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West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez apparently traveled to Toledo to meet with Michigan athletic director Bill Martin on Friday. This would make Rodriguez the latest coach attached to the Michigan job, following Les Miles, Greg Schiano, and Jim Grobe.

I’ve gotta say, Rodriguez might actually be a good fit for Michigan. Here are a few reasons why:

• He replaced the legendary Don Nehlan at West Virginia, so he knows how to take over a program with great expectations. Plus Nehlan was a Schembechler guy, so that makes Rodriguez some kind of Wolverine cousin.
• He’s run up a 60-26 record at WVU since 2000
• He’s used to blue and yellow…
• Most importantly, he’s the #2 coach in the nation according to our rankings

Right now it’s hard to say how serious this is (though Brian at MGoBlog has reports that it’s pretty serious), but we’ll keep you posted.

Sorry America, you had your chance, but Duke has their new coach. I was hesitant to post this until it’s official, but I’ve read it several places now, so I’m pretty confident that it’s going to happen.

On Monday Duke will announce Tennessee offensive coordinator David Cutcliffe as their new head coach. Cutcliffe sandwiched stints as the Vols’ offensive coordinator around a stretch as head coach at Mississippi. As a head coach he went 44-29, leading the Rebels to five bowl games in seven years. As a coordinator he’s probably best known for giving Georgia fits every year.

Cutcliffe had the privilege to coach both Peyton and Eli Manning. He coached Peyton as offensive coordinator at Tennessee and Eli as head coach at Ole Miss. Now if he can just find another Manning and convince them to come to Duke he’ll be just fine…

The University of Houston has hired former Oklahoma State assistant Kevin Sumlin as their head football coach. Sumlin becomes one of eight minority head coaches in Division 1-A, and the first in Houston history.

He takes over for the very successful Art Briles, who left to take the Baylor job. Briles placed a very respectable 34th in our Rankings, so Sumlin has big shoes to fill.

Former Southern Illinois head coach Jerry Kill has agreed to become the new head coach at Northern Illinois. Apparently NIU liked what they saw out of Kill when he led the Salukis to a come-from-behind victory over their team back in September.

While at SIU Kill led the Salukis to a 55-32 record and four straight winning seasons. He leaves as the school’s all-time leader in winning percentage. And he pulled off signature wins over both NIU and Indiana in the last two years. He’s basically single-handedly responsible for building the SIU into a division 1-AA powerhouse.

With that track record it will be interesting to see how he does at NIU. He’s taking over for the recently-retired Joe Novak, who brought the Huskies to previously unreached heights before coming back down to earth this year.

Colorado State has hired Buffalo Bills offensive coordinator Steve Fairchild as its head coach. Fairchild played quarterback at CSU from 1978-1980, and was an assistant coach there under Sonny Lubick from 1993-2000. He will remain with the Bills through the rest of their season before taking over his duties at CSU. This will be Fairchild’s first head coaching job, so it will be very interesting to see if he’s able to turn around a Rams team that went 3-9 this year.

Are you looking for a challenging and rewarding position in the fast paced world of college football? Are you able to take constant losing, impossible recruiting, and being the laughing stock of a conference? Then you my friend could be the next coach of the Duke Blue Devils.
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Southern Miss ended its coaching search by hiring Oklahoma State offensive coordinator Larry Fedora. Fedora is a first-time head coach, but has been in coaching for 16 years, including a stint as offensive coordinator for Florida. He’ll bring an exciting no-huddle offense to Southern Miss, which the university is hoping will fill some seats.

Hey, maybe they can keep him for 17 years then force him to retire…

There are reports out of Atlanta tonight that Bobby Petrino has resigned as head coach of the Atlanta Falcons and will take over the same position with the University of Arkansas. ESPN is reporting that Petrino phoned in his resignation and will not coach the Falcons last three games.

The deal with Arkansas is reportedly not quite done yet, but is believed to be in the neighborhood of $3 million per year.

With Arkansas’ recent luck trying to woo coaches, maybe we shouldn’t believe this quite yet. If it turns out to be true though it will be a major coup for the Razorbacks. Petrino went 41-9 as head coach at Louisville, and turned the Cardinals into a force in the Big East. He has had a difficult season with the Falcons, though you can’t blame his best player’s incarceration on him.

If this works out the SEC just got a little tougher.

Auburn offensive coordinator Al Borges resigned today after meeting with head coach Tommy Tuberville. Borges spent four years with the Tigers, the last three of which have seen the offense sputter. Auburn’s offense finished the year rated 101st in the country.

So what’s the funny part? Tuberville started looking for replacements last week. Methinks this wasn’t a terribly voluntary resignation…

Borges won’t be on the sidelines when Auburn takes on Clemson in the Peach Chik-Fil-A Bowl.

The leading candidate to replace him is Troy offensive coordinator Tony Franklin, who’s known for a pass happy attack. It will be interesting to see how Auburn fans would react to that, since they’re used to a ground n’ pound attack.

Proving that Vanderbilt doesn’t hire dummies, Commodores coach Bobby Johnson has removed his name from consideration for the Duke job. Johnson comes in at #80 in our rankings, but we may have to raise that a little after his decision not to take what would be an inferior job. It’s better to be a competitive doormat in a great conference than a completely overwhelmed doormat in a good conference. Bravo Bobby!

So who will get suckered into offered the job? Well former UCLA coach Karl Dorrell was in Durham this week, and Boston College assistant and former ECU head coach Steve Logan is rumored to be in the mix as well.

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