Probably more to this than meets the eye.
There is the thing about moving back to Virginia to live for obvious reasons, the likes of Newark being high on that list, but also likely that JMU, now being more determined than ever to move up to FBS since their intellectual equal, Liberty, has done so, may have offered him a coaching nugget tied to that move. I doubt that money was the reason. I'm thinking that this move may make more sense within the next several months. Houston is certainly destined for a better job than the one at JMU. It will be interesting to see how things evolve in Harrisonburg.
As for our other assistants that they have at JMU who formerly coached at UR, some may disagree, but I feel that they are more than welcome to Hanson and Trott. Trott left under the Rocco regime for reasons relating to his prior connections with Houston and, to a lesser extent, the desire of Houston to have an experienced coach and only able to obtain one by offering a higher salary. Many on this board criticized Trott while at UR. I tended to agree with the criticism and I think we now have a better defense than we would have had with him, especially in light of RH's defensive coaching abilities and my confidence that Adam Braithwaite coaching under his supervision will do as stellar a job as he did at UTC.
We lost Byron Thweatt, a coach I held in higher regard, to Virginia State University who offered him a job as head coach. I am told that he left VSU because the school was making drastic cuts negatively impacting the football program and the job at JMU was the best first opportunity to get out of that situation. As for Hanson, whom I am loathe to criticize, being both a UR alum and hailing from the great state of Wisconsin, he has been all over the place in coaching for the last forty years and left with Threatt from VSU. I would not take Jeff to replace anyone on our current staff or the staff we had before Russ.