Stupid Blue Gray Sky and their stupid math point out that the average coaching search since 2004 has taken 18.2 days, with the median slightly lower at 15.  Those dozen days in late 2004 felt like forever, I don't know if I'll be able to make it an entire fortnight with the current level of anxiety I feel.   With massive credit to Jack Swarbrick, not a lot has been leaking out, so it's easy to assume that everything is humming along nicely and we'll know when everything is wrapped up with a bow, and no sooner.  Or that nothing at all is happening and it's time to PANIC PANIC PANIC.  I will trust Jack, although I would sincerely appreciate this being wrapped up sooner rather than later.

(I still feel like putting together a giant board like Prez in The Wire and attempting to connect the dots that don't even exist.  Thank you, Notre Dame, for giving me four great years and a valuable degree for the low cost of 160 grand and my sanity.  Cue the Man in Black:)

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Bob Stoops went on a sports radio show in Oklahoma yesterday and joked that he was calling from South Bend.  That's probably the most damning thing he could have done beyond an actual denial (not his half-assed non-denial denials).  Stoops may want to come to Notre Dame, but he's not going to burn every bridge in Norman on his way out.  If you were waiting to go ahead and cross Stoops off your list, go ahead and do that now, because I don't think he's going to openly antagonize the Sooner fanbase on his way out.

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A few random links if you're desperate for some reading material, as the site True/Slant ponders if the next coach should be Catholic (don't care) and the Cleveland Frowns make a plea for Charlie Weis to come on over and coach up their offense.  This passage is sort of hilarious:

And nowhere but Cleveland can Weis, a Notre Dame Grad and practicing Catholic, do so well by doing so much good.  Importantly, the Catholic Church teaches that, in addition to faith, one must also practice good works to gain salvation.  Specifically:

[T]he Church teaches that individual Catholics are required to practice the spiritual and corporal works of mercy[, such as feeding the hungry, . . . visiting the sick, visiting the imprisoned, . . .  instructing, advising, . . .  bearing wrongs patiently.

FACT:  In the entire universe of football, there's nobody sicker, hungrier, or more imprisoned than Cleveland is with respect to its Browns.  Nobody that needs Charlie's instruction and advice more than we do.  This isn't open to question

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Should the Irish choose to go bowling - which is up in the air at this point - it's looking like they'll be heading to the Little Caesar's Pizza Bowl (formerly the Motor City Bowl) in Detroit on Boxing Day, or to the GMAC Bowl in Mobile on January 6.  Considering the Irish will be free agents, there are a couple of other destinations that would take them, but those seem like the two most likely destinations.  Personally, I hope it's the Pizza Bowl so we can see Jimmy Clausen against Dan LeFevour in their final collegiate games, but again, a lot of variables.