Good read, thanks for posting. This part stuck out to me...
As I mentioned a few pages back, it's really hard to know what will make Rhule tick when he chooses where he wants to coach. When he opted to go to that shambles of a program Baylor
over the fairly stable program Oregon (and reportedly others), it was beyond perplexing. This article makes it sound like he did it just because there was more talent nearby in Texas (I don't remember it that way), but if that's the case, we're pretty much out of the running. Although, not sure what jobs will be open that fit that criteria, so who knows (none in the big 3 hotbed states that I can think of).
I'm sure that was one of the factors, but there had to be more to it than that. It was reported that Baylor was paying him somewhere around $4M/yr with a 7 year contract (although as a private school, they don't publicly disclose that). Is it possible that was a lot more than Oregon was willing to pay him and that was the driving factor? Most times it is. I know Baylor was willing to pay a premium at that time as they knew they were pretty much screwed.
Here's an old article called "Why Matt Rhule Took The Baylor Job" that doesn't even mention recruiting proximity. This makes it sound like it was all gut feel and comfort level with the AD. Also an interesting read...
https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/18333730/why-matt-rhule-took-baylor-job