The Beast : … and on it goes

The cycle of any big story is the same.

The first few days are one big adrenaline rush. The brain turns and you getting no sleep, analyzing and over-analyzing. After that, a bit of a lull where you tend not to raise an eyebrow at any new information. From there, some new info and another adrenaline rush. And so it goes.

Almost two weeks into to this new coaching search, I’m at the point where I’ve seen all this before and tend to downplay everything.

With the weekend upon us, the latest from the Miami Herald.

I trust the Herald and certainly Susan, Barry and Michelle, but I just can’t trust the story. In the end, maybe it’s 100% right, but over the past few weeks we’ve heard so much that until a coach is at the podium with Kirby Hocutt, accepting the job, I won’t believe anything.

Let me say one thing. This entire process I’ve had sources telling me things and I’ve had to make the decision what to share and what to sit on. In the old school journalism world, you double source everything but these days, a weird new world.

With Twitter, you tweet whatever passes through your brain as opposed to what you know to be absolutely true. It causes you to lower your ethics a bit, which isn’t good or bad – it’s just the reality of the interactive experience where you feel closer to the people than ever before. It’s all so informal and I continue seeking out that happy medium. I’ll tweet something I feel pretty good about, but won’t go too far as to back myself into a corner.

I’ll admit that in world where fans have lived on their computers, wearing out their F5 refresh button waiting on news, it’s not fair to give tidbits. Trust me, I wish I had the whole story – bot nobody does. As of Friday night, this is what I’ve heard:

– As I’ve said for the past few weeks, the number of actual people conducting the search is small, therefore only a handful of folks really know what’s going on. If I had to make an educated guess, outside out athletic director I’d say one Board of Trustees member (maybe Paul DiMare, father of former assistant ball coach and player Gino DiMare) and possibly a former player like Bernie Kosar. A small group is doing this search, which makes the possible sources for media members to harass very small.

– Of those in the know, a safe bet that anyone who does know something has been told to keep their lips sealed – especially after Grudengate. Kirby has insisted that this search be done way out of the spotlight so it also wouldn’t surprise me if certain things were put out there to test for leaks, in an effort to see who has loose lips as it’s very easy to track information back to its source.

Everyone keeps asking me for names and in all honesty, I don’t feel confident enough to throw many names out there. I had the Jon Gruden story, but since then it’s been tough. I will say this, the one name I heard tonight happens to coincide with the Herald piece above – Al Golden. What does that mean? Absolutely nothing.

I know it’s frustrating and I know in so many words I’m telling you that I don’t buy what my sources are selling.

I’ve been told Golden is in the final two, along with another. The Herald has Golden in the final three and also reported Connecticut’s Randy Edsall and former Cane assistant / current Montreal Alouettes head coach Marc Trestman in that mix. I haven’t heard that, but it obviously doesn’t mean that isn’t true.

I also believe there are some mystery candidates in the fold that we haven’t event thought about yet.

I learned tonight that the job hasn’t formally been offered to anyone, meaning that contrary to what some might believe, no one has officially turned UM down, so the thought process that Hocutt is ‘striking out’ is flat-out wrong.

I do believe that Miami is close to hiring the next head coach and we’re down to the nitty-gritty. There could be a hire this weekend or the early part of next week and I’m fine with that.

That’s all I have for now, but should anything change, look for more tweets or another write up here if warranted.

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