Louisville’s Strong To Arkansas? Not According To Him

The first rule of “I’m looking for another job club” is “Don’t talk about ‘I’m looking for another job’ club.”  Coaches lie and bend the truth when it comes to who they’re talking to and what jobs they might consider taking.  Athletic directors fib about who they’re speaking with as well.  They all have go-betweens and head-hunters and agents to provide them with plausible deniability.

So when you hear of a coach who says he’s happy where he is, well, you know what to do — ignore it.

That said, Louisville head coach (and native of the Natural State) Charlie Strong was asked by Jim Rome this afternoon, “If Arkansas calls, do you take that call?”  Strong’s response:

“These folks gave me an opportunity.  I tell these kids to be here, and then I leave?  I am not cut like that.  I am happy where I am.”

Strong is also in the middle of a football season and he’s busy on the recruiting trail.  There’s no better way to hurt a team or kill recruiting than by saying, “Sure, I’d talk to School X if they called me.”

Still the above comment is a pretty strong statement — no pun intended — for a coach to make.  Like Nick Saban’s famed remark — “I’m not going to be the Alabama coach” — this one will will be brought up again and again should Strong depart Louisville for Arkansas or anywhere else.

But here’s guessing Strong knows as well as most other coaches that Saban’s “lie” didn’t really hurt him too much in the long run.  Better to deny and deflect than to destroy your current job before you have to.