I haven't been fortunate enough to meet him yet, but haven't met a single person who was anything but enthusiastic about him (in fairness, Kelly was actually a pretty good guy to talk to 1:1 the few brief times I met him), and I think he has a great angle as someone who will work 24-7, was both an NFL player and academic-AA, coached/played at power schools, and will be gracious enough to learn on the job. My prior "checklist" of sorts would have included elite level playing experience (albeit I'd actually prefer a role guy to some superstar; Phil/Kerr > MJ for coaching), working under an elite staff to learn how the best do it, coordinator experience to develop expertise on one side, and finally HC experience at a smaller school to learn how to run a full program, and I still wouldn't mind that, but someone recently pointed out that many of the top recent coaches skipped at least 1-2 of these steps yet have done well. In addition to Smart, who was always well-regarded as a DC and recruiter, Day hired/retained an experienced staff and has also recruited incredibly well, Dabo had guys like Venables & Elliot before they moved on to head roles, and all have either won or been in contention without having HC experience themselves. I do realistically expect some growing pains, but I think athlete37's 7 is exactly my starting point with a 9 upside as Coach Freeman both gains experience and starts reloading talent - IMO, our version of a Tebow, Lawrence, etc gets this closer to a 9.5-10, as an elite QB can often just make things happen.