It sounds like MSU recovered quickly hiring an assistant AD from South Dakota State, who was one of the other five finalists. Hey people change their minds. There is such a huge gap between the PAC -12 and Big Sky schools these days, it would be very difficult to leave Utah, even for a chance to run your own show. MSU is paying $180 K -- my guess is Brennan would probably have been taking a pay cut to go there. And his wife worked in the athletic department at Utah too, so you'd have to assume they were going to lose income, at least initially. It's too bad Brennan didn't think all of that through before agreeing to take the job, but it looks like MSU had a good "plan B."
Ps--I just looked up Brennan's salary at Utah -- he's getting paid $197 K., so between that and his wife's job, they were going to take a pretty big income cut. Not to mention the fact Bozeman is a pretty expensive place to live.