What if you promoted Souza and hired a new coach?
The one thing I think they should do is hire someone with ties to the school or area. Not that this guarantees success but I think they have a better shot than a complete outsider.
If I hadn't seen with my own eyes your longing for Gendron and disparagement of Barr, I'd be certain this was nothing more than a well crafted joke at a rival's expense. Souza was never qualified to be the head coach and now you suggest promoting him to the AD position? What world are we living in? This scenario reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Elaine ends up with the unhinged mailroom clerk on her staff at the Peterman Catalogue and promotes him because he frightens her - its that ridiculous...
Your next idea about 'needing' a UNH Insider is much more common, but equally misguided. That idea is such a negative, limiting and loser mentality and the absolute enemy of success. UNH may take the easy way out and hire Metcalf or make another promotion from within, but that would be an abject failure and abdication of responsibility. You don't give people jobs in college athletics because you know them (Souza!), because they're nice (Souza!) or because they have a certain connection to a school or a sport (Souza!). You give them a job when they work hard, build a track record of proven success, can create and lift a culture and because they are a winner with the right attitude and effort level.
Ryan Bamford came to UMass from Georgia Tech - with limited (at best) hockey experience and no connection to UMass. He came with an attitude that demanded success and organized a winning culture. He hired good coaches. It seems to have worked just fine w/ a complete outsider. Find the best person. Period.
Anything else is a path of least resistance, low effort mentality - one people think they're making for a reason or by connecting obvious dots, but one that is almost always made for the sake of ease. Certainly not because it gives any school or coach, anywhere, any extra bit of opportunity for success. Its nice when you have that candidate on campus or in connection already. UNH does not. If UNH takes that approach with this hire it would be a disgrace and MUCH more likely to fail. Even reading it theorized makes me angry...
National search. Hire a winner. I don't care where they come from, what their experience is or what sports they've worked with.
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I am not plugged into the AD job circles, but I do have one potential hire from off the radar and that is current Jacksonville AD Alex Ricker-Gilbert. He gets stuff done and makes excellent hires. He is a New England native so maybe that's a draw for him. He has no experience in hockey and I couldn't care less. I'm sure it
won't be him, but someone similarly young, smart and energetic and who expects to succeed would be a great place to start.
In the hockey world, NMU's Forest Karr has always been ambitious and a former Notre Dame goalie - which, of course, doesn't matter if he's not a fit in vision/ambition/etc for UNH at this time.
Find the guy with the skill-set and desire to be the AD at Stanford or Alabama someday and let him prove it - don't beat yourself by talking yourself out of this type of hire, especially by trying to convince yourself you'd be better off with some NH/UNH lifer you might hire away from Colorado College (for example). That's the coach afraid to recruit talent and settling argument I made earlier. Make that candidate come to campus and tell you, in an interview, why UNH is a winner and he/she could turn it all around. If they can't or they make excuses, send them home...
