2013 College Football coaching carousel

As opposed to reading "Manny Navarro of the Miami Herald reports that Jon Gruden has agreed to a $3.4-million-a-year deal to coach the Miami Hurricanes" and other such nonsense.

I'm at the point where I don't believe it until I see the coach at the podium anyway. So if that's when I find out . . . OK with me.

 

I don't know the exact situation here, but there are absolutely times when a reporter is correct at the time and still wrong thereafter. We've all seen quite a few instances of a coach accepting a job publicly and then backing out. I have to believe there are many more of those instances where the coach accepts the job privately and then backs out before the official announcement.

 

I remember the first coaching search I ever covered and one of the other writers told me, "Just remember one thing about coaching searches... Everybody lies."

I know writers whose source has been the coach himself and they wound up looking like dipshits when the coach came out the next day and said, "I don't know where he got that..." because they're banking on the writer not throwing them under the bus.

Woody was definitely out in front of this one. He was the first to report CU's interest in Jones and the fact that he mentioned Trace Armstrong by name in more than one column would lead me to believe Trace was his source.

 

Woody Paige never would fabricate something, either.

 

Columnists are a lot more likely to fabricate something where they can't get caught. You'd have to be pretty goddamned stupid to fabricate breaking news.

Also, all of the other Jones news that he broke was true. Probably a safe bet he was getting it from the same guy.

 

Ask the Bama beat reporters who were told by RichRod that he was taking the Alabama job how they feel about that.

 

No kidding... These days, if I was a SE, I would have no problem telling a beat writer to cover the coaching search, but don't report that someone is taking a job until you can quote the source or the release has been sent out...

 

That's a fine and principled stance for 1992, but now you might as well tell your reporter to just follow ESPN, Yahoo, CBS Sports or another national outlet. Show me the sourcing on Pat Forde's Bielema-to-Arkansas scoop.

On-the-record sourcing is out, and it's never coming back.

 

There was some really, really big NFL story this year that a reporter broke with on-the-record sourcing. I can't remember which story it was, though. Anyway, my point is, it stood out to me because it's so rare.