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Nebraska stunned the Pac-12 football community Thursday with the hire of longtime Oregon State coach Mike Riley.
But was it almost the hire of longtime Utah coach Kyle Whittingham?
The Lincoln Journal Star reported after Riley's hire that a source said Nebraska athletic director Shawn Eichorst met with Whittingham on Wednesday.
It's unknown whether he was offered the job. Whittingham and Utah athletic director Chris Hill declined to speak to The Tribune about the report, and an attempt Thursday to reach Eichorst was unsuccessful.
Then, Friday morning, Football Scoop mentioned Whittingham along with 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh, Tennessee's Butch Jones and Boston College's Steve Addazio as a potential candidate for Michigan's head coaching vacancy.
Hard to believe that, three months ago, some were wondering if Whittingham would be on the hot seat.
Whittingham's contract expires in 2016, and now — following an 8-4 regular season and Utah's first-ever winning Pac-12 record — would be a natural time for Utah to extend his deal.
Hill's policy is never to discuss contract negotiations or other schools' requests for permission to speak with his coaches. So, whether it's an extension or an exit, we may not see it coming.
Hill may also field some calls about Utah defensive coordinator Kalani Sitake.
Sitake has a reputation as one of the West's finest defensive coaches and recruiters — having established networks in California, Utah and Florida.
His importance to Utah's program may be hard to overstate, and it's natural that his name has entered die-hards' conversations about open jobs at UNLV, Colorado State and Oregon State.
It's also worth noting that with BYU's Bronco Mendenhall (a former Oregon State player) and Utah State's Matt Wells (a former Tulsa assistant) both thought to be on the radar at old haunts, Sitake may be near the top of either school's list of replacements, especially since he played at BYU, and expressed interest in the Utah State job when Gary Andersen left for Wisconsin.
Or, what if his current boss left for Ann Arbor, and he were promoted?
Sitake, per Utah's policy for assistant coaches, was not available for comment.
Bowlward bound
Utah's most likely bowl destination is the Las Vegas Bowl, on Dec. 20, but it does not yet feel like a sure thing.
This gets a little complicated, so stay with us:
Assuming Arizona and Oregon will both be tabbed for the so-called "New Year's Six" bowls — a scenario Pac-12 bowl organizers are treating as a given — the Alamo Bowl will likely select UCLA, followed by the Holiday Bowl taking USC and the Foster Farms Bowl choosing Stanford.
On deck: the Sun Bowl. In the hole: the Vegas Bowl.
Sun Bowl executive John Folmer told The Tribune on Friday that in the event the Sun Bowl draws Notre Dame from the ACC's pool (independent Notre Dame acts as an ACC team for bowl purposes), it would rather invite Utah than Arizona State, which already played Notre Dame during the regular season.
The Sun Bowl has a 1 in 3 chance of landing Notre Dame.
So, there's a 33 percent chance Utah goes to El Paso, and not Vegas, right?
Folmer feels that way. But it may not be that simple.
In Folmer's scenario, the terms of the Sun Bowl's contract with the Pac-12 dictate that it can't select ASU, at 6-3 in conference, over 5-4 Utah. The Pac-12 confirmed to The Tribune that there is no contractual provision that would allow the Sun Bowl to choose a Pac-12 team with a lesser conference record to avoid a regular-season rematch.
To that, Folmer (ironically, a former ASU player under Frank Kush) said the Sun Bowl would try to work something out with the conference to pass over the Sun Devils for the Utes.
If the conference forced the Sun Bowl's hand, organizers would take the regular-season rematch of ASU vs. Notre Dame, rather than pass up the exposure that comes with the Fighting Irish to pit Utah against another ACC team.
And Utah would go to Vegas.
— The Tribune's Kyle Goon also contributed reporting
Twitter: @matthew_piper