The college hockey coaching carousel continues to go round and round this offseason as schools try to decide who will be their bench boss for the next few years.

Northern Michigan University is one of those schools, but the Wildcats are still trying to figure out who their leader will be, despite some speculation to the contrary. Michigan State, on the other hand, has ended the guessing game and made the right call last week.

Over the past decade, the Spartans went from national champions to the bottom of the Big Ten. And they seemed to be OK with that.

After former head coach (and NMU founding coach) Rick Comley retired in 2011, MSU rolled the dice with CCHA Commissioner Tom Anastos, who hadn’t been a head coach since 1990.

Anastos’ tenure started out well with a trip to the NCAA tournament during his first season, but things went downhill quickly. The following year, the Spartans finished 11th in the CCHA, and they only earned 10 wins in 2015-16.

Anastos was widely expected to be relieved of his duties in 2016, but then MSU bizarrely gave him a five-year extension through 2020. The Spartans were then rewarded with a seven-win season and a nine-game losing streak from early December to mid-January last season. After that debacle, the coach stepped down before he might have been fired.

Now that the program has been mocked for its ineptitude, MSU decided to go the rational route in its search and looked for an actual coach instead of an administrator.

Former Spartan player Danton Cole emerged as the frontrunner fairly quickly, although the idea of hiring former Denver head coach George Gwozdecky was floated about for awhile. However, after a drawn-out process, MSU hired Cole this past week after passing him over the first time around in favor of Anastos.

This was a wise decision as Cole’s resume speaks for itself. He served as head coach at Alabama-Huntsville and took the Chargers (of all teams!) to only their second NCAA Tournament appearance back in 2010.

If that wasn’t enough of an accomplishment, Cole moved on to be the head coach of the USA Hockey National Development Team, which won two gold medals and a bronze at the IIHF World U18 Championships.

Cole has clearly shown that he knows how to put together a quality team assembling players from all over the country.

On paper, he looks like a perfect fit for a team that has been lying in a ditch the last few seasons.

It won’t be easy, though, as Cole now needs to put together a quality staff that knows how to recruit hard and recruit well.

If he can do that and land some quality recruits, it might not take as long as you think to turn MSU into a Big Ten contender.

Cole has said that he was aware of the work that he has in front of him. However, that doesn’t mean he’s low on enthusiasm. “This is a position to which I’ve always aspired” he stated after the hiring, and added “It was all I could do to stop from busting out into the MSU fight song” when he first walked through the Spartans’ locker room.

That enthusiasm will also be needed at another Big Ten school in need of a new leader. Longtime Michigan head coach Red Berenson retired last week after 33 seasons that included two national championships, 11 Frozen Fours (most recently in 2011) and a record 22 straight NCAA Tournament appearances.

It’ll be hard to replace a legend, but the answer is pretty simple, if a certain Upper Peninsula coach wants the job.

Michigan Tech head coach Mel Pearson was Berenson’s heir apparent, working under Berenson for 23 years before deciding to return to his alma mater and coach the Huskies.

Since coming to Houghton, Pearson has turned Tech’s program around, guiding it to two NCAA bids, a WCHA playoff championship and a share of the MacNaughton Cup.

Even though he has a contract that keeps him at Tech until 2021, I don’t think anybody would be surprised if Pearson left for Ann Arbor. Michigan is a bigger program, has more national exposure, more resources and probably more money to pay its head coach. It’d be hard for anyone to turn down, so the Wolverines need to go for it.

With the Spartans locking up the right guy and the Wolverines looking toward the U.P. for their next coach, it’s Northern’s time to step up to the plate, make that center ice.

Marquette used to be a destination for quality recruits, but NMU has had an up-and-down period the past few seasons and hasn’t made the NCAA tourney since 2010.

This is a chance to start fresh and begin a new era for Northern and it needs to get it right.

Likely this week we’ll find out if that’s the case, or if the Wildcats will be hopping on the carousel again in a few years. Hopefully, it’ll be the former, because just like MSU, Northern can’t afford another ride.

Ryan Stieg can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 252. His email address is rstieg@miningjournal.net.