Odom would probably be my first choice but you're right about Mason too. If you take a failed head coach like Mason or Odom and pay em todd Grantham money, we could have the defense locked down forever. Unless they were willing to take a drastic pay cut to be a HC again.
As we've all stated over and over again, almost anyone would be an upgrade over Grantham. I have never seen defense as thoroughly terrible as ours - schematically and fundamentally. And from a game prep perspective. While we're clearly not recruiting at the Gump/Bucknut/Clemmy level, we are recruiting far better than the results these kids are producing on the field. So either the recruiting services suck at evaluating talent or we are not coaching them up once they get on campus.
The choices above certainly would be an upgrade. I'd like to see Jim Leavitt get a long look. His defenses have always been consistently good. Even though his skin is the wrong color, apparently, he's been successful on the recruiting trail, essentially selling nothing but dreams from a double-wide as he built USF from the ground up. So, presumably he could sell around our facilities shortcomings. And I'd have to assume he has good ties throughout Florida high schools. It seems unlikely he'll ever be a head coach again, so if we tossed him decent money, he might stick around a while ala Venebales at Clemmy or Foster at VA Tech.
Regardless, I hope the spat on the sideline between Grantham and Mullen Saturday means a change might be coming when the season ends. At this point I believe literally anyone would give us a chance to have a better defense.