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For Iowa State, their next football coach was obvious. All they needed to do was send a dump truck full of money to Turner Gill's office in Buffalo and the former Nebraska quarterback would be Iowa-bound. It didn't work out that way, though, as Gill signed a contract extension with Buffalo on Tuesday.

That makes ISU athletic director Jamie Pollard's job about 30% harder, which means it's now Impossible + 30%. You can tell the stress is getting to him. He hasn't yet started calling Gene Chizik "a great big lying poopy-pants" but it sure seems like he wants to. And now he the obvious guy is off the market.

Of course, if Pollard's got a sense of humor at all, he's already been in contact with Tommy Tuberville's agent. Tubs might not like Ames winters, but he's known to have a mean streak. What better way to get back at Auburn than to take Gene Chizik's players and put up a better record than the Golden Boy? All he has to do is win four games to exceed Chizik's best season.

While that would be triple-distilled awesome, I don't expect it to happen. But where will Iowa State find its next coach?

As we reported yesterday, Iowa State head coach Gene Chizik interviewed this week for Auburn's head coaching vacancy.

There's a little more to report now; apparently, he's headed back to the Loveliest Village on the Plains, as he will be Auburn's next football coach. Des Moines TV station KCCI confirmed that Chizik got on a commercial flight to Memphis, and Auburn has sent a plane to Memphis.

Chizik leaves the Largest Village in Story County after two seasons with a 5-19 record. Auburn just finished a 5-7 season. Do the math; the season that got Tommy Tuberville fired had as many wins as Chizik's entire career.

As you might expect, many in Alabama are questioning the wisdom of hiring a coach fresh off a 10-game losing streak. As you might not expect, some in Iowa are questioning the same thing. There are now two athletic directors burning new ulcers in their stomachs. Auburn's Jay Jacobs knows he's got one heck of a selling job in front of him if he doesn't want to see the booster money dry up like a Slim Jim left in the back window of a '93 Corsica. But his problems are nothing compared to ISU's Jamie Pollard.

Way back in September, Syracuse athletic director Daryl Gross all but declared his head football coach to be a dead-man walking. In the course of which, he infamously stated that when Syracuse made the inevitable coaching change, "we'll get the first pick of the draft."

That did not work out as expected. Instead, Tennessee, Clemson and Washington jumped the queue and made hires. Then Syracuse found itself competing with Auburn as well for Turner Gill, and top choices were rejecting the overtures.

So, Syracuse after going with a defensive coordinator that had never been a head coach, had primarily spent his time in the NFL, and had no recruiting connections in the Northeast in Greg Robinson makes the very similar call. They hire the New Orleans Saints offensive coordinator, Doug Marrone.

Marrone had been in the NFL since 2002. Despite the title, he hasn't actually call the plays for New Orleans. He does, however, excel at coaching up the offensive line. Most of his college coaching experience (1994-2001) was in the ACC and SEC, not the Northeast.

On the bright side, he played for Syracuse in the 1980s and is from New York. Plus, he actually wanted the job.

As for the reaction from Syracuse fans...

While everybody else was wondering if Will Muschamp was actually going to be Auburn's next head coach, there has been a development involving another former Auburn defensive coordinator. Iowa State athletic director Jamie Pollard has confirmed that Cyclone head coach Gene Chizik has had talks with Auburn, and apparently they weren't talking about the weather.

Chizik just finished his second season in Ames, where has has now compiled a 5-19 record. This year's Cyclone team beat only a single I-A squad all year and didn't win at all after the first Saturday in September.

And he interviewed at Auburn? Apparently so. Was it the the 27-point win over South Dakota State that caught their attention, or was it the two-point loss to Kansas?

Truthfully, Iowa State might be the crappiest job in any BCS conference. The in-state talent pool is thinner than an Olsen twin and has to be shared with Iowa. The only way to win is by doing serious shots of Jucomeister. Fortunately, junior college football in Iowa is excellent, but still. The odds are seriously stacked against any coach wearing the cardinal and gold, which just proves what a genius Dan McCarney really was. Is there any meat to this?

You know, for a program that had announced back in mid-November that they were looking for a new coach, Syracuse has really struggled to find someone, anyone to take the job. First Al Golden would rather stay at Temple than consider the Syracuse gig (though, that may not be entirely true). Now East Carolina's Skip Holtz has apparently rejected the Syracuse overtures.

East Carolina officials will announce later this afternoon that Skip Holtz has declined interest in the Syracuse University head coaching position.

The announcement is expected shortly before Holtz appears in Memphis for the Liberty Bowl press conference.

This is a big blow to Syracuse's coaching search. All signs pointed to Skip Holtz being the top target of Syracuse athletic director Daryl Gross. He met with Holtz at least twice in New York City the last couple of days, when Holtz was there for the induction ceremony of his father Lou Holtz to the College Football Hall of Fame. A couple days ago, the Syracuse blog Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician took note of a curious video running on the Syracuse Athletics website of Lou Holtz singing the praises of his son.

Just not a good thing for the Orange. Whether Holtz was the best choice or not, it seems clear that he was their top choice. Getting rejected on top of the dismal season, and after they had plenty of time to figure out their coaching search just suggests how screwed up Syracuse football is right now.

On the bright side, Auburn hasn't offered their job to Buffalo's Turner Gill yet. The Orange might want to move on that front soon. Of course if they were to be rejected by the head coach of Buffalo as well...

If you follow the coaching carousel at all, you already know the name Mike Locksley. He's been on everybody's "coordinators to watch" list for a couple seasons now, and he's been connected with almost as many jobs as Lane Kiffin and Will Muschamp.

Well, Ron Zook's offensive coordinator is headed to the Southwest. Monday, the University of New Mexico named him as their new head football coach. Locksley was due for a head coaching gig. While Illinois football this year had all the consistency of failed custard, the Illini offense got the job done. Locksley is also known as a top-notch recruiter, which had to please Paul Krebs, the Lobos' sheriff.

Locksley's hiring increases the number of African American head coaches in the Football Bowl Subdivision from three to four. To put that in perspective, before yesterday one-fortieth of FBS programs had an African American head coach; now, one-thirtieth of them do. That's progress, but it's still a drop from the start of this past season, when we were all the way up to one-twentieth.

Time will tell how this move works out for the Lobos, but Locksley has a solid resume. The real question, however, is "What does this mean for Illinois?"

The rumor today on the coaching carousel was that Boise State head coach Chris Petersen was heading to Mississippi State. This was an early rumor since the Mississippi State athletic director, Greg Byrne worked at Oregon at the same time that Petersen was an assistant coach there. The rumor gained "legitimacy" when an Idaho TV station (KVIV-TV) started reporting an posting that Petersen had been offered a four-year, $9 million deal.

Then Boise State and Chris Petersen issued a statement.

"I have a lot of respect for director of athletics Greg Byrne and the Mississippi State athletic program, but I am not taking the head coaching position at Mississippi State. Mississippi State has not offered me the head coaching position. I normally do not comment on coaching positions at other schools, but felt I needed to do so in this situation. We are very happy here at Boise State and look forward to our upcoming bowl game later this month."

That tanked the rumor and KVIV completely changed the story -- scrubbing any reference to a contract offer in the story. (No one appears to have a screen shot, but at least a couple sites had linked to the article and cited it as mentioning the contract length and money.)

It seems very likely that Petersen is indeed staying at Boise State. At the very least, he is not taking the Mississippi State job. The Bulldog job just does not fit Petersen from a geographic profile. With the exception of one season as the QB coach at Pitt in 1992, the California native's history is all based on the West Coast and Boise.

News of Washington's head coach search been crawling along the bottom of ESPN since yesterday. First it was Texas Tech coach Mike Leach withdrawing his name from consideration for the position. Then, earlier today, Fresno State's Pat Hill pulled his name from consideration. At that point, it was clear someone else had been tabbed for the job. That someone would be USC associate head coach and offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian.

Washington's athletic director, Scott Woodward, had an impromptu meeting with the media shortly before the Oklahoma State-Washington basketball game. He neither confirmed or denied anything.

Once inside the workroom and surrounded by reporters, Woodward said, "We do not have an announcement to make. We're not going to talk about it until I have something to talk about."

Asked specifically about ESPN's unattributed crawl report that USC assistant Steve Sarkisian has been hired, Woodward responded coyly, "I haven't seen it."

Down in Los Angeles, Sarkisian also refused to confirm. He admitted to having the interview, but nothing else. It is expected that Washington is waiting until after the USC-UCLA game to make the announcement.

Meanwhile Norm Chow has to be wondering what it will take to get an offer with Lane Kiffin and now Sarkisian getting head jobs at BCS schools.

Maybe Al Golden is just really loyal to the Owls. Or maybe it's a message to Syracuse of just how far they have fallen.

"Syracuse asked for permission to speak with Coach Golden, and it was granted," said Temple Director of Athletics Bill Bradshaw. "However, Coach Golden has indicated that he is not interested in pursuing the position."

Ouch. It's not like Syracuse hasn't been suffering enough the last few years. Now the coach of a team kicked out of the Big East isn't even interested.

On the other hand, this could be about Golden looking at a bigger brass ring. The Penn State alum has long been mentioned as a possible successor to Joe Paterno. He might think that possibility is getting closer than ever. Or he could be eyeing the Virginia job. The former 'Hoo defensive coordinator had to notice that Al Groh was not getting the additional year on his contract after this season.

Both jobs might be available in the next year or two. Golden just might be waiting a little longer for a better opportunity.

If there's a tougher job in the Big 12 than being the head football coach at Iowa State, I'd sure like to know what it is. Gene Chizik just finished his second season in Ames, and it wasn't a good one. The Cyclones won but a single game over a Division 1-A Football Bowl Subdivision opponent, and didn't win at all after September 6.

That's the sort of outcome that could lead a coach, even a relatively new one, to make some drastic changes, and that's what Chizik did yesterday. Chizik fired two coaches and demoted both his coordinators. Gone are quarterbacks coach Tony Petersen and secondary coach Shawn Raney; offensive coordinator Robert McFarland will now coach the offensive line and serve as associate head coach, while defensive coordinator Wayne Bolt will coach ISU's linebackers.

it's not like the Cyclones got blown out in every game. They took Kansas and Colorado down to the wire but couldn't finish them off. Of course, Kansas finished 7-5 and the Buffs wound up 5-7. The Clones also lost to Baylor and Nebraska by four touchdowns. They lost to Oklahoma State and Missouri by, uh, more than that. Clearly. something drastic needed to be done.