Coaching Rumors Roundup 12/1: Bill Clark out of the picture

Happy December! Georgia Tech still doesn’t have a coach, which means there are still plenty of rumors going around!

The big news today is that Bill Clark has signed a contract extension with UAB, meaning that there is officially no chance that he will be Georgia Tech’s next head coach. Clark got his start as a head coach in 2013 with Jacksonville State. He’s more well-known, though, for becoming the head coach at UAB the year before the team’s hiatus. He remained there after the football team returned and has had an incredibly successful two years since. In those two years, Clark has led the Blazers to a 17-8 record with two bowl appearances.

There are two interesting bits of information here. The first is that Georgia Tech did not reach out to the Los Angeles Chargers to arrange the interview with offensive coordinator Ken Whisenhunt. The other note is that if Whisenhunt ends up getting hired, he would not start the job until after the end of the season. That being said, I find it that much more difficult to believe that Whisenhunt is a serious candidate for the job.

Another bit of news regarding Whisenhunt was reported yesterday. Not traveling to Atlanta this weekend for an interview this weekend shouldn’t be surprising at all. Todd Stansbury will be busy this entire weekend with the College Football Playoff. That means the interview happened sometime today or will happen sometime after the Chargers play Sunday night.

Every year, the coaching carousel runs rampant, and every year, coaches come out and say that they don’t want to be a distraction and won’t let the carousel distract them. I wouldn’t read too much into this.

SB Nation released its rumors roundup yesterday, but there wasn’t much in the way of Georgia Tech news outside of Whisenhunt interviewing this weekend. The interesting note was that there is massive amounts of interest in the job.

There were some talks of people being interested in UGA defensive coordinator Mel Tucker moving over to Georgia Tech to take on the head coaching job, but those can officially be laid to rest. It looks like he will be named Colorado’s head coach following the SEC Championship Game tonight. He will replace Georgia Tech alum Mike MacIntyre.

Update | 12/1, 1:40 p.m.

It looks like Mel Tucker to Colorado is not quite confirmed yet. I expect this is just a formality and that an announcement will be made early next week. It’s interesting, though, that Colorado felt the need to make a statement on Tucker.