Monday, December 13, 2010

From the Horse's Mouth

David Williams responds to reports of a "dead deal" to the Tennessean's Jeff Lockridge. Here's the entire Tennessean story:
Vanderbilt Vice Chancellor of Athletics David Williams said today that there was never a deal in place to make Auburn offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn the Commodores' next football coach.

Williams, responding to several reports today stating that Malzahn has withdrawn from consideration for the job, said he plans to call Malzahn's people and find out if that is the case and added: "I don't want to say a deal is dead because there was no deal to be dead."

Williams still labeled Malzahn as a "person of interest" in the search process and said he has a list of other people he plans to contact, including Maryland offensive coordinator James Franklin.

"There still are discussions (with Malzahn)," Williams said. "They may feel they don’t want to talk anymore. I haven’t been on the phone with anybody for the last hour and a half. I don’t know where they stand. They may not want to be interested enough anymore."


As I wrote before, based on this, we still don't know anything.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

F*** Gus

GO OREGON!!!

Anonymous said...

This sounds like damage control to me.

Anonymous said...

Totally agree. This is just Williams being a lawyer (he is a law professor) and making sure that he doesn't misspeak. I'm sure he hasn't spoken to Malzahn in the last hour and a half, but that doesn't mean it's not a no. It's also very easy for him to say that there was no deal, but that does not mean that there was not a formal offer. He's just covering his bases to try and save face for whoever our second choice is going to end up being.

Tom M said...

Why am I getting that sucking feeling in my gut that I typically get late in the 3rd quarter? Please don't let this end badly, please!

Anonymous said...

I know what you mean Tom, but really we won't find out if this ends badly until a couple of years from now b/c whoever we hire is probably going to be someone without HC experience (even Malzahn didn't have that) and we won't know how that's going to work out until he has a chance to implement his system and get his players in here.

The problem for us is that the Johnson/Caldwell regime has left the cupboard pretty bare with the exception of the running back position. However, perhaps there is hope, Jim Harbaugh wasn't really anybody until he turned Stanford around so hopefully whoever we bring in will be the same way.

Anonymous said...

Lets be patient Vandy Nation.....lets see how this plays out. I am confident that we will get the right hire. I agree with the above that Malzahn is a "hot name" now but nobody knows how good a head coach he would be. Let's see who we get and support the hire. Not sure what Vandy Nation is thinking, but it appears that David Williams pulled out all the stops to get what was arguably as the best available (assistant) name on the market. Can't fault DW (and the administration) for that. I am very proud that the administration is making a serious attempt to straighten up the football program.