Bob Stoops To ND Is 'Ridiculous,' But Mike Leach Is Crazy Enough To Bolt Tech

Neither of these batty rumors even approaches last year's "Les Miles to Washington!" rumor, for my money the grand champion insane coaching-move rumor of the past half-dozen years, but they're both in the conversation for this year's trophy.

Door #1 is Bob Stoops to Notre Dame:

If athletic director Jack Swarbrick decides Weis' Notre Dame career is over after his fifth season, a source said Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops and Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz will be in the mix to replace him. The source said Stoops has told confidants he would be interested in talking to the Irish.

That's right: "if."

Door #2 is Mike Leach to Louisville:

Anybody else hear that Texas Tech coach Mike Leach is the flavor of the day in the University of Louisville football chatter?

That was the name that was buzzing Monday. Pass-happy coach who worked with Hal Mumme at UK before he went to Oklahoma with Bob Stoops. Michael Crabtree played for him as well as Graham Harrell. Knows how to score. Has a law degree.

Later, this guy breaks new ground by eschewing the one-sentence paragraph in favor of the one-fragment paragraph. Too much Twitter.

Anyway, which of these rumors is more clearly insane? It's got to be Stoops to ND. Yes, shock, a Notre Dame coaching rumor is preposterously grandiose.

Leach to Louisville, though unlikely, at least seems plausible. Oklahoma and Texas Tech are in the same division in the Big 12 and Oklahoma is constantly in the BCS because they out-recruit Leach something wicked. Leach has a ceiling as the third-best team in his own division. Also, while Stoops has publicly derided the rumors …

"That’s ridiculous, though, some confidant, huh," Stoops asked? "I have no idea what you’re talking about. Notre Dame doesn’t have a job, and I haven’t spoke to any confidants about anything outside of trying to beat Texas Tech, so, you guys, you know, that’s some guy making something up. I’m not answering stuff like that. There’s not even a job at Notre Dame, so that’s ridiculous. I don’t know. You guys believe [there’s a] confidant. What’s that?"

… Mike Leach has not, has no buyout and is totally insane. Also he constantly fights with his athletic department because they think he spends too much. Leach has a pretty good thing going at Tech, and it's always risky to take over a bomb site of a program that has nothing in the way of a local recruiting base — Kentucky and Tennessee are not great football states and you get strictly leftovers from Ohio with eleven Big Ten teams and Cincinnati combing it — but after the Harrell/Crabtree year he's got to be wondering if he'll ever get past the two big dogs in his own division.

In the Big East, he's got to deal with Brian Kelly for however long he's at Cincinnati (hint: not very long) and then … um … Bill Stewart? If there's a place where a gunslinging, pirate-obsessed coach can putter around with meh recruits and use a wacky system as a springboard to BCS glory, it's the Big East. Subtract the pirate bit and you've got Rich Rodriguez, after all.

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