Boom goes the search

So I hit the hay early and get up late for the first time since the search started, and of course all hell breaks loose.

Wait, that didn't convey it properly: ALL HELL

Let's hit the highlights, quickly:

1. As you know, Fox10 reported that Will Muschamp will be announced as Auburn's head coach sometime today. As you probably also know, the paywall sections of the Interwebs later exploded with disputations of that report, including quotes from Muschamp himself to that effect.

JCCW reax: I'm detecting the same strong, strong aroma of FAIL from this report we got from that Arkansas TV report last year that said Tubby had bolted. My guess is that Auburn reached out to Boom-Boom one more time to gauge his interest, Muschamp responded in some fashion or another, and the telephone game winds up with "Will be announced Friday." Either that, or Sexton is taking his cat-and-mouse games with the media even further than usual.

2. WSFA reports that Steve Spurrier is, essentially, at the top of Auburn's list and could be the Tigers' next coach, though wording their report carefully so as to offer nothing definitive. Spurrier later issued a statement that there's "nothing to that" in a tone which one could fairly describe as "mockery."

JCCW reax: There's too much smoke here for me to assume Spurrier hasn't at least chatted with Fail Jacobs and the Powers that Be--so it's not coming, as he claims, "out of nowhere"--but this still seems like an fairly strong denial to yours truly for someone who was truly interested in the job. A job, of course, it never made sense for him to be interested in in the first place.

3. This is the real news of the day: Jacobs and a few members of the inner circle took a plane trip to Fort Worth to not just speak to Gary Patterson, but do it in person. Jay G. Tate was waiting on the tarmac when they returned and was denied comment. This: is big.

JCCW reax: Given that there hasn't seemed to be any real forward movement on Gill for the last several days, Gary Patterson is your new front-runner, ladies and gents. As such he'll be getting the full Coachapalooza treatment later in the day, but until then, the gut reaction: meh.