The Back Alley Archives

I was just in GC chat, where I suggested that Tommy Bowden was being considered.

http://nwahomepage.com/fulltext/?nxd_id=204427

Quote:
FAYETTEVILLE -- According to a source close to the negotiations, Arkansas Razorback head football coach Bobby Petrino has signed a contract extension with the University of Arkansas...
Pretty much confirms that Petersen or Gruden will be our coach.

Read more: http://www.gatorcountry.com/swampgas/showthread.php?t=178698#ixzz17oE0joPL

I was just in GC chat, where I suggested that Tommy Bowden was being considered.

http://nwahomepage.com/fulltext/?nxd_id=204427

Quote:
FAYETTEVILLE -- According to a source close to the negotiations, Arkansas Razorback head football coach Bobby Petrino has signed a contract extension with the University of Arkansas...
Pretty much confirms that Petersen or Gruden will be our coach.

Read more: http://www.gatorcountry.com/swampgas/showthread.php?t=178698#ixzz17oE0joPL

This guy's terseness -- "Pretty much confirms." Yeah, I can see how that works out. Dumb fuck.

Jon Gruden. Give me a fucking break.

I hope I don't have to eat that sentence.

Whew!

NCAA College Football Rumors ,NCAA College Football Athlete Rumors, Coaching Rumors and More ALLNFLMLBNBANHLCFBCBBSOCCERDecember 10, 2010 | Today Have the Gators got Stoops?12:20
PM ETFlorida Gators TopEmailShare9UPDATE: The latest from GatorCountry.com late Saturday morning is that Bob Stoops is finalizing a contract to become Florida's next coach. GC's Buddy Martin and Raymond Hines have confirmed with multiple different sources that Stoops is negotiating with the Gators, with former QB Kerwin Bell possibly coming in as his offensive coordinator.

However, Hines cautions that the deal could still break down, and that Kyle Whittingham and Will Muschamp have been added to Jeremy Foley's B list as backups. (Although with Chris Petersen also on Foley's A list, it'd be a shame if Foley had to go lower.)

Meanwhile, Franz Beard of 247Sports has changed his tune on Stoops, now saying that Stoops remains in the mix, which certainly suggests that a deal is in the works.

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Possible candidates at Florida
Dan Mullen, Mississippi State: Many say Gators offense hasn't been the same since he left.Kyle Whittingham, Utah: Has continued Urban Meyer's success in Salt Lake City.Charlie Strong, Louisville: First-year head coach may not have enough experience.Chris Petersen, Boise State: Lots of similarities between Meyer of 2004 and Petersen of today.Bob Stoops, Oklahoma: There was talk last year that this former Gators DC might be ready to move on.Gary Patterson, TCU: Name always comes up for BCS-conference openings.Jon Gruden, Monday Night Football: Said no to Miami; is Florida preferable to an NFL gig?Randy Edsall, Connecticut: Perennial big-school candidate spent four years with Jacksonville Jaguars.Jim Harbaugh, Stanford: Maybe the hottest head coach in the country.Bobby Petrino, Arkansas: Reportedly the second choice when Meyer was hired.Kevin Sumlin, Houston: Jeremy Foley supposedly is impressed by this former Bob Stoops OC.Larry Fedora, Southern Miss: Three seasons as Gators OC under Ron Zook.Will Muschamp, Texas DC: Horns' head-coaching-in-waiting has SEC background at Georgia, LSU.Brian Schottenheimer, New York Jets OC: Coaching up-and-comer was Danny Wuerffel's backup for 1996 title run.Gene Chizik, Auburn: Could Florida native and Gators alum leave potential Cam Newton mess behind?Chip Kelly, Oregon: Could he be in need of another challenge already?Kerwin Bell, Jacksonville: Former Gators QB's club led I-AA in scoring, total offense.Mike Shanahan, Washington Redskins: Long-ago Gators OC is a good friend of Jeremy Foley's.Contradictory information from two Florida sites makes us wonder what to believe. Raymond Hines of ESPN affiliate GatorCountry.com says that the site continues to hear that Oklahoma's Bob Stoops and Boise State's Chris Petersen are the top two names still on the board, with Arkansas' Bobby Petrino running third until he landed a seven-year extension. (Of course, that extension had been rumored 10 days ago, so it may not be directly related to Florida scuttlebutt.)

Moreover, at 10 p.m. on Friday, GatorCountry reported that it was "getting more traction from multiple sources separately on Stoops, more than the usual lately." (The fact that Stoops skipped out on a planned post-practice media session only strengthens to the notion that he didn't want to have to make a bunch of nondenial denials.)

John Pennington of MrSEC.com also says that he hears that Stoops and Petersen are 1-2 on athletic director Jeremy Foley's current list.

Yet Franz Beard of Swamp247.com says that several sources tell the site that while Foley did call Stoops, Stoops already said no. (Mike Strain of the Tulsa World points out, however, that when Stoops was connected to the Notre Dame job last winter, he ended up having a teleconference to deny that he was going. Why not just do that this time?)

Beard then says that "the rumor mill" -- i.e., not necessarily Swamp247 sources -- says that Stanford's Jim Harbaugh, Petersen, Connecticut's Randy Edsall, Southern Mississippi's Larry Fedora, Houston's Kevin Sumlin and Texas defensive coordinator Will Muschamp are still in play. (We're unclear if the order in which these six are listed is supposedly Foley's order of preference.)

Coincidentally, Beard's six-pack exactly matches the six names that ESPN's Joe Schad tweeted on Friday afternoon were the focus of the day's buzz regarding the Gators opening. Coincidence, or are Beard and Schad talking to the same people?

- Albert Lin