Purdue Appears to Have Offered Butch Jones
By Chris Bains
This coming Brendon Murphy who seems to work closely with Purdue Boilermakers athletics:
Like the Kentucky offer, or any offer really, this isn’t surprising. Rumors have been swirling since early this week that Purdue has reached out to Butch Jones and there is even evidence of a flight being made between Lafayette and Cincinnati. At this time of the year, and with his success, we all should be expecting other programs to inquire about the UC head coach. He’s won football games and runs a clean ship. Those are about all athletic directors need to know about him before extending an offer.
11.29.2012 Update: Sounds like Brendan is the only one reporting that an offer has been extended but Cincinnati’s own Casey Weldon seems to refute the claim. According to him Purdue appears to have expressed interest in the UC head coach but haven’t officially extended an offer.. yet.
The million dollar question: Would Butch Jones accept it?
Two weeks ago, there’s not a doubt in my mind he turns down this job. With the Big East on the verge of a massive media deal and Cincinnati football on the rise, Purdue seemed like a lateral move and a difficult job in which he could succeed. Since the Louisville and Rutgers defections, now I’m not so sure.
Butch is an honest, down to Earth man. I expect he will not make an announcement until after Cincinnati’s final regular season game with the UConn Huskies this Saturday and might not reveal his plans to anyone outside of his inner circle until then. That includes the players and most of his co-workers around the Lindner Center.
Once again we’ve returned to wait and see mode. How fun.