Good points, but I disagree with your characterization of the jump to a power conference and the level of competition. By way of illustration, James Madison's strength of schedule this year (per Sagarin) is currently listed as 99th nationally. Ours is 22nd. He's moving from Triple A to the bigs.
Take out OSU, Michigan, and PSU...we're not competing with them on any level, right now...despite playing relatively close games with them, and actually coming very close to winning in Happy Valley.
If you take those teams out, I'd guess its pretty darn comparable.
I'm sure on a macro scale, he's going to try to instill the mindset that they're competing with "everyone" on their schedule...the entire B10. But in reality, the challenge is raising the program up initially to where we aren't the doormat. As in the actual worst program in the B10. And to do that, he'll be recruiting against Purdue, Illinois, Rutgers, Northwestern, Maryland, Michigan State, Minnesota, etc... I would bet he's been recruiting against Maryland, Rutgers, and some ACC schools already for kids the last couple years... And then beating enough of those teams to not continue to finish last every year.
To me, THAT'S the actual leap. Obviously jumping from JMU...longtime FCS program that is now FBS in the Sun Belt...up to the mighty Big Ten... symbolically is an enormous leap. But practically, what his actual day to day challenges, the actual recruiting battles, the teams he needs to overtake...I don't think the leap up is nearly as big as it seems versus what he's been doing the last couple years at JMU. And now he'll have the B10 to sell, he'll have a larger NIL budget, he'll have a larger staff budget to ensure he can attract and keep quality assistants, he'll have games like USC, UCLA, Oregon, OSU, Michigan, Penn State, etc... to sell.
Its a step up, no question. But I see it as one that he might have to lift his leg up a little higher than he has before...NOT one that he has to get a ladder for or anything.