later ... and

Very good thought provoking thread. 

There is a path but its a tough one filled with different dynamics. In this discussion its on a tier system, those coaches have to perform exceptionally well at each level and get a little bit of luck. You're not getting to the top immediately from D2 or NAIA level. Some don't have the desire to even move up. 

Says who?  Tressel came from Youngstown St. Bo from Miami. 

IDK. For the same reason that I wasn't considered, even though I'm awesome at Madden. Because, I bet there's a lot more to being a successful D1 coach than just coaching. Seems to me that you'd want to hitch your wagon to someone with a proven track record. Like, say... Hypothetically... MATT CAMPBELL. Who won at Mount Union, then at Toledo, THEN at Iowa State. Seems like a better idea than just fumbling around in the grab bag of DIII coaches and hoping to pull out a plum. 

This is a really good topic. You never really do see a successful Championship level D1  head coach who started out at NAIA, or D3.  It Seems like the way to do it is to get into coaching, get into a power five school as a position coach, then coordinator, have success,  then  get an opportunity at a D1 mid major.  If you have success there, an athletic director will take a chance on you.  
 

I think it all has to do with someone’s ambition.

Brian Kelly comes to mind as an example of someone who did “climb the ladder”. 
 

In the basketball world John Beilein is a perfect example

The “who you know” comments are spot on. My oldest son coaches D2. He’s young (23) and an excellent football coach with a very bright offensive mind. All of that said, without the connections he had, he probably wouldn’t have ever had an interview. Now, he had to earn the job with that interview and he did that on his own. He will possibly move to D1 sometime soon, but in order to do that, he needs to work connections again. No amount of experience will get his resume to the top of a very thick pile, but knowing someone will 

Matt LaFleur started off as an offensive assistant at Saginaw Valley