Any knowledge of McGee's ability as a recruiter? Presumably if you give a guy $854,000/year and it's not technically his offense and he doesn't call the plays, he's probably a monster recruiter and terrific teacher, right? I know he was a finalist for the national Assistant COY award a few years back.
McGee looks to be a pretty damn good all around football coach whose stock suffered enormously due to a poor decision to take a death trap of a head coaching job. We know now that apathy wasn't the problem at UAB so much as a conspiracy to ensure the program's failure and eventual closure.
Jeff Brohm was McGee's OC in his first year at UAB, saw what was going on, and then bailed for a pay cut to become Bobby Petrino's OC at Western Kentucky. He took that job when Petrino left for Louisville, the program was in great shape, and now he's one of the hottest Power 5 candidates.
McGee is two years younger, comes from the same coaching tree, has more experience, was very recently Brohm's boss, and makes more money than Brohm currently. But that 5-19 as a head coach is what's going to keep McGee from being offered the same kinds of jobs. Coaching is a cruel business that way.
But you look at it that way and you can see what would be appealing about Illinois for McGee. Illinois looks on the way up, he trusts Lovie, and he will get more credit as Lovie's offensive head coach than Bobby Petrino's understudy. It's a path back to the top.