So what? Rutger's talent is garbage. How does that disqualify him from being a good position coach (and at a position where the coach's chief job is to be a recruiting rainmaker)? And I'm not saying he is, by the way -- I'm just saying that you don't have nearly enough information to have a useful opinion either way. Just waving your hands and saying "Oh my God, Rutgers!" is not an argument. Pointing out that some prior relationship exists also does not establish that Herman is hiring for "comfort" instead of for quality.
Perhaps when the likely DC, among other things, (1) just destroyed the No. 1 and No. 2 offenses in the country with two- and three-star players; (2) is known for running an innovative defense (in the vein of what Aranda runs) that has had substantial success stifling mobile QBs and uptempo spread attacks; and (3) fields defenses that tackle well, shed blocks well, and take good pursuit angles, the hire is actually a good one. Who should Herman have hired instead?
No doubt if you had been a tOSU fan, you'd have been upset that Meyer plucked some nobody named Tom Herman from little old Iowa State to coordinate his offense.
Maybe the coaches who have helped Herman go 6-0 against top-25 teams over the last two years -- and demolish the likes of FSU, OU, and Louisville -- are actually good coaches. Maybe not, but you don't really have any idea.
I'm not asking for sunshine. I'm just suggesting that wringing your hands despite knowing next to nothing about these coaches is an obnoxious waste of time.
We knew Watson sucked -- he had a long track record of mostly sucking. We knew Bruce Chambers had been the deadest of dead weight on Mack's staff for an eternity. Those two moves alone justified skepticism about the organizational and evaluative framework behind putting together the rest of the staff.
These are not self-evidently parallel situations.