As Bowling Green, KY resident and WKU grad school alumni, I've had the fortunate opportunity to watch Willie T for the last three years and see him grow this program beyond people's wildest dreams. When I moved here 6 years ago, from the Ft. Myers area, we were in the FCS to FBS transition and it was a tough road to say the least. Regarding Willie's 2-10 record his first year, y'all must understand he was working with a FCS roster trying to compete against FBS teams, not to mention those first few years (going back to the former HC) involved games with the likes of Nebraska, Bama, LSU, VT, UT, UK and USF to mention a few, simply for the payday in hopes of building this program up, so his record is somewhat skewed.
However, even in that first 2-10 season you could see the improvement and growth of this team, and by the end of the season the team resembled nothing of the same team that just went 0-12 a season before. Despite the record this year and the late season falloff this may be the best coaching job Willie's done in his tenure. A season after losing the nations leading rusher in Bobby Rainey, he used a two tailback system that still resulted in a 1600 yard rusher in Antonio Andrews and he also put together the 3rd best AP yard season in CFB history!
The recruiting is where Willie T shines, especially in FL, especially in y'alls area as you know. For those saying Bowling Green is middle of nowhere KY, that's not quite true. It's a vibrant college town about the size of Lakeland and only an hr from Nashville, but it's still quite a testament for him to get 20-30 FL kids up here no doubt.
You will have to offer him close to $1.5mil to leave because the WKU powers that be are prepared to go as high as $1.3mil to keep him. If no one offers him, I belive they'll put an extension on the table in the neighborhood of $1mil. It'll come down to would he rather be at "home" or at his alma mater. Not to mention $1mil in Bowling Green, will go much further than $1.5mil in Tampa.
I'll leave you with this, I'd willingly take him as the HC of my other alma mater Tennessee today, a job that most would agree is a few notches above USF. I've seen enough in 3 yrs to know this man can get it done at any level and he will make UF and FSU work their ass off in recruiting south of the coridoor. I don't want to see him go, but I can't blame him if he does, I miss "home" everyday.
