I know I'm getting trolled for this one. We are all pretty savvy on here. The "traditional" path is usually
High‑school coach to small‑college Head/Asst Head coach (or successful Division II/III) to FCS/FBS head coach.
Gus Malzahn won state titles at two Arkansas high schools, then became a college coordinator and then head coach at Arkansas State, and finally Auburn.
Art Briles was a high school assistant HC at two high schools, then head coach at three more, including Stephenville (home to Tarleton) before becoming a college assistant and then head coach at Houston and Baylor.
Chad Morris coached at five different high schools, including again, Stephenville, before moving up to a college assistant and then head coach at SMU and Arkansas
The list goes on, Chip Kelly, Lovie Smith, Doug Pederson, Tommy Tuberville, Urban Meyer, Bill Snyder, Paul Johnson.
We could argue that the scale and complexity of college staffs, recruiting, roster management, compliance, and media obligations are far larger and more specialized than typical high‑school programs, but the national powerhouse high schools are anything but typical.
They recruit. They have big staffs, media obligations, travel, NIL.
Also, while typical high‑school records don’t translate cleanly against the FCS level opponents, it could be argued they could stack up against most D2, and definitely D3, NAIA, and JUCO levels.
Finally, in today's high school football landscape, coaches are exposed to the same issues as college coaches now. They have to be able to game plan for nationally ranked teams, travel across the United States several times, again, they have to deal with recruiting, NIL (see Ohio and the court cases here) nd high‑level staff management because the people sending their kids to these schools are highly visible people (Snoop and Bishop Gorman for one example, Spencer Rattler & Netflix, Etc).
High School football in Montana is still an amateur game. You go outside of Montana and it's a big business with millions of dollars involved. Look at Mater Dei, Bishop Gorman, De La Salle, Westlake, IMG, Don Bosco, Buford, Katy, St. Thomas Aquinas, Edna Karr, and Dematha just to name a few (I'm a nerd. I love following high school football too).
You don't think the people who helped to build the 2 Billion Katy ISD stadium, don't have those teams interests and success in mind? C'mon man.
Deion Sanders started at Katy before going to an FCS school. Yeah you can say well, he's Deion and played in the NFL. So did a lot of other players but they aren't coaching in the Big12 two stops later are they? (even if he sucks).
Let's see how the guy does. I wish him the best of luck against everyone but UM.