Richie Rodriguez, he doth protest too much.

That plane's up in Morgantown again. When do we start calling him BearRod?

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N321AN/history/20061207/1358Z/KBHM/KMGW

 

I do that. Got me the biggest scoop of my career a few years ago. I think tracking planes is an important part of the process.

 

UPDATED 12:45 p.m. TUSCALOOSA | The University of Alabama has extended an offer to West Virginia University’s Rich Rodriguez to become the new head football coach of the Crimson Tide, sources confirmed to The Tuscaloosa News on Thursday.

Deliberations continued late into the night, and this morning. A representative of UA made the offer to Rodriguez this morning.

The salary and other terms of the offer to Rodriquez were not immediately available. Speculation over the past week has centered on Rodriguez and Miami Dolphins coach Nick Saban.


According to a report from The Miami Herald, Saban has declined an offer from the university and Thursday morning told his players he is not leaving Miami. The coach also told owner Wayne Huizenga on Sunday he was not interested in Alabama.

After practice, he confirmed that Alabama had approached his agent, Jimmy Sexton, who thanks but no thanks. Saban also said he never interviewed or spoke directly with Alabama officials.

The Miami Herald report indicated Saban was offered a salary of over $5 million per year, but sources told The Tuscaloosa News it was "extremely unlikely" that UA would offer such a salary.

 

Over/under on RR's stint in T-town if this does come to pass? 3.5 years is my guess.

 

I don't think they are meeting with R-Rod.
He's in Jacksonville today at a Gator Bowl function. He's also supposed to be talking to Paul Dee about interest in the Miami job this afternoon.

 

Rodriguez was the brains behind Shaun King and Tulane's recent undefeated season. If you can run the table at Tulane, you're already a diety.

 

There, fixed it. Now, about that assertion ... let's not get carried away with the whole deification thing. It was, after all, C-USA.

 

Recent?

 

From Tuscaloosa News:

TUSCALOOSA | John McMahon, a member of the University of Alabama Board of Trustees, said Thursday that a Miami Herald report of a $57 million offer from UA to Miami Dolphin head coach Nick Saban was “a complete and total fabrication.”

McMahon, who spoke to The Tuscaloosa News in a telephone interview, added that the report was “harmful to the University of Alabama and harmful to college athletics.”

The Miami Herald report, which indicated that Saban would remain with the Dolphins, stated that UA director of athletics Mal Moore had offered Saban a 10-year contract at $5 million annually, along with a $7 million signing bonus. Those figures would far exceed the compensation of any current college head coach.

“It is stunning to me that a responsible newspaper would report that,” McMahon said. “They obviously did not contact anyone at the University of Alabama because that report is totally and completely false.”

 

Yeah, after dicking around with them for three weeks, and also fucking around as a "consultant" in the Michigan State coaching search, steering them to hire his protege, Dantonio (and toward two other proteges, Grantham and Baggett). After Sunday's bed-shitting Dolphins performance, if I were Huizenga, I'd inquire as to whether Saban might find just a leetle room in his busy busy schedule to actually coach the Miami Dolphins football team??

Oh yeah, be careful to point that out. "Never spoke directly." Uhmmmm. OK. How can we parse that? When does "sex" mean sex? Never face-to-face. They have, of course, invented these things called telephones, but that's not speaking directly...

Of course it's unlikely, but you're talking to an agent here -- it's surprising he didn't say Alabama offered him 50 million bucks a year.

And everybody knows if Bama really did offer Saban 10 cents more than what he's making now in Miami, he'd have been out of there like shit through a goose.

Well, holy sizzling shit, if $aban is getting these kinds of offers, Huizenga better pony up the checkbook and start showing him a little more love, don't you think? I mean, sure, he's already getting paid $3 million a year and his career record is 17-17, and he's currently in last goddamn place in his division, but what the hell do you expect for $3 million a year, that he's actually going to win games????[/JimmySexton]

 

I agree that Rod is leaving a potential national champion in '07, but he'll get the athletes he needs down there beacuse that's his prime recruiting area. Florida, Alabama (Pat White), Louisiana, even Georgia (at least for Pac-Man Jones): that's his bread and butter, and has been for years. Check out the hometowns of his current class of players. He's getting more traction in the mid-atlantic (Maryland) than he had initially, but his coaches stick to MD, western PA and the southeast. I actually think it will be easier for him to recruit there.