But alums do tend to be very good fits culturally (though not always... Shane Beamer was an awful culture fit for instance... and he was also the coach's son).

But culture fit is SO big when it comes to bringing in assistants. Too often, HCs get so caught up about finding the very best COACH when they have a single vacancy that they often forget to find the best FIT. While it seems that the two would be the same person, that isn't always the case. Pearman literally couldn't recruit at all at Virginia Tech. Suddenly, he's a recruiting pro at Clemson. Shane Beamer was known as a dynamic recruiter in the SEC. At Virginia Tech, he couldn't land anyone. His personality clashed with the culture of Virginia Tech to where we still didn't guys we weren't getting before, but he was turning off the guys we normally would have gotten. Ferrell at Clemson is one example.