more layers and complexities to orchestrating a successful football team vs a basketball team, and that's not to take away from anything KY is in the process of doing or any other proven basketball coaching greats throughout college basketball history.

Those old enough to have been excited for the prospects of Gary Crowton coming in with NFL coaching experience and seeing what he did with the team he inherited in 2001 had us all stoked for the future prospects of what the football program could become and how dynamic the offense could progressively become under his direction. BYU had just hired him away from being the OC of the Chicago Bears the prior two seasons. Had it not been for the injury to Staley that year in the tail end of 01, that season would have likely ranked up there with 1984 and 1996. It was a special season with a tragic ending.

Still...it was thought that Crowton had proved to be a homerun hire. Welp...we all know how things developed from there. So much for that experience and wizardry that made him good enough to be a multi-year NFL OC. Granted...KY had more time to soak things up in the NBA having spent much more than 2 years between the NBA D/G League and top level NBA league and apply what he learned through those years to get to where he's at now. But the point still stands. Football is so much different than basketball and a promising young coaching guru among the NFL ranks is still extremely risky unless that coach can bring on guys and work in tandem with other guys who are presently well established and well connected in the college ranks.

KY has been able able to hit the ground running with all that with the help of Brian Santiago as well as attracting other pro-level coaching experience from his own relationships built among the pro ranks alongside big time donors, and so forth. Is there someone else in the AD that could work similar magic behind the scenes in helping a new coach of Kellen Moore's caliber to assemble a similar staff mix of both pro coaches/developers and elite college recruiters? And is the money there among donors to both assemble such a staff AND pay fair rate of NIL to talent equal to the coaching staff?