Dealing with December's distractions

NASCAR calls it their “silly season.”

That’s a time when drivers are jumping from race team to race team in advance of the new season. It’s a time when stock car fans speculate who will end up where.

College football doesn’t seem to have an official name for the time of the season when coaches come and go.

For lack of something official, call it the “coaching carrousel.” It generally starts spinning each November and rewards new hires with multi-million dollar contracts — or those fired, expensive buyouts — both making the public gasp.

It’s a seemingly constant whirl of fact, speculation, rumors and maybe even a bit of truth.

Mike Leach to Houston? That just might give Wazzu fans something to smile about?

And for the first time, publicly at least, Eastern Washington’s head coach Beau Baldwin finds himself, like it or not, purposely or not, caught on the ride.

Ever since Baldwin led his 2010 Eastern team to the Football Championship Subdivision national championship, privately, many have wondered how long he’d remain in Cheney.

His seven-year run of success is phenomenal — the best in Eastern football history — with three consecutive Big Sky Conference championships, arguably usurping Montana, as the premiere program in the league.

What’s interesting is how the speculation tends to spiral out of control. But what else would you expect from the crushing need in today’s media to be exclusive, and first — but not necessarily correct?

The problem is rumor and innuendo further complicate a critical time for teams still playing football in December with needless distraction, much in the interest of deadlines and “breaking news.”

Baldwin and the staff are working hard to prepare for Saturday’s 1 p.m. quarterfinal match-up at Roos Field with Illinois State. He’d likely rather work on a playbook that gets the Eagles to the FCS’s final-four, rather than field questions about his coaching future.

Baldwin addressed “the craziness” of things in his weekly coaches show this past Monday.

“In this day and age, you’re going to have things, no matter what, out there in social media,” Baldwin said. “You may read a zillion things about this, that or the other, but we’ll always talk here as a team. It helps them kind of move on.”

Now, if this was 10 years ago and you heard something, “It would be more real because there was not so much (social media) stuff out there,” Baldwin said.

Baldwin’s name first surfaced on Montana’s wish list in a Missoulian newspaper story prior to the Grizzlies battle with Montana State. He politely declined saying that he’d not be interested in a relative lateral move to another FCS school.

When it was announced Dec. 4 that former EWU quarterback, and assistant coach, Jim McElwain, was hired away by the University of Florida from Colorado State, somehow Baldwin’s name became associated, locally at least, with the search.

Sure, there was a Baldwin in the mix, according to the Fort Collins Coloradoan newspaper, but that’s Dave, not Beau. Dave Baldwin, the Rams’ offensive coordinator, was elevated to interim head coach for CSU’s Dec. 20 Las Vegas Bowl contest with the Pac-12’s Utah.

But the Rams’ short list of 10 published in the Dec. 5 edition includes candidates with specific ties to CSU, plus a high-profile Football Bowl Subdivision name, recently fired Michigan head man, Brady Hoke.

This is not to say that Baldwin’s name might not ultimately surface in Fort Collins, but currently it appears to be unfounded speculation and is certainly curious.

With the surprise hiring of Oregon State’s Mike Riley by Nebraska, Baldwin’s name does show up in a story from Andy Cripe of the Corvallis Gazette-Times.

But the need for offense comes well down the line behind shoring up the Beavers’ shoddy defense, Cripe contends, suggesting, “USC defensive coordinator Justin Wilcox needs to be (athletic director Bob) De Carolis’ No. 1 target.”

EWU athletics director Bill Chaves brought Baldwin on board in 2008 to replace Paul Wulff who ventured into the Cuisinart challenge of trying to turn around the decades-old no-win situation at Washington State.

He spoke of the protocol, or lack thereof, when it comes to hiring college coaches in today’s world.

“I think that there’s some sort of a thought out there that you go and kinda’ ask permission,” Chaves said. “It happens to some degree but I think part of the world that we live in, as far as the industry that we’re in, we understand that there’s going to be movement.”

When and if the time comes for Beau Baldwin to stay put or move on for those greener pastures, it will take more than tweeting, a social media post or simply wild speculation to let the world know.

Look for it to be as well thought out as pulling a touchdown-producing fake punt out of the playbook.

Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaney@cheneyfreepress.com.