In the space of the past month and a half, the Mountain West Conference experienced something it rarely glimpsed in its previous 20 years of football existence.

Between Todd Graham’s hiring at the University of Hawaii this past week, Steve Addazio’s arrival at Colorado State last month and Brady Hoke’s return to the helm of San Diego State earlier this month, three coaches with experience as head coaches of Power 5 conference teams have found their way into guiding MWC teams for 2020.

Until this year, the sum total of so-called “bounce back” coaches, those who had ascended to the elite Power 5 level and came back through the mid-majors, had been just four: Ted Tollner (USC to San Diego State), John Robinson (USC to Nevada-Las Vegas), Bob Davie (Notre Dame via ESPN to New Mexico) and Jeff Tedford (Cal via Canada to Fresno State).

Even then, Tollner and Robinson had been coaching in the Western Athletic Conference when their schools became charter members of the MWC in 1999.

Now comes Graham, who last coached at Arizona State in 2017 and Pittsburgh in 2011, while Addazio was at Boston College last season and Hoke last held a full-time head coaching job at Michigan before bouncing around as an assistant at Oregon, Tennessee and the Carolina Panthers. Between them, they have 34 years of head coaching experience and ages ranging from 55 to 61.

None of the other nine coaches who will lead MWC teams in 2020 has Power 5 head coaching credentials. And, three of them, (New Mexico’s Danny Gonzales, UNLV’s Marcus Arroyo and Fresno State’s Kalen DeBoer) are new hires who will be head coaches on the Division I level for the first time.

All in the 40- to 45-year age bracket, they more closely represent what has been the prevailing MWC hiring model, newly minted head coaches from the ranks of either Power 5 assistant coaches or in-house promotions. Until this year they also represented, by far, the most frugal path for schools of modest (by college football’s lavish standards, anyway) means shopping for head coaches.

But this year, as never before, MWC teams have paid a premium for those deemed young up and comers, anteing up an average of $1.17 million in annual starting salary. It is a figure that likely approximates what more experienced hirings will be paid once all the contracts are executed.

That sets up an interesting competition for 2020 and, likely seasons to come, as we see which hires produce the biggest returns and if there is a trend in it to be noted.

Graham, Addazio and Hoke had all paid their dues as assistants, of course. Then, they put in time as head coaches at mid-majors (Graham at Rice and Tulsa, Addazio at Temple and Hoke at Ball State and San Diego State), before working their way up the ladder to the more lucrative, highly sought Power 5 jobs.

All were hauling in $2.5 million — or more — per season at the top rung before being terminated. Some, with generous parachutes.

Now, they are back. And either because they couldn’t stay away or due to a desire to do it all over again in a conference where history says they are rarities, they have something to prove and a place to do it.

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MOUNTAIN MOOLAH

Mountain West football coaching salaries

Coach | School | Salary

Craig Bohl | Wyoming | $2.13 million

Bryan Harsin | Boise State | $1.85 million

Steve Addazio | Colorado St. | $1.5 million

Marcus Arroyo | Nevada-Las Vegas | $1.5 million

Kalen DeBoer | Fresno St. | $1.3 million

Gary Andersen | Utah St. | $900,000

Brady Hoke | San Diego St. | $900,000

Brent Brennan | San Jose St. | $850,000

Troy Calhoun | Air Force | $850,000

Todd Graham | Hawaii | $760,000

Danny Gonzales | New Mexico | $700,000

Jay Norvell | Nevada | $500,000

Reach Ferd Lewi at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.