One other thing about the Mason firing that people seem to forget around here. It wasn't just his lack of reaction to the Texas Tech loss as wonderful of an Urban Legend that seems to have become. He also didn't fulfill his promise to go around the state to sell the program. He downgraded "trinket" games, called the students drunks, refused to take calls on his own radio show before he finally just quit showing-up.
Even if this is true, what is thier excuse for not firing him after the regular season? You simply DO NOT fire a coach after the Bowl Game. It leaves you with almost no chance of hiring a current head-coach and trashes your recruiting class. There's no excuse for it. If his transgressions were that severe, he should have been fired the Monday after the Iowa game. If he was good enough to survive past that point, he was good enough to be the coach the next year. They clearly let the emotion of what happened in the Bowl Game be the tipping point, and that shouldn't happen.