Before even announcing Steve Spurrier's resignation Friday morning, according to ESPN and the Orlando Sentinel, Florida's athletic director was on the phone to OU head coach Bob Stoops offering the job to him. Stoops was defensive coordinator at UF under Spurrier for five years before taking the head coaching job at OU at the end of the 1998 season.

Stoops reportedly met all day Saturday with OU AD Joe Castiglione and left "non-committal," and is reported by more than one source to be both interested in the job and wrestling with the decision. This in spite of the fact that, after winning the 2000 national championship, Stoops signed a seven-year contract (admittedly, with a $200,000 buy-out) for $2.1 million per year, making him the second-highest paid coach in college football. Second only to Steve Spurrier, and now that Spurrier's gone to graze in NFL pastures (though he's still nibbling at the gate), Stoops is the highest-paid coach in college football.

He's done great things at OU, but as my mom put it (and for once her cliché is right), he found a bird's nest on the ground. OU in 1998 had everything it needed to be a great team except a quarterback and a head coach. (John Blake was a confidence-inspiring man and a good coach, but not ready for the head coaching job he had.) Stoops restored discipline and a sense of presence to OU, but he's only been here three years. Even the coaches that move around, like Lou Holtz, spend about seven years before moving on to new challenges. Stoops is just now finding out what his own recruiting classes can provide for his team, and after the OSU loss, he's reportedly having extreme difficulty getting recruits to sign with OU instead of Texas.

If he wants to quit before his own program-building skills are tested in search of greener pastures, I say let him go. This bit about going back to the well every year in search of more recognition or higher pay isn't what OU or college football needs. There may be a place for a hired gun in NCAA football, but I'm pretty sure OU isn't it. If he wants to string everyone along every year about new coaching opportunities instead of making his position at OU clear, let him go.

If you won't dance with them what brung you, it's your own fault.

[So yeah, I'm around, but first I was behind in work and then I was resting over the holidays. I don't have time for some other updates I wanted to make, but I wanted to get this up while it was fresh. I spent much of Christmas week grousing to friends and family that Oregon should have been in the Rose Bowl, but since I didn't post it here before Oregon and Nebraska each played, I don't get to crow "I told you so," and this grieves me. I'll try to get a little better this week. --M]

Update: Stoops announced last night that most of the rumors were false, that he was staying at Oklahoma, and that people shouldn't believe every report. Thanks, Bob; it'd be easier to believe those reports had you said something Friday instead of Monday. You weren't incapacitated.