Whether Gill is fired/retires/hired away after this season or not, McCaw is likely the one responsible to replace Gill. Here's the football coaching hires he's made in this career:
Ian McCaw was AD at Northeastern between 1997 and 2002. The head coach at the time, Barry Gallup, began with the 1991 season and went 23-42-1 (34.1% winning percentage) prior to the 1997 season (I didn't dig far enough to see if McCaw was hired before, during, or after the football season in 1997 but I assume he was around for it). To give a little perspective and to try to figure out the narrative at the time, Northeastern was independent prior to joining the Yankee Conference for the 1993 season (If I remember correctly, the Yankee Conference morphed into the A-10 which morphed into the CAA for football only). They were bad prior to that as in their last winning season was in 1987 and only had five winning seasons between 1969 and 1990 before Gallup was hired. His first winning season was 1996, the year before McCaw. Gallup went 8-3 in 1997, then 5-6, then 2-9 before being replaced (I assume fired though he wasn't a head coach after that, or before actually).
Don Brown was hired to replace Gallup in 2000. He was the defensive coordinator for UMass who had success as a head coach in Division III before moving up to FCS. He turned things around as the team improved to 4-7 in 2000, then 5-6, then 10-3, then 8-4 before being hired away to UMass as a head coach. Overall, I'd say it was a huge success with an immediate improvement of two wins followed by a playoff appearance in his third year (the second and final postseason appearance by Northeastern now that they shut their program down).
Wikipedia says the following:
Quote:In 2000, Northeastern scored a 35–27 upset victory over Division I-A Connecticut. In 2002, he led Northeastern to an 11th-place final ranking, the school's highest-ever placement. The Huskies' ten wins were also the most in school history. That season, he was named Atlantic 10 Conference Coach of the Year, New England Football Writers Coach of the Year, and American Football Coaches Association Region I Coach of the Year. In 2003, he led the Huskies to a third-place finish in the Atlantic 10, and the eight-win season matched the second-most in school history. Northeastern was the only team to record a victory against Delaware, which went on to become the Division I-AA champions.
McCaw went to UMass and was AD between 2002 - 2003. Mark Whipple was the head coach the entire tenure of McCaw. He arrived 1998 and left after 2003 to go be an assistant in the NFL after winning an Division I-AA National Championship in 1998. Not much to say here since he wasn't a "McCaw guy" other than McCaw was able to retain him for a little bit despite his success. I'm just theorizing there.
For what it's worth, Whipple did trend downwards before McCaw arrived and turned it around. His first year was 12-3 in 1998, then 9-4, then 7-4, then 3-8 before McCaw. His next two years are 8-4 and 10-3 before moving on.
McCaw went to Baylor in 2003 and the rest is history. The existing coach was hired prior to McCaw's arrival. McCaw gave him the benefit of the doubt as
Guy Morriss lasted five seasons before getting fired. He had no winning seasons.
Briles was a successful coach at the University of Houston, his first head coaching position. He lasted there for five years before being hired by Baylor.
McCaw doesn't seem to have a preference of offensive background (Briles) versus defense (Don Brown). Briles was a head coach before being hired while Brown was a coordinator with prior head coaching experience (successful but much lower level). McCaw hired people I would consider trending upwards rather than reclamation projects of fired head coaches from a higher level (for example, Gill after Kansas).