White spent
Saturday evening/night in Thompson Boling Arena watching Rick Barnes’ team fall to Missouri 73-64. White and Chancellor Donde Plowman visited with various donors and fans. White was seen having an extensive conversation with the Haslem family.
While we don’t believe White was on the road Saturday that doesn’t mean he wasn’t working the coaching search. White has obviously been in discussion with the Parker Group who has been vetting out candidates and gauging interest in the job.
Sources say White has been given the green light to spent big money for the job. The question is, who will listen?
West Virginia’s Neal Brown has said he’s not interested according to reports. There have been rumblings about Minnesota’s P.J. Fleck. It was reported by Football Scoop that he was being vetted out along with Sonny Dykes. Dykes is a name we noted in the war room on Friday but right now it just seems to be a vetting process to see who’s interested.
Would someone like James Franklin, who we mentioned in the power hour on Friday, be interested? We believe the Parker Group will find out. Same for Cincinnati’s Luke Fickell. There will certainly be others as well. We even have been told someone like Mario Cristobal could be a target but we haven’t been able to confirm that.
The other question is will some big names really listen or will they use Tennessee for leverage at their current job.
In talking to people, we know that White likes and has a great deal of respect for Tony Elliott at Clemson and there’s been some kind of dialogue there whether it’s with the Parker Group or with White.
Will White be on the road on Sunday is the million dollar question or will be be in Knoxville to watch the Lady Vols play Kentucky
at 2pm.
We know White wants to go quickly in this search and while he wasn’t on the road on Saturday there was work being done. The question is when does he get on the road and get in front of someone face to face.
White certainly wants news on his search to be scarce.
