Houston coach Kevin Sumlin has been continually mentioned as one of the frontrunners for the Kansas opening, but things have been pretty quiet on that end thus far.
This could help explain: On Thursday morning, the Houston Chronicle reported that Sumlin and Houston are close to agreeing to a contract extension. Houston athletic director Mack Rhoades called it “99 percent” done.
“Things are moving forward in regards to where we’re going to be and what where doing,” Sumlin told the newspaper. “I’m a football coach. I’m not a lawyer. The language that’s going to be in it, that has to be reviewed by my attorney and agent and we’ll see. I think we’re getting close to where we need to be.”
Sumlin seemed like a natural fit because of his ties to the Big 12 as an assistant at Oklahoma and Texas A&M and his recruiting contacts in Texas.
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Some other fodder relating to KU’s coaching search:
Who knows whether the results of Notre Dame’s search will affect Kansas’ search? But here are a few things to know. Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh is not a candidate according to the Associated Press, which spoke to Stanford athletic director Bob Bowlsby. Bowlsby said he confirmed that with Harbaugh’s agent and Notre Dame AD Jack Swarbrick. On the other hand, the Irish do reportedly have interest in Connecticut coach Randy Edsall, according to ESPN.com. Edsall, of course, was hired at UConn by KU AD Lew Perkins, so he has been mentioned as an obvious candidate for KU.
Perkins was in attendance at the UConn-Kentucky game Wednesday night at Madison Square Garden, but I would assume that he just wanted a break from the coaching search and wanted to watch a good basketball game.
Of the two coaches known to have spoken to Perkins – Buffalo’s Turner Gill and Ole Miss’ Houston Nutt – Gill is the one who could still be KU’s coach. Gill hasn’t addressed the interview publicly and appears to be in a holding pattern while Perkins looks at other candidates.
Other names that have popped up: East Carolina’s Skip Holtz and Central Michigan’s Butch Jones. We are trying our best to nail these down.