Some thoughts

[Donatello]

On Gruden: would have been a fantastic hire. Would have been out of this world good. However...

-while recruiting would take an instant boost...
-he would have absolutely had to keep the staff in place and been a CEO style coach this season to be successful with this team. That likely wouldn't have sat well with anyone, and as we know there aren't many options in April.

-implementing his system with an all new staff would have been disastrous. You saw how long it took Petrino's players to adjust. An entire new system this season on both offense and defense would have killed off the momentum we have for this year.

On JLS:
-yes, he is a boring hire but considering the circumstances, he was the right one. I wanted a big hire and believed we had Gruden locked down like the rest of us...but really, we had two choices:

Throw away this season's title hopes and implement a brand new system (talent alone would still help us win 8-10 games) or hire someone familiar with staff who will manage the game and let the assistants call plays and then make the huge hire after a successful (likely BCS bowl) season and start recruiting with big name and successful season freshon their minds.

Either way we win in the long run...but with this second method we have a shot to win in 2012 as well.

I'm on board as a supporter of the hogs...flashy hire or not. Now...for the record, if Long doesn't hit a home run after this season's success, it'll be a whole other story...