The Firing Line: Leach Among Candidates at Washington

“The Name Game” at Football Rumor Mill focuses on active coaching searches around the country. The latest edition centers on the Washington Huskies…

Coach Mike Leach and the Huskies? Don’t laugh. Word on the street is Leach is ready to get out of Texas Tech and would be highly interested in the UW job. The bigger issue is whether Washington would be interested in him. Its last experience with sort of a nontraditional coach got them a sweater-vest-wearing, job-coveting, NCAA-pool-playing guy, five weeks in a courtroom and the loss of a couple of million bucks for it. – Seattle Times

As the coaching dominoes begin to fall, the highest high and the lowest low of the profession are just miles away from each other in Seattle. On the low end, you have Tyrone Willingham, fired Monday by Washington, at 0-7, in the midst of what will no doubt be the worst season in school history. On the high end is Jim Mora, Seattle Seahawks assistant head coach, signed to replace Mike Holmgren as head coach next year for $4 million a year for five years but mulling overtures from Washington, his alma mater. Mora hasn’t said a word all week, leading to speculation that he will indeed listen to the Huskies, for whom he played linebacker from 1981 to 1983 and where he may find more security. No. 2 on Washington’s wish list reportedly is Missouri coach Gary Pinkel, a Huskies assistant from 1979 to 1990. However, Pinkel is from Ohio. He wouldn’t be coming home, and he has finally closed the recruiting border around Missouri. He has it going. Fired Raiders coach Lane Kiffin and USC offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian have expressed interest. However, a more realistic option may be Boise State coach Chris Petersen or Texas defensive coordinator Will Muschamp. – Denver Post

Seattle Seahawks assistant coach Jim Mora insists he has just one focus right now, even though many Seattle football fans are wondering whether Mora is taking a serious interest in what’s happening a few miles away on the University of Washington campus. Three days after Washington fired head coach Tyrone Willingham, effective at the end of the season, Mora spoke briefly Thursday, although he did not address the raging speculation about his possible interest in the Huskies’ job. Mora was allowed to talk on condition he only discussed the Seahawks’ secondary. When asked why he wouldn’t take questions about the Washington job, Mora, who has a contract believed to be worth almost $5 million annually to become the Seahawks head coach next season, held firm. – AP