That's all this is, a thought or thoughts.
I was told last week that an end-of-the-season press conference was coming last week. It didn't. Maybe this week. Or maybe not.
I have no hard news today. I've been on the internet. I've seen several "KF in AA" postings. My personal fave is the Bodoglife.com, an internet gambling site apparently, that is taking action on Michigan's next head coach. Les Miles is the 2-1 favorite, meaning a $100 on Les will win you $200. Kirk Ferentz is next at 9-2.
Here is my educated guess as to what may or may not be going on. Don't run to Bodog with this unless you get a $10 spot from me first.
Lloyd Carr likes Kirk Ferentz. I don't know why or how. I know that Lloyd, who'll assume an associate AD job at Michigan, and Norm Parker go way, way back. I think they were on the same staff at Illinois way back in the suspension helmet days, or maybe it was the Bike helmet days. Maybe that relationship watered a Ferentz-Carr friendship. I don't know. It's all maybe. Michigan blog people think Lloyd might have a say in his replacement.
Mary Sue Coleman was the president of the UI when Ferentz was hired in 1999. She had a hand in bringing him here. Not sure how much of a hand. I wasn't on the beat then. Now, what kind of relationship did they have at Iowa? I'm guessing they ran into each other at the big fan/alumni thingies after/before games and that's about it. When Ferentz hit his first big plug of off-field trouble, Coleman was in the middle of interviewing for the Michigan job. She was gone before the glorious 2002 season started. Basically, she was here in Ferentz's infancy with the program. This was the "we're sticking by the guy" days, well before two Big Ten titles and $2.84 million. Are they trading Christmas cards? Who knows. I stopped getting them from Ferentz after 1999. (After a 1-10 season, coaches need all the friends they can get.) Is Coleman aware of the latest headlines out of Iowa City, the ones that have "alleged sexual assault," "investigation" and "three football players" in them? You can bet that she is.
There's also a story going around that Bo Schembechler apparently went Charles Foster Kane and whispered "Kirk Ferentz" in his final breathe. ("Citizen Kane" reference here. I took a film class in college.) I'm sure it wasn't all that dramatic. But it's also not a stretch to believe that Ferentz got Bo's attention when he whipped Michigan the Michigan way at the Big House in 2002.
I can totally see Michigan having an interest in Ferentz. It's certainly a reasonable assumption, and that's what all of this is at this point, at least on my end. Some rumors out on the 'net have the foundation being poured on the new Ferentz home in Ann Arbor (I'm not discounting those, either).
There was a long section here on Miles and his national championship run with LSU.
Scratch that, thanks to the Hogs. (A dazzling football game, by the way.
It's safe to say that Miles is interested in the job at his alma mater, where he met his wife, where he played and graduated from, where he got his coaching start. There is a clause in Miles' LSU contract that has him paying LSU $1.25 million if he takes the Michigan job. Now, that's a contract that'd I give my football coach. Just the fact that that's in there says he's interested. It would've been easier, more logical, for Miles to go pedal to the metal toward a national title and then trot into his AD's office and ask for $4.5 million a year. That's over now. Maybe Bodog is right. Maybe he's the leader.
Last week's news that three UI football players have been connected to an alleged sexual assault investigation came from somewhere.
I asked Chuck Green why the UI Police confirmed that football players were involved.
``That was a decision that was made with other parties, including athletics,'' Green said. ``I think part of the reason is that they were being approached by the press and so they just wanted to make sure that they were upfront and as honest as they could be.''
An hour or so later, at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, Iowa athletics director Gary Barta said something different.
``The release wasn't sent out by the athletic department,'' Barta said. ``Athletics didn't ask for the release to be sent out.''
Clearly, everyone is not on the same page. Usually, when a public university knows it's going to be "in the news," it has a plan for communication with the media. That doesn't seem to be the case here. It might be just a little "gotcha" on my part or it might be something else.
The incident under investigation allegedly took place on the early-morning hours of Oct. 14. The Gazette contacted Green on Oct. 19, asking questions about two players. Green said their names weren't in their system. After Western Michigan, Ferentz said, "I was aware of the situation before this week, if that's what you're suggesting."
Ferentz was asked last Tuesday, the day before the UI Police broke the news of the investigation, about two players on his team. They remain suspended from football activity.
Athletics knew, but the investigation didn't activate until the victim talked to UI Police Nov. 5.
Then, last Wednesday happened. It was a full-blown, New York-style media blitz outside of the Hillcrest dorm, where UI Police, Iowa City Police and the Iowa division of DCI parked vehicles to investigate inside Hillcrest.
Athletics was left out of the loop with Anthony Bowman and Dominique Douglas, who were arrested this August for alleged credit card fraud hours after an open practice at Kinnick Stadium. Athletics was not in the loop on last week's actions by the UI Police.
Somebody somewhere at the UI is sending a message to football.
Ferentz had a comfort level with former UI president David Skorton. Skorton was front and center during the glory days. He was also front and center when a recruit intimated to a Manhattan, Kan., newspaper that UI football recruiters helped him "hook up" during a recruiting visit. That was proved false after an investigation. Ferentz went through the good and some bad with Skorton. Skorton left for Cornell in 2006.
Former athletics director Bob Bowlsby spent 15 years as Iowa's AD. He and his considerable power base left to become Stanford's athletics director in April 2006.
Suddenly, it's Ferentz, second-year AD Gary Barta and brand-spanking new president Sally Mason.
The power base is dictated by title and title only. The personal dynamics are yet to be formed.
Then, Board of Regents president Michael Gartner weighs in on the investigation.
The underlying current during both Skorton's and Bowlsby's departures was that Gartner's fingerprints were all over them. On Bowlsby, he's denied it up and down. On Skorton, the Regents passed it off as a function of the market but that was after a slap-in-the-face raise compared to the presidents at the other state U's.
Ferentz was on the sidelines for all of this. He probably knows a little bit about Bowlsby's and Skorton's departures. He probably has formed an opinion about Gartner.
He's probably wondering who has his back at the UI.
This is all maybes and reasonable assumptions. It's an educated guess as to why the door might be open.
Iowa did lose two recruits to Illinois and Ron Zook over the weekend. James Ferentz is still commited, I think.
Stay tuned.