A head coaching hire is terrifying. You can do all the research in the world, talk to tons of people, pay search firms hundreds of thousands of dollars, and you could still end up replacing a Steve Spurrier with a Ron Zook.
Of course, it's also an opportunity to replace a John Blake with a Bob Stoops. It all depends on circumstance and expectation.
For each of FBS's 27 new head coaches, there waits a different combination of factors and goals. Roughly speaking, each of the following fall into one of four categories:
* Those who need to make a strong run at the national title
* Those who need to make a strong run at a division title or more
* Those who either need to make a bowl to earn goodwill, or, in some cases, at least still be threatening to do so into November
* Those for whom 2019 is a Year Zero situation.