The pendulum in the case of Randy Shannon's replacement at Miami has swung from Jon Gruden being hired any minute, to Mike Leach (and the Donald) shilling for himself, to Bo Pelini maybe or maybe not throwing his hat in the ring, which may or may not have been a sanctioned act by the University of Nebraska:
Nebraska coach Bo Pelini has spoken to University of Miami Athletic Director Kirby Hocutt about the Hurricanes' coaching job but has not been offered it, two people with knowledge of the search told the Sun Sentinel on Thursday.
"He is in the mix," one of the sources said.
Nebraska athletic director Tom Osborne denied giving permission to Pelini to speak to UM.
"Bo's never talked to me about anything like that," Osborne told the Lincoln Journal Star. "If he got permission, he didn't get it from me."
Corn Nation sounds nearly as exasperated as Osborne with this latest rumor, but color the 7th Floor intrigued. We talked with our lead Miami Hurricanes blogger, who thinks this could be, at the very least, an entertaining spectacle worthy of the clime:
Pelini is a name I'd actually be pretty excited about, if only because finally, I can actually hope to vicariously live out my fantasy of breaking Jacory Harris in half with my bare hands. If he thought Taylor Martinez was annoying, wait until someone throws 11 picks a game.
Alternately, I appreciate the thrill of our coach possibly erupting out of his own body on the sidelines as our program teeters on the brink of destruction. If that isn't a metaphor for the entire city, I don't know what is. It'd be like football Four Loko.
For our part, we're not quite sure how this would work, but that may be because we can't mentally separate Pelini from Tim Blake Nelson and the Coen Brothers have never set a film in the Orange Bowl.