With Mike Leach agreeing to an extension and a raise that puts him around $4 million a year to stay at Washington State, Arkansas fans are re-focusing their attention … primarily towards Lane Kiffin.
Of course some have believed Kiffin, who still has a Conference USA game to coach for Florida Atlantic this weekend, has been athletics director Hunter Yurachek’s main target all along.
There has been speculation in a wild and wacky week for fans that certain members of the UA’s Board of Trustees weren’t on board with the choice of Kiffin, but it appears they are going to let Yurachek decide, which is his job.
Memphis coach Mike Norvell, who has an American Athletic Conference title game Saturday, has reportedly shown more interest in the opening at Florida State than Fayetteville, but Ole Miss has made a push there after dumping Matt Luke last week.
Sources in the league say Louisiana coach Billy Napier appears to be the frontrunner for the Rebels’ spot.
Some of the pieces started falling in place earlier this week when USC said Clay Helton would be back, eliminating what would have been what many consider the highest-profile position.
Florida State is next in the pecking order, but they may have set their sights on a bigger name than they are actually able to attract for whatever reasons.
Kiffin’s name has been linked as a target for the Seminoles’ spot.
Missouri also has an opening to replace the fired Barry Odom. Arkansas State’s Blake Anderson was considered to be a leading candidate earlier in the week, then a report by FootballScoop.com basically said he wasn’t a big enough name.
The biggest names in Arkansas’ search right now are Kiffin and indications are he’s got to choose between three jobs — the Hogs, Florida State or Ole Miss and when he decides things may start to fall into place.
Leach’s name was highest on the wishlist along with Kiffin for a lot of Hog fans, but with him returning to the Wildcats and Iowa State’s Matt Campbell getting a raise and an extension, that means you move down the list.
But, as we found out in the basketball search that landed Eric Musselman, nobody knows what Yurachek is going to do and there are not the reliable links everybody has seen in the past.
If Kiffin isn’t in the mix, then pick from a list of the names that have been bandied about for a few weeks now.
Or be surprised.
The guess here is we should start to hear more heading into the weekend and we’ll know when the school a coach is leaving starts leaking.
Until then, it appears to be a waiting game for fans.
