Spaulding Roundup: Latest Non-Drama Around Chow & Malcolm Jones Excitement

Well let's see what we have here. So the San Jose State Spartans are on the market for a new head football coach.  Jon Wiliner from the San Jose Mercury News wrote up a post couple of nights ago speculating who the Spartans might be interviewing for the gig and throwing out names in the mix. Well he threw in Coach Norm Chow's into the mix upon the suggestion of San Jose State alum Steve Clarkson:

Yep, the quarterback guru is interested in SJSU, according to former Spartans quarterback Steve Clarkson, who has known Chow for years.

"The one thing he hasn’t been, is a head coach,’’ said Clarkson, one of the top quarterback tutors in the game. "When you’re that creative, you want to give it a shot.’’

Whether Chow would accept the job if offered and whether SJSU would offer are differently matters entirely.

"You have to build with a quarterback, so you need somebody with a proven track record of developing quarterbacks,’’ Clarkson said, "and that’s Norm."

Yeah, okay. Sure. As CAJason80 noted Clarkson is hardly an unbiased source. So, when one read this story, he or she should have taken with grain of salt before running with it. Well, that didn't stop Adam Maya, the Trojan shill from the OC Register (who was earlier exposed this season for pimping a BS facebook attack on Rick Neuheisel) from running a breathless blogpost with the headline "Chow To San Jose State?"

All that excitement among Maya and his fellow Trojies were quashed by the end of the day yesterday with the following post from Chris Foster in the LA Times (emphasis added throughout):

UCLA offensive coordinator Norm Chow said he has no interest in the San Jose State head coach job.

Spartans Coach Dick Tomey retired, and the San Jose Mercury News reported that Chow is on the preliminary list of candidates. But Chow said he has not been contacted by San Jose State officials and intends to remain at UCLA.

But wait! There is more!! "Just to clarify" Jon Gold from the Daily News got in touch with his UCLA contacts and got the following response:

When asked about filling the coaching vacancy at San Jose State, I'm told Norm Chow just laughed. He's not interested.

Looks like Maya and his Trojie cohorts will have to look for another angle to hit Neuheisel to push for that "Neuheisels program is falling apart" narrative. Idiots. More on Chow and some other thoughts/notes after the jump.

Why would Chow leave his current gig with a Pac-10 program for a HCing job at WAC? Does anyone really think at this stage of his career when he has one of more highly visible coordinator position in BCS conferences and living with his family in Southern California, he would leave all that for a non BCS conference job? I'd understand if it was a position involving University of Hawaii (where he could truly go home) or a high profile head coaching position at another BCS program.

At this point of his career, my gut tells me that Chow will finish out next two years at UCLA before moving on.Yeah, lot was made this year out of the drama around Prince and Brehaut. Yet, as CRN noted to Ted Miller little more than a week ago, he has an "outstanding" relationship with Chow:

I think our relationship before and after is outstanding. We didn't agree on that. Norm has been up-front with me all along that he thinks that Kevin Prince is our quarterback and that Richard shouldn't be forced in there before he is ready and so forth. I was of the mind that Kevin needed to have a different perspective and see it from the sidelines and realize that when you're in there, you have to be ready to be in there, and that Richard, because we were playing him his freshman year, needed more chances to mature. I think both philosophies are right. I really do. I think you can make arguments for both. Since I had my hand over the top of the handle of the bat at the end, I got my way. But I certainly respect Norm Chow's opinion on quarterbacking. I think he is as advertised as an offensive coordinator. I love working with him on a daily basis.

I still LOL at all the people who were pushing that "OMG! Chow and Neuheisel disagree!!" storyline fully expecting Chow to be a bobbing offensive-coordinator robot (like the lapdogs roaming around Petey's sidelines). Given the experience both Chow and Neheisel have, of course it is totally reasonable to expect they will have disagreements from time to time. It happens all the time when intelligent individuals work together on issues where they have similar background experiences. From what I see is two coaches working together and finding common ground despite occasional differences, and then get behind it. From what I have seen, so far so good.

Given that our offense took encouraging steps forward this season, I think it's a good bet that he feels encouraged about the on going developments in our football program and wants to follow through with the rebuilding project he undertook with CRN two years. Oh and CRN is working to bring more offensive toys for Chow in Westwood. Case in point we have Malcolm Jones, the Oaks Christian running back, who was just named California Gatorade Player Of the Year. Jon Gold wrote up the story:

Now that Jones was named Gatorade state Player of the Year after a 1,989-yard, 34-touchdown season, Redell (Bill Redell, Head Coach of Oaks Christian High School, BN Ed.) knows he was right about that first glimpse.

"I couldn't have said he'd be state player of the year, but you recognize it right away," Redell said. "The first scrimmage his freshman year, I remember telling a college scout, "You better offer this kid a scholarship right away if you're smart. You could just tell early."

Redell saw in the UCLA-bound running back/linebacker a seriousness, a non-nonsense dedication to football that has served Jones well. Jones has become a force on both sides of the ball for the Lions (12-0), who face Cathedral of Los Angeles in a Northwest Division semifinal game Saturday.

As I said, why would Chow leave Westwood to toil at some WAC school when he will have opportunities to coach kids like Jones, James and other talents Neuheisel and his staff are working so hard to reel into into UCLA.

Only Trojan shills and Neuheisel/UCLA haters anxious to see Chow move on from UCLA, will push that kind of laughable storyline whenever any faint or remote possibility of it appears in the traditional media. I am sure this will not be the last time we see it. Expect Maya and his ilk to grind away and churn out more nonsense in the future.

GO BRUINS.