With Northwestern’s season over, there is a lot of smoke swirling around Chris Collins as a candidate for major head coaching jobs around the country.

The Wildcats’ 12-year head coach, coming off of what is widely considered to be the best coaching season of his career, is said to be targeted by Virginia, Indiana and, perhaps most aggressively, Villanova.

WildcatReport talked to multiple sources within and close to the Northwestern program. None of them had talked to Collins about the situation or profess to know what the coach will do. One said that the interest from Indiana and Villanova, at least, is very much real.

Collins’ words after the season-ending loss to Wisconsin on Thursday didn’t sound like those of a coach who was looking to leave, when he called it “home for my family” and said “we love it.”

On the other hand, one insider said, “If he was ever going to leave, it would be now.”

With that in mind, let’s take a look at the reasons Collins could stay in Evanston, and the reasons he might decide to leave. Then we’ll give you our final verdict.

It’s home: The No. 1 reason, as Collins stated on Thursday is that it’s home. Collins grew up about 15 minutes from Evanston and was Illinois’ Mr. Basketball in 1992.

He has said countless times over his career that he loves his job at Northwestern, most recently after the Wildcats’ 70-63 loss to Wisconsin in the second round of the Big Ten Tournament.

"It's become a home for my family. The four years I just had with my son were the best four years of my life... It's home and we love it. I've loved every part of the 12 years, the good and bad, ups and downs, the history we've created."

Collins is a Chicago suburban kid at heart, and he’s leading a program in his own backyard.

He’s making history: Collins has said from the very beginning of his tenure that he relishes making history at Northwestern. He has built the program in his own image.

He is already seen by many as the greatest coach in school history, and certainly in the modern era. He is the only coach to take the Wildcats to the NCAA Tournament, and he’s done it three times. He’s already No. 2 in all-time wins. He’s the first coach since 1968-69 to post a winning record in the Big Ten, and he’s done it three times. He’s the only coach to lead the Wildcats to a win over the No. 1 team in the nation, and he’s done it twice.

At many other power conference schools, Collins knows that he would be one of several. At Northwestern, he is, as CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein calls him, the pioneer.

NU is “all in”: Collins knows that he will get the support necessary from the administration to win at the highest level of college basketball.

“What I do know is that [athletic director] Mark Jackson and the administration and our donors and everybody is all in,” he said last October at Big Ten Media Days. “That’s a big reason I want to continue doing it at NU.”

The school came up with the money to retain top players like Boo Buie, Brooks Barnhizer and Ty Berry the last couple years, and they’ve signed key grad transfers like Ryan Langborg and Jalen Leach. If Collins stays, it’s widely assumed they’ll put together a package to retain Big Ten leading scorer Nick Martinelli. What Collins has needed, he’s gotten from donors and the administration.

“I’m very confident that all of us at NU – our administration, university leadership – are going to be behind the investment of us being [competitive],” he said on Thursday.

He’s got a big-time AD: Collins was hired by Jim Phillips, maybe the best athletic director in Northwestern history, back in 2013. After the tumultuous three-year tenure of Derrick Gragg, he now has a pro like Jackson as his boss.

Ironically, Jackson comes from Villanova, seen as one of Collins’ primary suitors after dismissing head coach Kyle Neptune. Collins has said that Jackson, who also was an assistant AD at USC, “gets it.”

"I love what Mark Jackson has brought,” Collins said told Gavin Dorsey of SI.com. “I love his experience being at USC, being at Villanova, he gets it. And I think we're all on the same page to want to be competitive with the best of the best. I feel good. It's going to be a big offseason."

Again, those don’t sound like a coach considering a departure. While I was unable to confirm this with sources, I would be very surprised if Jackson isn’t working right now to extend Collins’ contract, which currently runs through 2028.

NU is patient: While Collins is being hailed as the program’s savior right now, just a few years ago he was widely believed to be on his way out. After taking Northwestern to March Madness for the first time ever in 2017, his program cratered, finishing with a losing record in five straight seasons. His teams won just 26 of 97 Big Ten games during that stretch, a winning percentage of just 26.8%.

Gragg delivered him an ultimatum after the 2021-22 season and the next season, led by Buie and Chase Audige, the Wildcats got to the Big Dance.

Collins knows that there aren’t many programs who would stick with him through an extended slide like that one. Certainly not programs like Indiana or Villanova that are replacing coaches with winning records after just three or four seasons.

The future looks bright: Not lost in all of this is that Collins has what may be his best recruiting class ever coming in next season.

Wing Tre Singleton is an explosive, athletic wing who turned down offers from Purdue, Clemson, Louisville and Virginia, among others. Guard Phoenix Gill had offers from Illinois, where his famous father Kendall went, as well as Iowa State and Stanford. Big man Cade Bennerman picked Northwestern over Michigan. Talented point guard Jake West and gritty forward Tyler Kropp round out the quintet.

Collins knows he has to reboot the program after the losses of program linchpins like Barnhizer, Berry and Matt Nicholson. He has the horses to do just that coming in.

"Obviously, Nick [Martinelli] will be leading the way, but we'll have a bunch of freshmen, and we're gonna have to attack the portal as well," he told Dorsey on Thursday.

The timing is right: One source thinks that now would be the perfect time to make a move because of family dynamics.

Collins’ son, Ryan, is graduating from Northwestern. He served as a manager for the Northwestern program for the last four years and was honored on Senior Night. Collins’ daughter, Kate, is now in college at Duke, the coach’s alma mater.

Collins is an empty nester now. If he ever felt like he had to stay at Northwestern for the sake of his family, those reasons are no longer valid.

He’s got nothing left to prove: The flip side of that long list of accomplishments is that Collins really has nothing left to prove as a coach at Northwestern. He’s done it all, outside of winning a Big Ten title or taking the Wildcats to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament.

It’s reasonable to ask whether the back-to-back tournament teams of 2023 and 2024 were about as far as he can take the program, given their limits in terms of academics and size. The Wildcats won 24 Big Ten games in those two seasons and finished second and third in the conference. Can things ever get better than that for the Wildcats?

Collins may still want to chase that conference crown. But if he wants to win a national championship one day, he knows that it may have to come at a different program.

Lack of respect: This had to be a frustrating year for Collins in terms of how little respect the Big Ten showed the Wildcats this season.

We don’t need to repeat the litany of official’s calls that went against Northwestern this season that impacted the outcome of games. Even at home, the Wildcats couldn’t seem to get 50/50 calls to go their way. Martinelli, the Big Ten’s leading scorer, didn’t get the benefit of referees’ whistles at critical times as other league stars typically do.

This week, Martinelli, the Big Ten’s scoring leader, didn’t make First Team All-Big Ten. To add insult to injury, the league put the team up in a hotel with broken heat at the Big Ten Tournament.

After winning 31 conferences games over the last three years, Collins may be tired of the Rodney Dangerfield routine and may be asking what he has to do to get any respect from the league. He may have had enough.

He has to start over: With program stalwarts like Barnhizer, Berry and Matt Nicholson leaving, Collins has to hit reset on his program.

He did it once to get the Wildcats to the tournament. Then he did it again to come out of that five-year losing streak to get back to March Madness the previous two seasons.

Now, at age 50, does Collins have the energy to do it again? And if he does, wouldn’t it be easier to do it at a different program, where there aren’t as any obstacles? Those are valid questions.

The list of reasons to stay outweigh the reasons to leave in our eyes. Collins is not a “grass is greener” kind of guy, and he knows how good he has it at Northwestern right now.

From the outset, the coach has talked about the chance to do build a program and do things that have never been done before. That’s exactly what he’s doing.

We think that the next announcement regarding Collins will most likely be a contract extension.