Barnett is Interested

[Cornpoke]

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CHEYENNE - A source close to Gary Barnett said Wednesday that the former Northwestern and Colorado football coach would be interested in the University of Wyoming coaching vacancy.

The source, which chose to remain anonymous, also said no one from UW's staff has contacted Barnett.

Efforts to contact Barnett were unsuccessful.

UW fired coach Joe Glenn last Sunday after six seasons and a 30-41 record. Athletics director Tom Burman said he hopes to hire a new coach as soon as possible, but he didn't put a time frame on the hiring process.

UW reportedly interviewed former player and current Nebraska assistant coach Ted Gilmore earlier this week, and also planned to interview Missouri offensive coordinator Dave Christensen.

"When the season ends, if an opportunity presents itself with a chance to advance your career, you look at it," Christensen told the Columbia (Mo.) Tribune. "But really, right now, my focus is on this game (No. 12 Missouri plays Kansas on Saturday).

"We've got three games left to play, and I certainly owe it to these kids and this program to put my focus on that."

All nine of Missouri coach Gary Pinkel's full-time assistants have been with him at Missouri since he took the job in 2000. That's the longest run among any of the 119 Football Bowl Subdivision schools (formally Division I-A).

Burman will not comment on specific candidates.

Barnett's career record is 92-95-2. He won two Big Ten Conference championships at Northwestern in 1995-96 and a Big XII Conference title at Colorado in 2001. He has been out of coaching since 2005 and currently is a college football analyst for Fox Sports Net.

The NCAA placed Colorado on probation for two years and fined it $100,000 in June 2007 for undercharging 133 student-athletes for meals over a six-year period while Barnett was the coach.

Barnett also was suspended briefly in 2004 at Colorado for events stemming from allegations of sexual misconduct by players.

UW is one of eight current Football Bowl Subdivision teams looking for new coaches. Two other Mountain West Conference schools also are without coaches - New Mexico and San Diego State.

Christensen's name is among reported candidates at New Mexico.

 

[MrTitleist]

Eeek. I have BAAAAD feelings about Barnett. That guy's got a lot of baggage, and we could really do without that kind of publicity.

 

[pokerupfront]

"Beggars can't be choosers"

An old saying that might ring true in this situation. Wyoming, considered by many as a coaching black hole, is in very poor position to get too picky IMO.

 

[Snowman_55]

Maybe - but I think Barnett would not go over with some people, especially since Wyoming has always been known to play by the rules. I don't think it would be in the best interest of the administration to higher a coach who a big group of fans may boycott.

 

[Fullback41]

The Wyoming job sounds a little more attractive than some of us think. Several top coaching candidates have expressed interest in UW but not the other schools in the MWC. I was talking to my dad yesterday and he said even the interim Head Coach, Dabo Swinney, out at Clemson was quoted in the South Carolina papers as saying he would like to get the Clemson HC job permanently but you never know what might happen, he could end up at Wyoming, or something to that effect. Maybe he was using us to put pressure on their AD, but he didn't mention NM, SDSU, Pac-10 schools.

I think there is interest by top candidates because they know we have the talent to be winning. I think anyone who watched the AFA, and CSU games would say we totalling dominated the first halves of those games and should have been up by a lot more at half time. If you let teams stick around it gets them pumped to think they can steal one, which they both did. Throw in UNLV and you have 3 games we should have won. Eliminate turnovers is the only thing the coach would have to do to have a winning record. We all know we have other weaknesses to shore up if we want to actually win a conf Championship, but winning and a bowl game isn't that far off.