Mark Stoops will be the next Kentucky Wildcat Football Coach. Could James Coley be OC?

The rumors are flying around Kentucky’s search for a new head coach, and everyone seems to have a source. First we’re all told its Bobby Petrino, then Sonny Dykes, then Butch Jones. Then news breaks that Jones is out, then he’s back in, then he’s been offered a job, and now he’s declined Tennessee and Kentucky. It’s really enough to make a UK football fan’s head spin.

Last week, CBS broke news that Kentucky had interviewed Florida State Defensive Coordinator Mark Stoops, which hit most of us out of left field as he wasn’t considered one of the favorites for the job at that point.   Then, Florida State Head Coach Jimbo Fisher came out and denounced these rumors right away. We’ve been doing some digging and following up  here at the WBN and there seems to be a little more to this story than we originally thought.  Throw in the fact that a FSU Blog is doing the whole “no big loss if Stoops goes to Kentucky” post and you can see this is a buzz in Tallahasee.

In a series of text messages with a source (I know everyone has one, but we have them too), it appears that Stoops is in fact Kentucky’s guy and the details are being worked right now. While this isn’t exactly news, as others have indicated Stoops is the favorite, this guy had an interesting addition.  According to him, the plan is for Stoops to bring FSU’s offensive coordinator James Coley with him.

A recent article published by the Orlando sentinel may indirectly validate this information.  Jimbo Fisher is the offensive play caller at FSU and has openly indicated that he intends to relinquish these duties in the near future and may look to hire someone to take play calling over (like an offensive coordinator essentially). The only problem is that Florida State already has an offensive coordinator in Coley, who’s held the position since Fisher was promoted to head coach. This obviously can’t sit well with Coley and may be the reason that he is interested in moving with Stoops, a defensive coach.

Just to repeat how out of left field this will seem to the casual observer as CBS mentioned the 10 biggest names to watch for coaching changes today and Stoops was not even mentioned,

There seems to be some validity to the current rumblings regarding Stoops’ hire and the addition of James Coley could not only sweeten the deal from a coaching standpoint, but would immediately give the team a top recruiter. All this considered, there is still no confirmation from either Kentucky or Florida State of anything, so we are forced to continue relying on anonymous sources. As much as we hate to do the “we have a source” route, when you look at the other scenario’s and the Sentinel article, it starts to connect the dots a bit.   With Florida State’s upcoming game, Kentucky fans should not expect any announcements on Stoops or Coley until early next week, as FSU is in the Championship game, although there are Twitter rumors that Stoops will be in Lexington today.