Skip Holtz mad-Libs!

Well if you overdosed on ambien and missed the past couple of days, you'll be glad to know that Skip Holtz will meet with Darryl Gross tonight.

First off, i love the ticker on espn last night, it said
"ECU head coach Skip Holtz to meet with Syracuse AD Darryl Gross about coaching position, ESPN's Lou Holtz Reports."

Nice journalism Lou, who else to cover but the contreversy surrounding your own son. brilliant.
Need i remind him too that his son has a bowl win in the past 20 years.

And so without further Adieu, i give you a fine skip holtz mad lib, using an actual post-standard article. Y'all better respond now, ya hear?


The orange sweater is (a word indicating how often) the dead giveaway
by (your name)/The Post-Standard
Monday December 08, 2008, 11:41 AM

(place) -- The ice (noun) on my snow (noun) broke yesterday. And while I'm riding (noun) last night, my windshield wiper (verb) off. So where were we?

Time to take stock of the (plural noun) one more time.
East Carolina head coach Skip Holtz is (verb ending in -ing) to Syracuse University director of athletics (name of idiot) today in New York City.

(noun) continues to point in his direction as the guy closest to being named the next head (sport other than football) coach at Syracuse.

The other (plural noun) as best I can tell are Buffalo's Turner Gill, New Orleans Saints offensive (job) Doug Marrone and Temple head coach Al Golden.

I know Golden put out a (noun) about not (verb ending in -ing) the (noun), but that's a smokescreen. The guy wants the (noun). This is not to (verb) Temple, but that school is located in a (verb), (verb) neighborhood and is a difficult place to (verb) recruits. What Golden has done there is (adjective) and it's why he's a (adjective) candidate. It's likely Golden got wind he was not Syracuse's top candidate and did what all coaches do in these situations - say (derogatory word) publically to save (noun) and protect (noun). Same thing happened at Washington with Mike Leach and Pat Hill.

Golden is a tremendous (noun) and apparently had a terrific (noun) with Gross. If there's a concern, it's that he's a CEO type and defers to defensive and offensive coordinators.

Unlike the first search four years ago, Gross has been heavily (verb ending in -ing) anyone with a Syracuse pedigree. That's why he's spoken to Marrone, UConn head coach Randy Edsall, Minnesota Vikings assistant Kevin Rogers ((verb) by Donovan McNabb), University of Florida assistant Steve Addazio (backed by the Rob Konrad group) and New York Giants offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride (backed by Tom Coughlin). He also interviewed Eagles assistant Mark Whipple on the recommendation of someone within the Big (noun) Conference.

Sometimes, I wonder if Gross in covering his political and logistical (plural noun) hasn't been looking at the possibility of building a staff around a central CEO figure like Marrone or Golden. Maybe he spoke to some of the other coaches in the process about (noun) positions.. It's why they're probably secondary candidates behind Holtz and Gill, who have head coaching experience. Maybe Daryl did get star-stuck a bit with Chip Kelly and the (adjective) offense at Oregon, but his critical criteria all along was to hire someone with head-coaching experience.

I know Daryl (verb) Illinois offensive coordinator Mike Locksley early in the process. If he wanted to (verb) Locksley, he would have (verb) him the job a long time ago. He's interviewed so many coaches since, Locksley got the message. He's apparently going to be hired as the head coach at New Mexico.

If you're trying to handicap this a little, try and put yourself in Daryl's (article of clothing) this morning. His job is absolutely on the line as he makes this selection. If the pick doesn't work out, he probably won't survive as (job). Do you trust your job with Marrone or Addazio, who don't have head coaching experience? Or do you trust it with guys like Holtz and Gill and the (plural noun) of their work at East Carolina and Buffalo?

If you subscribe to the position that it's Holtz and Gill as finalists, ask yourself if one (noun) is safer than the other? Is one bolder than the other? Who do you like? Are there other schools involved with Holtz and Gill that could upset the process and force Syracuse to move on Marrone, Golden or Addazio?

As we follow this along, you certainly get the sense we're at the end of the (noun) here and Gross will make his decision this week. It could move very (adjective) based on how things go today between Holtz and Gross.

Thanx for all the emails and notes from readers. I do appreciate them. I've also gone to share that I got today from a blog reader here in Syracuse. She reports her mom (verb) in Greenville and (verb) the Holtz family. Scuttlebutt there is that (supermodel), Skip's wife, recently purchased an orange (article of clothing). Leave it to the fashion gumshoes to break this story. The orange (article of clothing) is a dead giveaway every time.