To cut to the chase:  There was no announcement--nor did I expect one at this presser.

But....I'd be absolutely amazed if TJ retained him, based on the presser (and insight from multiple insiders for months).

K has looked combative and pissed at press conferences since the Pitt game--this presser, he looked sad and bedraggled.

The questions at the presser were much more pointed.   Fred Cowgill was the first to ask a question about K's future. This was the answer he got:

“They gave Dan (Hawkins) another year at Colorado and I’m happy for him. I’ve won one less game than (Pittsburgh coach) Dave Wannstedt won in his first three years at Pitt, so I hope I get another chance to come out and be the coach. I want to coach these guys and I want to coach at Louisville."

I asked K point blank:  "I am a business owner.  When you sit down with your boss, and evaluate this season, what specifically are you going to tell him  to justify your continuing as Koach here?"

This triggered a rambling answer about how the players played hard, that he wanted to stay, his son was at Trinity one more yr, and his wife had done more charity work than anyone would ever know.

Those were the "specifics."  K emphasized the same dull meaningless point to other somewhat similar probing questions--that "he wanted to stay.   “I came here to settle down, put roots in the ground. I don’t want to move my family, I don’t want to move from here."

In fact, finally it was a bit pathetic--it sounded   like he was begging to stay.

He offered no specifics as to why he should be retained.  This Koach-speak, non-specific, and definitely non-statistic based reply was the best he could do:

“Obviously we’re not where we want to be, but as I talked about in the press conference on Monday, I think we’re headed in the direction we want to get back to and that’s competing for a Big East championship. We’re not far away and we have a lot of really good young players that gained a lot of valuable experience this year. The one thing about this team is that they continued to fight and they never gave up.... It’s frustrating for everybody, but I do feel like we’re on track. We need to get this recruiting class finished up because we have some really good players coming in. I’m hoping I get another year...I don’t think we’re far enough away where we need to make a change.”

In light of his declining record over the three years, if he can't do any better than this  in a meeting with Jurich, well, the man is going to be canned--period.

All of the players--Froman, Guy, and Tronzo-- stated they supported K, he was a good man, etc. ...BUT the players would be ready to play for "whoever" was coach next year.

I point blank asked Joe Tronzo (who touchingly broke down while saying how much it meant to play for his hometown school even though it had gone from Oranges to stink-fruit):  "6-6, then 5-7, then 4-8.  What would you tell your boss to keep your job. "   Tronzo just shook his head and said that he didn't know. Said he knew the bottom line was that you had to win.

K did say that he was "going to go on the road recruiting' in the next few days.  We'll see what TJ has to say about that shortly, I believe...

Frank