PROVO — After the stunning news yesterday that Bronco Mendenhall had agreed to a deal to be the next head coach of the University of Virginia, the search for a new head honcho in Provo has begun in earnest.

Here are some things the next head coach should know before taking the job:

For a head coach in college football, the pay at BYU is relatively low

Since the Y. is a private school, it does not have to release the salaries of its employees to the public. Even still, the athletic program, and the university in general, is known to be very fiscally conservative. Although it's never been made official, the generally accepted guesstimate of the salary for the head coach of the football program is around $1 million a year.

While I would do just about anything for that kind of money, it's way below market value. No other school with as much of a tradition of winning pays as little for their head coach. In fact, it's been said by some that Bronco Mendenhall got paid the least per win out of any coach in the nation. Mendenhall is getting at least a 200 percent increase in pay to take over a team that hasn't won 10 games in a season since 1989. My guess is the new coach at the Y will currently be a coordinator either for BYU or another team and will get a slight pay increase. Whether the next coach will be a lifer like LaVell Edwards or see the job as a stepping stone to a higher paying gig will be interesting to watch.

There's even less money to throw at assistant coaches

As already mentioned, the head coach at the BYU has to accept that he is going to be underpaid. The next problem he has to face is convincing a whole coaching staff to do the same. Edwards did this masterfully. He was great at finding talented young football minds and giving them an opportunity to learn the ropes under his tutelage. Many of his assistants took what they learned and excelled as coordinators and head coaches of other schools and NFL teams.

If there was one knock on Mendenhall, it was that his coaching tree is limited. While I personally think the current coaching staff has some terrific assistants, none of Mendenhall's past assistants have moved on to higher profile jobs. Part of that is because former assistant coaches have been able to make better salaries in other fields.

The new coach will have to be adept at getting coaches to buy into his system and convince them to do it for less money.

The fan base has had a serious case of entitlement

Perhaps the worst thing Edwards did for his own career and the careers of those coming after him was winning the national championship. The stars aligned perfectly in 1984 and the Cougars were perhaps the most improbable national champs in college football history. Since that year, changes in college football have made it next to impossible for a team outside of the so-called Power 5 conferences to be crowned best in the nation.

Don't tell Cougar fans that, however. After bringing home the national championship trophy, fans griped about Edwards not being able to do it again and were calling for a new coach in the last few years of his legendary career. If you read BYU fan boards, you would quickly see that the fan base considers anything besides an undefeated season as a disappointment. Mendenhall felt the fans' wrath for never having a perfect season even though he won double-digit games five times, with a chance this year to do it for a sixth time, in 11 seasons. The standard the fans have set would be unrealistic for almost any coach but especially a head guy at a school with as unique of challenges as the Cougars face in recruiting. Which brings me to my next point.

At BYU, everything you and your players do will be under a microscope

BYU as a university sets very high standards for its students and student-athletes. I don't think there is another school in the nation where a student-athlete having consensual sex or drinking a beer would be grounds for suspension. Love it or hate it, the Honor Code is here to stay at the Y. and is an ever present reality for whoever coaches there.

Since the school is so concerned about the moral fiber of its students and its brand, everything BYU players and coaches do and say is watched closely. A guy saying that he hates his rival wouldn't be newsworthy at any other institution. In fact, numerous University of Utah players have made similar comments in the past few years and it barely caused a ripple. However, it was the biggest trending bit of news in the local media when Cougar quarterback Max Hall did so. When frustrated players got into a brawl at the end of a chippy contest against Memphis, some higher-ups were talking about disbanding the football program entirely. The new coach will have to accept this scrutiny and embrace it as Edwards and Mendenhall did. If he doesn't, there's a good chance his time in Happy Valley will look more like Gary Crowton's.

Having said all that, I think BYU can be a good job for someone who fits what the program is looking for. I wish Tom Holmoe success in finding that unique individual. However, I think that those who were calling for Edwards' and Mendenhall's heads should be careful what they wish for.

Dylan Cannon is a regular KSL.com contributor and can be reached at DylanCannon86@gmail.com or via twitter @DylanCannon11.

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