In 2004, Ron Zook was fired after a mid season upset to Mississippi State. Florida got a head start on hiring the hottest coach that year and pretty much had him on board by the end of the regular season, which is when Notre Dame, waiting until after the last game, fired Ty Willingham.
Result: Florida ends up with Urban Meyer. Notre Dame hires Charlie Weis.
Not saying what Michigan should do, but Florida showed you can attract a good coach if you fire his predecessor early.
"Half tough" would still be tougher than the usual B10 schedule. Glass house: can't talk about "tomato cans" when more than half your schedule is likes of Rutgers, Illinois, Maryland, Indiana, Minnesota, a MAC and FCS school. Not trolling, and ND can be described a lot of ways, but "staying independent for easy schedules" or "scared to join the Big Ten" is silly, especially when their slate is more difficult than a B10 schedule.
Six teams in the current Top 25 are on ND's schedule (not including Michigan, surely no "tomato can") -- does any Big Ten team have more than three or four?
Except Purdue has been dropped as well. ND won't play a B10 team in 2015 for the first time since...I don't know when.
At this point, Michigan State in 2016/17 and Northwestern in 2018 are the only officially scheduled B10 games on ND's schedule for the rest of the decade.
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