Forde confirmed what the Louisville Courier-Journal reported this morning, that there has been no contact between Strong and athletic director Tom Jurich. The UofL AD has said that he will not contact any candidate while his current team is still playing, and confirmed to his UF counterpart, Jeremy Foley, that he would have no discussions with Strong and disrupt the program's preparations in the week leading up to the SEC Championship game.
Jurich is expected to contact Strong shortly after the game Saturday, and an interview could take place as early as Sunday, Forde reported.
And even though Jurich is currently immersed in research on other candidates, Strong has emerged as the clear front-runner according to Forde's sources. One report had Jurich interviewing former Tennessee head coach Phillip Fulmer Tuesday, and Central Michigan's Butch Jones has also been mentioned as someone who Jurich could be doing some research.
Multiple reports since the dismissal of Steve Kragthorpe have tapped Strong as a strong contender for the opening, and his hiring at a BcS school such as Louisville would likely be wildly applauded as the coordinator has been, for lack of a better description, the poster child for the paucity of black head coaches in Div. 1-A.
Beyond the racial angle, though, Strong is more than deserving of a shot at running his own program for one simple reason -- he is one helluva football coach.
First, he's the defensive coordinator, not offensive. Odds are good that will be edited before this hits.
Second, the racial angle is more pronounced when you consider he's an African-American who has a Caucasian wife. It's sad that stuff like that matters in this day and age, but ignorance is a timeless quality and it's abundant here in the South.
Hopefully he'll stick around to coach the bowl game, as Mullin did.
"Citing multiple unnamed sources, ESPN's Pat Forde is reporting that Florida offensive coordinator Charlie Strong..."
Wow...considering that he's "offensive" coordinator, he's really done a marvelous job coaching the D...
It's the little things...
I think you mean D-Cord. I feel bad for my USF Bulls.
Thanks to all for pointing out my coordinator faux pas. I'll blame the imagery of Beano Cook reading a robertg comment for the slip. Thanks, hrudey...
Strong has certainly done a great job with the Gators' D. When it mattered most, his unit has shut down just about every high powered O from a variety of conferences. I wish him the best and hope that he gets a shot.
hrudey,
You know, it's bad enough that people OUTSIDE the South still think it's 1959 down here instead of 2009. Please stop brown-nosing for the Yanks by putting your part of the country down; judging by the paucity of minority college football HCs elsewhere in the country, I'd say that no one has the right to speak ill about anyone else.
Which brings me to what I really wanted to address in this post, namely, the factor of race in hiring college football HCs. Everyone agrees that there should be more of them, but no one wants to hire them. Why? Two reasons:
1) ADs only want to hire proven black head coaches, which is a Catch-22 when they don't give many a chance to do so, and
2) ADs only want to hire football coaches they can actually fire, the fear being that if you try to terminate even an obviously bad black head coach, you are going to get crucified in the national press for it.
Eventually, a black head coach is going to break through and have a highly successful program at a noted school; Randy Shannon appears to have a real shot at Miami (FL), and Charlie Strong would have an excellent chance were he to be chosen as Louisville's HC. Here's hoping that we soon are able to relegate this issue to the "Remember when that was an issue?" file the same way it has been in the NFL or in college basketball.
@ hrudey:
First, its Mullen not Mullin. Second, that is all.