Hazel spent 5 years at Ohio State as a KR/WR and Assistant HC so he has big school credentials. They went 63-11 at that time and he would have worked directly under Jim Tressel. As far as his role at tOSU: He never had a 1,000+ yard receiver, but several came close. Considering Ohio State was a bit more run-heavy and utilized a dual-threat QB the passing numbers would tend to be a bit lower. Notable WRs he worked with include Tedd Ginn, Jr. and Santonio Holmes, althought this was towards the beginning of his tenure.
At Kent State, he is poised to take the program to only it's second bowl game. However, his 2012 team is getting gashed by an average of 410 yards per game and allows an average of 24 points. Kent State has not played many decent opponents this year on the route to going 11-1: Kentucky (L 14-47); #18 Rutgers (W 35-23); #19 NIU (TBD).
He'd be a bit of a gamble. I don't think he's worth $1.5 million, we don't want to make the mistake of putting all of our eggs in one basket again. He's worked with Jim Tressel, but that doesn't make him Jim Tressel (see Holtz, Skip not to be confused with Holtz, Lou). From what I can see he makes about $300,000 or so now. I'd say shoot him an offer for $900,000 or so but offer heavy incentives. If he wins, the fans will come so we should see enough increase in revenue to give him good bonuses. Holtz will be just about paid off by the time his contract is up so we can either show him the door and start over or offer him a raise.
In order to have success with Hazel, we'd have to tell him to keep his nose out of the Defense's business and hire a star DC. We could also take a gamble on a good assistant (think Kansas State can spot us another Linebackers coach? Mike Cox is pretty good) but it would behoove us to bite the bullet and spend the money on a surefire deal to avoid these end of the game meltdowns. Plus, if we have a good DC, we have a good chance of having a HC in waiting in case we need to can Hazel.