Spaulding Roundup: Walker Watch/Bizarre Recruiting Note

Couple of quick football notes to pass on this Thursday. For those who are on Walker/SDSU watch, Walker has his call back interview with the Aztecs yesterday. However, per Jill Painter of the Daily News, Aztecs may be looking at other options besides Walker and Franchione:

There's been a third mystery candidate for the San Diego State opening, and I'm hearing it's Ball State's Brady Hoke, who's expected to interview this week. Hoke has reportedly met with Auburn officials about its opening as well. A source said DeWayne Walker had his second interview today.
I'm also hearing that former Minnesota coach Glen Mason could be in the mix as well.
Indications are that the Aztecs are looking to move quickly on the coaching search and could hire a coach as early as this weekend.

I find it weird that Hoke is looking at both SDSU and Auburn. Those two schools are not exactly at the same level in the world of college football. Anyone else find that odd?

Interestingly UCLA had pursued Glen Mason back in December of 1995 when we were looking for a new coach following Donahue’s retirement. Mason was at Kansas back then and somewhat of a hot commodity (whose stock went up after beating Donahue’s UCLA (QBed by number 18) in the Aloha Bowl. Mason said no and went off to Minnesota to a fizzling career, while UCLA settled on Toledo. Anyway, Mason seems like a solid candidate for a program like SDSU. He has the track record of building a decent program and doing more with less at places like Kansas. Good luck to all of those candidates.

Second, a bizarre story from the recruiting front. Last Saturday, CRN and his staff were hosting a number of high profile recruits. One of them happened to a kid named Tyler Stockton (a 4 star blue chip DT/OG from Princeton, NJ) who had previously committed to Charlie Weiss’s unstable regime (I write that as a matter of fact not to take pot shots) in Notre Dame. Painter tells us what happened: 

The Hun School of Princeton (N.J.) defensive lineman Tyler Stockton was supposed to be at UCLA on an official visit this weekend, but it didn't happen after the player and his father asked the Bruins staff to schedule a layover in Chicago.
Stockton is committed to Notre Dame, and I'm told UCLA found it a bit more than odd Stockton and his dad wanted to stop in the midwest en route to Los Angeles.

Yeah, nothing shady about Mr. Stockton wanting to have a little lay over in cold and frigid Chicago (just a little drive away from South Bend), when he could have had a direct flight to beautiful and sunny Westwood. Nothing at all.

See you later Stocktons. Good luck to wherever you end up. Fantastic for CRN and his staff for not falling for this garbage move.

GO BRUINS.