Different times, different eras. Dietzel's overall record at South Carolina was awful. The end of Holtz was a black eye on the university - even with all his experience. The end of Spurrier, with all his experience, was awful and his lack of attention to building a sustainable recruiting effort set us back for years- something that is now only really being rebuilt. Morrison was doing things so outside the rules, I am not sure it's fair to compare anyone to him. Regardless.... that's in the past.
There are tons of successful head coaches that fail at other jobs. It's not rare or unique. Happens in high school. Happens in college. Happens in the NFL. Happens in sports.
The fact is, one never knows. If there was a formula that almost always worked, everyone would follow that exact formula. They don't because there isn't one.
When we hired Sparky, it was a mess but reaching down into a lower division and hiring a very successful coach wasn't unheard of- in fact it's worked out quite well for a lot of major college programs over the years. It didn't work for Sparky or South Carolina.
Georgia did the same thing- reaching out to Marshall to hire Jim Donnan after Ray Goff fell apart and Georgia when 40-19 and won 4 bowl games in a row. Not the standard Georgia wanted but Donan was a success at Georgia- a record we'd have loved to have had over that time frame.
When we hired Brad Scott in 1994, the rage at the time was going out and hiring a top assistant at a successful program. We did that. We hired the o-coordinator of the national champions. I can remember going down to Charleston to see some church friends and sitting at a party at the time watching the FSU national title game and having Clemson fans in the group tell me that we had made a great hire and we had "done it right this time." They seemed a little nervous about it. I remember sitting there all excited that Clemson fans were telling me what I already knew- we had done the hiring right and made a great choice. Well, it didn't work.
Just 4 years earlier, Wisconsin went after top assistant at Notre Dame, Barry Alvarez. Wisconsin was terrible at the time and had not had a winning season in 6 years.
His first year as a head coach he went 1-10. In his 4th year he was 10-1 and won the Rose Bowl. He would lead his team to 12 more bowl games, including several Rose Bowl wins. Hiring a top assistant worked wonderfully for Wisconsin and failed for South Carolina.
There is likely not a dozen Gamecock fans that ever dreamed Dabo would be a successful head coach. Now, he's one of the most successful head coaches in the history of college football.
Is that the recipe for success? Is there even a recipe? Pretty clearly there isn't one recipe that works. It just worked out in that instance.
Expecting there to be a recipe that works, or a strong belief that your favorite school should follow that one path when hiring a coach is not a good idea - because there are many paths that can lead to failure and many that can lead to success. It's impossible to predict with any accuracy at all.
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