It's not rare at all for a guy who played D-III and coached D-III to get a graduate assistant job at a P5 school to move up the coaching ranks, which is how Cushing got his foot in the door at Northwestern. It's also somewhat rare for GAs to get full-time jobs at P5 schools once their GA tenure is up, but it was something Walker liked to do and the loyalty shouldn't really be a surprise to anyone.
Incidentally, that's the same way that MacPherson started his career (played linebacker at DePauw, coached at DePauw, coached at Kenyon, hired as a defensive GA by Randy Walker, two-year stint at EMU as safeties coach, then back to NU as RB coach), but I don't hear anyone bitching about "HE PLAYED D-III BALL AS A LINEBACKER AND NEVER COACHED ON THE OFFENSIVE SIDE OF THE BALL ABOVE D-III BEFORE NORTHWESTERN... CAN'T WE HIRE A BETTER RBs COACH THAN THE SAFETIES COACH FROM EASTERN MICHIGAN!?" now that the running backs look pretty good.
Similarly, I didn't hear anyone whining "BUT HE WAS A NON-SCHOLARSHIP FCS QB AND NEVER HAD A JOB ELSEWHERE, CAN'T WE FIND A BETTER RECEIVERS COACH THAN THIS GUY?!" when Kevin Johns' wideouts were performing well after he was a QB at non-scholarship Dayton before being hired on as a GA at Northwestern before being promoted to running backs then wide receivers coach/passing game coordinator.
Total red herring (but I suspect you know this ... ). Nobody here is arguing that Cushing is a horrible coach because he only coached at Laverne & Shirley U.
They are, however, arguing that this fact is being used against Cushing as negative recruiting.
What posters here are arguing is that Cushing is a lousy coach (irrespective of where he played or where he previously coached) because of his failure to produce results the entire time he's been OL coach for NU.
So you're defending against an argument that is only bouncing around in your head. You're jousting with the wrong windmill - again.
Because it is not being made here.
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