FanHouse Jeff Jagodzinski

For an NFL coach, the final week of the preseason is a time to tinker. To take care of your nagging little housekeeping items. You watch the borderline guys battle it out on special teams and you make your final roster decisions. You pick a No. 3 quarterback. You catch up on the last couple of episodes of "Hard Knocks." You fire your offensive coordinator.

Wait. What?

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers fired offensive coordinator Jeff Jagodzinski Thursday, marking the second time that Jagodzinski has been fired in 2009 -- without coaching in a single meaningful game. It's also the second time this week that an NFL offensive coordinator has been fired, following the dismissal of Chan Gailey in Kansas City.

Jagodzinski spent the last two seasons as Boston College's head coach, but he was fired early this year after he interviewed for the New York Jets' head coaching job against the wishes of the BC athletic department. He didn't get the Jets job, but new Tampa Bay head coach Raheem Morris hired Jagodzinski as the Buccaneers' offensive coordinator shortly after.

Texas Tech football coach Mike Leach is seeking a contract extension. The university is open to giving him one. However, the end result of their negotiations could be Leach getting fired.

Yes, you read that right. A coach with a 76-39 career record, coming off an 11-2 campaign that saw his team in the midst of national championship talk in November, could lose his job. Why? Because it appears schools are sick and tired of watching their successful coaches flying all over the country to interview for jobs they perceive as better than the one they have.

Last month Boston College drew a line in the sand with coach Jeff Jagodzinski, firing him because he interviewed for the vacant head coaching job with the New York Jets. Many people in and around college football thought the BC administration had gone too far, but the folks at Texas Tech liked what they saw.

As the Buccaneers continue to assemble their coaching staff, the team has announced the hiring of Jeff Jagodzinski as offensive coordinator. If you'll recall, Jagodzinski was the head coach for Boston College the past two seasons until he was fired for interviewing for the same job with the New York Jets. He didn't get the job, was fired from Boston College, and began interviewing for other jobs around the NFL -- including with San Francisco for its offensive coordinator position.

Jagodzinski, 45, has eight years of experience as an assistant coach in the NFL, including one year as offensive coordinator with the Green Bay Packers in 2006.

A week after firing Jeff Jagodzinski for interviewing with the New York Jets, Boston College has found its next head coach: Longtime Eagles assistant Frank Spaziani, who served as Jagodzinski's defensive coordinator the last two years.

Spaziani, who has been at Boston College since 1997, is apparently being rewarded for his loyalty to the school -- loyalty that Boston College Athletic Director Gene DeFilippo thought Jagodzinski lacked.

Say what you want about the Boston College athletic program, but know this: when the administration threatens to fire you, they're not just blowing smoke. On Sunday, MDS pointed out that BC football coach Jeff Jagodzinski was notified by the school that if he interviewed with the New York Jets about their head coaching vacancy, he wouldn't be welcome back in Chestnut Hill.

Well, Jagodzinski met with the Jets, and today, as promised, BC athletic director Gene DeFilippo canned him. But before you get all weepy for Jagodzinski, he'll be fine.

While he is not considered a lead candidate for the Jets' post, he appears eager to get back into the NFL and might have some options with the Seattle Seahawks if he is passed over in New York.

Jagodzinski worked with new Seattle coach Jim Mora Jr. when in Atlanta and he also coached quarterback Matt Hasselbeck when he was the offensive coordinator at BC.

See, all's well that ends well. At least for Jagodzinski. While I have no idea if he wanted out of Boston College, his actions suggest that he was looking to get Marty Schottenheimer-ed. And that's exactly what happened.

As for the Golden Eagles, they'll move quickly to find Jagodzinski's replacement, although it looks like Mark Whipple, thought to be the front-runner for the gig two years ago, ain't even in the conversation this time around. Somehow this is Ben Ben's fault.

Jeff Jagodzinksi, the current head coach of Boston College's football team, is, according to the Boston Globe, about to get fired at a press conference today because he chose to interview with the New York Jets, despite the team's insistence that he would lose his job for such an action. Even if they do not actually can Jago, there's still going to be a press conference to "discuss [the] football team and its coach." Update: They did indeed fire Jagodzinski.

Jeff Jagodzinski will be fired as the Boston College football coach this morning in a meeting with athletic director Gene DeFillippo, according to sources close to the program.

After meeting with the New York Jets yesterday in New Jersey regarding their opening for a head coach, Jagodzinski called DeFilippo last night, setting up a face-to-face meeting this morning. They will finalize the details of his termination in the meeting. Jagodzinski has three years remaining on the contract.

This isn't that huge of a surprise, I suppose; you can only have so many publicly scrutinized people playing a game of chicken before someone gets in a wreck.

At the same time though, it was a pretty bold move on Jagodzinksi's part to pull on the interview if he wasn't completely confident he would get the job. That being said, Gene DiFilippo only comes off looking worse if the outcome is termination, so he should probably be able to land on his feet elsewhere soon enough if the Jets gig doesn't come through.

The hottest new trend of 2008 and 2009 appears to be a diseased athletic department. See: West Virginia, Rich Rodriguez, and Bill Stewart or Auburn, Tommy Tuberville, and Gene Chizik. You can add Boston College to the list, too, as they've declared they'll fire Jeff Jagodzinski if he dares to interview with the Jets.

In a word: bats. Jagodzinski has been good, not great in his two years as BC's head coach. He's highly unlikely to get an NFL head coaching gig off the back of a Music City Bowl loss. But he's been successful enough for Boston College to hope there's some later date at which he'll have the resume for an NFL head job. So you're basically firing a guy good enough to get interviewed by the NFL but not good enough to get hired, which is the exact profile of coach you should be looking for at a school like Boston College.

Add in the strange departure of Tom O'Brien, who made an at-best lateral move to NC State for no apparent reason, and you've got the makings of a power-mad or incompetent athletic director with no idea how to maintain stability at his program. One incident is strange. Two is a trend.

How are you going to hire a promising replacement when you've just fired a coach for daring to interview somewhere else? How are you going to recruit when you're on your third coach in four years and the previous two left suddenly? You won't, and you can't.

Congratulations, Gene DiFilippo: you've managed out-dumb the rest of the country in a year in which a special teams coach from Mayberry and a 5-19 Iowa State coach were hired.

Boston College coach Jeff Jagodzinski is scheduled to interview for the New York Jets vacancy on Monday. But if he's going to go through with that interview, he'd better be very confident he's going to get the job. Because Boston College is threatening to fire him.

Chris Mortensen of ESPN reports that Boston College athletic director Gene DeFilippo told Jagodzinski that if he interviews, BC would fire him and promote offensive coordinator Steve Logan to head coach. But Jagodzinski will apparently go through with the interview anyway.

It's not clear whether there's anything in Jagodzinski's contract that prohibits him from looking elsewhere, but this is an attempt by Boston College to say that it would rather find a new coach than keep a coach who views the school as a stepping stone.

If Jagodzinski does get fired, he'll find work elsewhere, even if he doesn't get the Jets job. He was a well respected NFL assistant for several years with the Packers and Falcons, and he's won 20 games in his two years as head coach with Boston College. But the work he'll find elsewhere won't necessarily be a better job than his current gig. So Jagodzinski has a tough decision to make by Monday morning.