he'd be a logical choice as a successor to Jackson, and a good one I believe. If indeed the plan is to have him replace Jackson, I could see the logic in working with most of the current staff for another season to give him another year of recruiting and to begin molding the program. It also gives him ample time to consider what he would want to do regarding the full staff, put out feelers, whatever he needed to do to build that staff.

As his well-earned head coaching job disappeared into the ether during the NHL/AHL game of affiliate musical chairs. I think it was a great hire, but I don't know if ND was the fortunate recipient of happenstance, or if the athletic department opened up its wallet and made an aggressive move to get Sheahan as Jackson's heir-apparent.

The timing was right. If it was happenstance, I imagine he won’t have a tough time finding his next head coaching gig this off-season. If there’s a plan for him to eventually be the successor to the throne, then he’ll probably stay put and help with turning things around.

His resume does check virtually every box for an eventual successor. Even now he compliments the deficiencies/criticisms of the current staff well (coached high scoring offenses, developed elite top-5 NHL draft picks, etc).

looks a lot like Jim Montgomery's before he was hired at Denver.

He is from the Dayton area and has been a successful coach at what I would consider a similar program. I don't know if he would come or not but it would be worth a call. He is 51.

But as you point out, he has the same struggles lately (if not worse) that we’re fighting at ND. Think 18-19 was their last tourney bid. Scoring and PP aren’t anything to brag about. And in HEA it’s really BU/BC that are separating themselves from the pack in recruiting, where B10 it’s Minn/Mich/MSU/UW.