I think Hawaii just has so much going against it

Nebraska should be on that list. Hawaii is the most obvious choice, but what about the lower 48?

nebraska can be tough, but can also be solid, just depends on the situation there (like everything else). i think if you are going for "stuck in kansas's shadow", kstate would be my pick.

florida state gets a bonus by being part of the acc, because the acc is usually good, but they have the crappiest 200 mile radius of recruits i've ever seen. im sure its also situational, but even being there as an a+, i can't stand it. we have a strong florida, and the way florida is segmented, there are a whole bunch of recruits down south - who are over 360 from us, but local for miami and under 360 from florida - and there are a bunch in the middle, who are like 210-230 for us, which florida also has us on w/ distance. of course soon as you get over 200 in GA or AL you have ga tech there under 200. so, the 200-360 mile area is a total uphill battle, while the sub 200 has almost no players. generally speaking, its the worst big 6 job i ever held, i much preferred south carolina in the shadow of A++ duke and unc (both had great coaches) with an ACC with 15-20k per year over the SEC. thats how much i hate florida state! damn that place sucks. we have won 2 titles there too so its not just sour grapes - i just hate it there.

Fresno State has never won a championship in any world - only one of the Big 6 teams to never do so.

Let me make the pro-Hawaii case and the anti-Fresno State Case.

There's a very distinct strategy that, given the right luck, you can with with at Hawaii.  Basically, you recruit an international team with some Hawaiian players.  You take the best 2 or 3 players on the island, if they're good enough, for free.  The rest of your big 6 money is used to scout and recruit internationals.  Let's say you have 4 openings and 25k of PAC-10 post-season money.  If you're at C prestige, you scout Hawaii and take the best 2 players on the island for 5k total, assuming they're good but not amazing players that others don't want to come after.  Now, you have 80k to go scout and recruit international guys.  There are plenty of gems hidden among the 1-star and no-star internationals.  With 80k to go find 1 or 2 internationals, you're bound to stumble upon some top guys.  Once you make a few PITs, maybe a NT or two, your prestige starts to get into the range where your PAC-10 mates can't challenge you for the good recruits on the island anymore without putting the rest of their class in danger.  You can start pulling in any elite recruits on the island for fairly cheap and still have a similar budget to go after those international gems.  Obviously not an ideal situation, but it can be done. 

Now Fresno State, on the other hand, I think is marginally more challenging.  While you are in the PAC-10, you have the lowest baseline of any Big 6 school at B-.  Any recruit to your north will also be within 200 miles of both Stanford and Cal (including recruits who are in Fresno!).  Any recruits to your south will be within 200 miles of UCLA and USC.  Basically, you're always going to be battling for recruits with 4 schools, 2 to the north and 2 two the south, that have a decent-sized to large baseline advantage on you.  It's possible to put together a few decent teams, but putting together a strong Fresno State program is the most difficult place to do it in the Big 6. 

It depends theres a bunch there is the very hard to be any sort of competitive category:

I have combined data for all 10 worlds.

Hawaii has the 2nd least wins of any D1 program, not just Big 6.  Only Tennessee Tech has less wins.  Granted Hawaii has a much tougher conference than all the schools surrounding it.

The bottom 10 wins for Big 6 the follows with K-State(221nd/325), West Virginia(191) which is a bit surprising I thought they were average at worst.  Nebraska at 170 again a tad surprising I feel they can be good if you can beat Utah out and be the 3rd best team in the Rocky area.  153 is Purdue which makes sense however if a bad coach is at Indiana and Notre Dame they can be solid.  Baylor at 135 makes sense since TX has a ton of top teams and LSU, Oklahoma nearby that dip in.  VT is 124 thought they would be worse with all the ACC schools around there.  Northwestern 107, Missouri 101.  Penn State 91 Butgers 90 is sadly outside the bottom 10 and is #11.

I'd also throws schools like Wake Forest, Northwestern into the category of can be really good, but never elite due to teams around there, whereas teams like Hawaii, K-State are just never going to be good, however dsrnell just left Kansas for K-State will be interesting to see how he does and how he does when Kansas gets filled again

I think for Auburn, Alabama, Mississippi, and MSU you can't have them all be good there just isn't enough local talent for that, but usually you see at least 1 if not 2 of those four schools be really talented.

I am a bit surprised Vanderbilt got some votes. But Hawaii is the clear winner. I'd pass on both Fresno State and Hawaii now that I know how it works. I would take any other big six gigs to start to climb the ladder.

I kinda want the HI job, I think you would almost have to go zone (motion or triangle), I like kimble's strategy.

I had fun at Hawaii - recruiting as outlined above - plus picking off a kid on the mainland now and then...

Plus of course there's the beach, the tanned girls, etc to enhance the experience.

Posted by fd343ny on 2/8/2016 2:01:00 PM (view original):
I had fun at Hawaii - recruiting as outlined above - plus picking off a kid on the mainland now and then...

Plus of course there's the beach, the tanned girls, etc to enhance the experience.

As HD's resident Hawaiian...the tanned girls and beach far exceed any expectations you might have when taking the job. ;) 

OR seems to do just fine with Hawaii in Crum:

https://www.whatifsports.com/hd/TeamProfile/History.aspx?tid=8791

Posted by possumfiend on 2/8/2016 8:44:00 PM (view original):
OR seems to do just fine with Hawaii in Crum:

https://www.whatifsports.com/hd/TeamProfile/History.aspx?tid=8791

seems a little premature to say IMHO - 6 seasons, 1 S16 - he's a top-notch coach, so I wouldn't be surprised to see this come true, but I wouldn't really call that world-beating just yet

Posted by dacj501 on 2/8/2016 9:38:00 PM (view original):

Posted by possumfiend on 2/8/2016 8:44:00 PM (view original):
OR seems to do just fine with Hawaii in Crum:

https://www.whatifsports.com/hd/TeamProfile/History.aspx?tid=8791

seems a little premature to say IMHO - 6 seasons, 1 S16 - he's a top-notch coach, so I wouldn't be surprised to see this come true, but I wouldn't really call that world-beating just yet

Not really sure I understand your need to be contrary here ... is it just to be contrary?  Who said anything about this performance being "world beating"? ...  I provided an example of a consistently competitive team in Hawaii ... "once a fluke, twice a coincidence but three times a trend" ... so in five seasons OR's Hawaii club made the PI in his first three seasons advancing to the 3rd, 2nd, and 3rd round respectively.  Then in his first season with "his" player he makes the NT and goes to the 2nd Round, makes the S16 in his fifth season.  Now, 20 games games into his 6th season he's ranked #18 and looks to be a good bet for a third consecutive NT appearance.  

In the 33 seasons before OR took over the team (all human controlled by the same owner) Hawaii made the post-season a total of 8 times,1 NT and 7 PIs. Five of those postseason appearances occurred right around the time (or just after) recruit generation was changed ... after the changes in recruit generation firmly took hold, the prior coach only made the postseason (all PI berths) three times ... so IMHO, I don't think it's at all premature to say that he "seems to do just fine with Hawaii" because he does seem to be doing just fine.