kirk ferentz

Coaching ongoings:

1. There's a fellow wandering around the Hawkeye boards claiming that the Ferentz-to-Michigan stuff is all his doing. A copy of an email sent to one of the Iowa TV stations that started picking up on the internet rumors:

ill break it down best i can, long story short.

guy posts fake rumor---> http://michigan.rivals.com/showmsg.asp?fid=39&tid=106451698&mid=106451698&sid=883&style=2

m.go.blog runs with it and states there is an inside source (but really its this post)

poster on hawkeyelounge plays along----> http://www.hawkeyelounge.com/showthread.php?t=17099

m.go.blog cites that post as another possible sources and runs with story.

check the blog, its on the front page. --->http://mgoblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/ferentz-update.html

it started as a message board ruse, flame if you will.....

This is not true; I had not heard of HawkeyeLounge.com until a commenter left a link to the rumor posted there yesterday. The source in question is connected to one of the Iowa coaches; it's solid.

2. There have been a lot of questions about University posting rules that previously seemed like a major deterrent to a hasty search and were cited as a reason Miles' national championship game coaching wouldn't be a problem. This would mean reports of a potential acceptance would be necessarily wrong. (An offer, on the other hand, is plausible, since everyone knows the open posting rules are farcical.) Apparently the posting thing is a complete nonfactor.

For example: the hiring of Mike Sherman at A&M two days after Franchione was let go.

3. I think I may have erred a bit here. I waited to get some outside confirmation on the Ferentz offer, but when I did it was from Iowa sources. Though those sources are about as good as things like that get, there is the potential for wobble.

It's a game of telephone, basically.

Michigan to Ferentz: you're our #1 candidate.
Ferentz to Coach: I think Michigan might offer me the job.
Coach to Source: Ferentz is going to get offered the job.
Source to Me: Ferrets get proffered by slobs!

I wrote and re-wrote that brief post to communicate what I wanted it to but in the end I think it came off too assured. These things are all uncertain, and real confirmation of how the search went down will never be available. Mea culpa.

4. To wit, someone from the Michigan side of things says talk of an offer is "premature," which is a really interesting word to use.

5. I offer no thumbs up or down on the linked post yesterday; I merely present the info since it seems worthwhile.

6. IMO, the most likely scenario: Michigan has talked quite a bit with Ferentz. The general tone of the conversations has been of the sort when you have a really good job interview and the last guy is just like "well... we really like you. Do you like us? We really like you." Like in the job interview, you assume you have been offered the job but the formal decision has not been made.

7. The high level summary of my beliefs based on everything I've heard and read: Ferentz is the #1 candidate and either has already been or will be offered the job. I have no idea whether he'd take it or not but if you put a gun to my head I would say he turns it down.

Another thing follows from the above belief but this is just deduction, not inside info: Carr insisted he would not be a major factor in the search during his retirement press conference, but his fingerprints are all over the Ferentz thing. Ferentz meets certain Michigan priorities -- be a really awesome dude, don't swear at press conferences -- better than others -- win, wear hats -- that Miles is better at, which indicates the relative weightings of these priorities make it harder for them to come around on Miles. I wouldn't be surprised if he was well down the list.

8. MLive talked to the GVSU AD, who claimed Michigan had not contacted him. My source is standing by his info.

Update: Iowa is claiming no one has talked to or about Ferentz; not sure why MLive is going around asking athletic directors about official channels when everyone knows these things migrated out of public view long ago.

I have no idea how to judge the truthiness of this post from HawkeyeLounge.com helpfully linked in the comments of the last post, but it looks like we might get resolution on this Ferentz thing soon:

I have a decent source connected to the Michigan athletic department. He stated to me in an in e-mail this evening that Ferentz had been offered the job and this evening he accepted. The final details and announcement will come in 24-48 hours.

Disclaimers follow...

MH check your PM and I'll explain this one to you. I'm not convinced on this, but this source has credibility. I hope he's not playing me. I'll take the heat if this is wrong.

...but after the standard "this means nothing... nothing!" response, a couple posters vouch for this guy; the forthright admission of doubt makes me place a bit more faith in the information, ironically. (Obviously, this is nothing close to solid.)

Another point of confirmation (about the offer, not a potential acceptance) comes from the RCMB. One of the posters there is an editor at an Iowa newspaper; he claims that two separate media sources are telling him Ferentz has an offer.

Update: FWIW, same RCMB poster says two people have called him, saying they "heard" Ferentz had accepted the job; another says he has a family member on the staff who hasn't heard anything as of a few hours ago.

Woo! Rumors, these. Not facts. The first and foremost is really close to a fact type thing, as close as these things can be, but if the most likely outcome... er... comes out, no one will ever know if this was true or not. So take the following FWIW, which is not to say I lack confidence in the voracity of the following... it's just that much of it is, by its very nature, un-confirmable. Thus the "rumormongering" label and not the "actual news" label. End justifications.

I've sat on this a couple days waiting for some third-party corroboration and now I have it: Kirk Ferentz has been offered the Michigan job. The general feeling is he will turn it down out of fidelity to Iowa, in case you were thinking of making a late-night run to Ann Arbor (or Iowa City) Torch & Pitchfork. I do realize that this -- unlike the Lloyd thing -- is unlikely to ever be publicly acknowledged if Ferentz turns it down, but this comes from someone in a position to know, and how. The third-party corroboration comes from a couple Iowa insiders reporting things afoot that, unfortunately, I am not at liberty to disclose.

Suffice it to say that Wednesday's post on Ferentz not making sense and this being a weird rumor is withdrawn: there's a real chance he's the next coach. It's not probable given Ferentz's deep ties to Iowa, but it's not Kevin Stallings as I suggested earlier.

BONUS item that I don't have multiple sources on, so consider this not 100% reliable, but logical: Grand Valley's athletic director has been contacted by a Michigan representative doing due diligence on Brian Kelly. That representative? Lloyd Carr. That might explain the prominence in Ferentz in the search. The Horror, evidently, was not enough to shake Carr's influence despite the claims made in his outgoing press conference.

BONUS BONUS item: Grand Valley's AD has been contacted by another athletic director doing background checks on Kelly. His name? Kevin White. His school? Notre Dame.