Mmmmm...Leftovers.

To the updated SMQ Coaching Board!

Three jobs are in play, two of them fat ones, all of them guaranteed at this point to settle for a quasi-disgraced retread or wet-behind-the-ears noob with no experience as a boss after the first names at the top of the list balked. UCLA is down to Slick Rick Neuheisel in the former category and (to the etrnal chagrin of the eternally chagrined Bruins Nation, which to its credit at least isn't rolling with any sketchy, insiderz-y rumor on the job) defensive coordinator DeWayne Walker as the enthusiastic up-and-comer with tacit player support, according to the L.A. beat guys, but with no press-the-flesh skills compared to Neuheisel's; the perpetually sanctioned alum has already allegedly undercut Norm Chow's hiring by promising the world financially if he gets the job, and will no doubt deliver on his word by whatever means necessary. He repeats: By watever means necessary. Temple's Al Golden is a distant afterthought of a backup plan, but only has a chance if Walker, to save the program from the spectre of a corrupt, self-serving Neuheisel administration, brings both candidacies down in flames, like Henry Fonda at the national convention in The Best Man, and Golden ascends by default. If Gore Vidal wrote coaching searches, Golden would stand a chance, but he doesn't and, probably, he doesn't - Walker is interviewing again sometime this week, maybe as early as today.

West Virginia is in dire straights after Jimbo Fisher's rebuff to his native state Sunday, not only because the Mountaineers are left staring at severely out-of-form Terry Bowden, but he would be stepping into an athletic department under a barrage of criticism from its big-wheelin' sugar daddies, two of which have gone out of their way to get broadsides against AD Ed Pastilong into the press since Rich Rodriguez accepted the Michigan job. Pastilong is taking fire from all sides for stonewalling Rodriguez over relatively minor cost-of-living increases like raises for assistants, facility makeovers and letting high school coaches into WVU for free  - most or all of which may have been promised to keep Rod from signing with Alabama last December but not delivered -  and now from the fan base for letting Fisher slip through his fingers: Bowden played receiver at West Virginia for his dad before Papa took the Florida State job, and probably (especially after he won immediately at Auburn) never expected to be back. But unless another name pops up soon, the younger Bowden should begin working now on the fro and `stache he undoubtedly sported in his mid-seventies heyday and cue up some John Sebastian. By all appearances, Terry Bowden is the list at West Virginia.

And SMU...well, nothing much is happening at SMU. If the Mustangs' search - now entering its second month since Phil Bennett was the first coach canned during the season, by far the longest coaching search in the history of coaching searches in any sport - was replicated at a school anyone seemed to care much about, that school's partisans, boosters, media outlets and probably relevant politicans would be leading the pitchfork brigade to the AD's house to string the bastard up by his money clip. For comparison, the seemingly marathon search for Alabama's coach last year, according to the tortured SMU Football Blog in the afore-linked post, lasted 38 days; Michigan's frenzied, oft-delayed process came in at right about the one-month mark. SMU, as of today, has gone an astonishing 60 days since it officially fired Bennett without naming a successor.

Mustang AD Steve Orsini, though, is safe - safe and intermittently blogging, in fact, though not about much of anything in particular and certainly not about anything he's pointedly not saying publicly about the search, or lack thereof. The last names to pop up were Dennis Franchione and Larry Coker, the latter of whom, as SMUFB notes, the Mustangs could have hired the day Bennett was fired. Clearly, they don't really want Larry Coker. They do seem "interested" in June Jones, who could conceivably stop over in Dallas during his flight to or from the Sugar Bowl to informally laugh as close to Orsini's face as possible. When he does, bet on Fran's name surfacing again in the following days - metaphorically speaking, of course. The NCAA doesn't look to kindly on betting (ask Neuheisel), and the last thing SMU needs is the bureacratic cops snooping around.