re: Spavital's replacement

People play defense in the SEC, nobody plays defense in the Big XII.

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how many TCU assistants or coordinators have gone on to be a head coach in the past decade?

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Fuente

Remember though that they were a midmajor program for most of the past decade. I agree we are a higher profile job (no matter the position), but things are not they like they were 5 years ago. TCU has a ton of resources and money whipping one of their coaches will be difficult, considering the strong position they are in right now.

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And like others have said, we have almost zero shot at Chavis.

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Remember when the above was true?

If Meacham isn't waiting to jump to a Houston or SMU level HC job in the near future, the single best thing he could do to improve his resume is come to the SEC and show his offense can succeed here.

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If Meacham isn't waiting to jump to a Houston or SMU level HC job in the near future, the single best thing he could do to improve his resume is come to the SEC and show his offense can succeed here.

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I'm not sure that coming to A&M will significantly improve the type of job offers he'll receive. Tom Hermann was a national title-winning OC at tOSU and he still ended up at UH.

Only in rare circumstances do you jump from coordinator to high major job (that isn't Kansas-tier). If he wants a good job, he'll need to serve his time a a midmajor like everyone else. Coming to A&M won't bypass that.

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Only in rare circumstances do you jump from coordinator to high major job (that isn't Kansas-tier). If he wants a good job, he'll need to serve his time a a midmajor like everyone else. Coming to A&M won't bypass that.

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It's not the most common way, but it isn't rare

Dan Mullen was Florida OC before MSU HC
Muschamp was UTx DC before Florida HC
Mark Richt was FSU OC before Georgia HC
Bo Pelini was LSU DC before Nebraska HC
Bob Stoops was Florida DC before OU HC
Tom Osborne was Nebraska OC before Nebraska HC
Jimmy Johnson was Ast.HC/DC at Pitt before Okie St. HC
Jimbo Fisher was FSU OC before becoming HC
Les Miles was Okie St OC before becoming Okie HC (with a stint as Dallas Cowboys TE coach in between)
Dana Holgorsen was Okie St. OC before becoming WVU HC
Bret Bielema was Wisconsin DC before becoming Wisconsin HC
Paul Chryst was Wisconsin OC before becoming Pitt HC
David Shaw was Stanford DC before becoming Stanford HC
Steve Sarkisian was USC OC before Washington HC
Mike Leach was OU OC before TTEch HC
Staying with Tech, Kingsbury was the same
Dabo Swinney was Ast.HC/WR at Clemson before becoming Clemson HC
Mark Helfrich was Oregon OC before becoming Oregon HC

...you get the gist.

Not only would becoming a successful OC at A&M raise Meacham's profile, but if Sumlin ever did want to move on to the NFL, Meacham would probably be the #1 candidate to take over as Head Coach.

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Perhaps he loves TCU and won't leave no matter what, but A&M is a better football school than TCU and a better job. 

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A&M is a better job, clearly. But he has a great thing going at TCU, and is in line for HC job offers this winter. And if he doesn't take them, I believe TCU will pony up the $ to keep him.

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Honestly, I don't think it matters. I think the 2014 season made Sumlin do some soul searching, and he decided we need to transition to a more run-heavy spread. He brought Christensen onboard to make that change, and now we're early in the transition. I don't think he's going to abandon his plan after a single disappointing (but hardly awful) season with an disjointed OL and only 1 RB who absolutely isn't an all-purpose guy. So that means holding the rope with Christensen and Spavital.

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I too believe that Sumlin's intention was to transition to a more run-heavy spread and that Christensen is the ideal person for that. It's just that the sad irony (English needs a specific word for this; not all irony is sad, but it often is, and when it is there's a specific emotional connotation I mean to imply here) is that in the year we set out to make that change we ended up having our worst o-line of his time here and all of our RBs, except for one totally "meh" fat one, got hurt. So I feel like, in Sumlin's mind, this whole year gets a pass in that respect because they weren't actually capable of implementing the plan. Y'all are going to hate this, and so am I, but I think this RB injury apocalypse buys Spaz-it-all a do-over next year.

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A good number of those were promotions from within...

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And since Sumlin is always a target for NFL teams looking for a coach, there's a good chance Meacham could be promoted from within.

So adding those 7 back in to the other 10, and doubling that (should probably at least triple, because I was just going off the top of my head) gives you 34, which is roughly one a year over that span. And how many HC jobs at P5 schools are available each year? A max of 4, maybe 5? So you're looking at 25% of the time, a P5 school hires a coordinator with no prior HC experience at the collegiate level.

Add in the fact that Meacham's success as OC is discounted because it's not hard to put up points in the B12 where nobody plays defense.

And also add in the fact that we could easily triple his salary.

I don't know what Meacham would do if we came calling, but he'd at least seriously consider taking the job.