I agree with all this. Following a legend is tough, just ask those coached at Alabama post Bear Bryant. Only one of those guys left unscathed until Saban. I forgot his name but he was an old timer Bama - NFL guy, he won a big bowl game in the early 90s then got out pretty quick.. The rest all got overwhelmed. Possibly the 1992 National Championship.
edit.. Gene Stallings
en.wikipedia.org
Even if the top SEC teams do recruit nationally, there is a real "southern" bias and mentality. Just ask that competent former Boise State coach Bryan Harsin. The poor guy got run out of town on a rail at Auburn after only two years. They never gave him a chance to to get it done. Being from the Northwest made him a cultural outlier, and short of winning big, he was cooked. PJ Fleck, probably would not get over the hill in some of these places, no matter what he did. The fans are the issue as much as anything.
Had I been a Sioux Falls guy like DeBoer, that Harsin situation would have been a red flag but If I had high, 10M a year income, living in Seattle would be a draw to me relative to Alabama.
It is not a mystery as to why Kalen Deboer took the job. He got paid, and he gets to test himself at the highest level. If it does not work out, Purdue, UCLA, Arizona St or NC State (some p4 team willing to upgragde) will take shot and pay him a lot to start over in three or four years.
For me at least, if UW was going to get pretty close in pay, I would have skipped all the SEC drama and stayed in Seattle, but the guy probably made the right call, even if not my call.