ESPN Reporting Cutcliffe is "Done Deal"

ESPN.com's Chris Low is reporting that Cutcliffe to Duke is a lock and that an introductory press conference will occur on Monday. The above report was revised from an earlier report on SportsCenter that described the hiring as a "Done Deal" and said that an announcement could come as early as Tonight.

However, we called Duke Sports Information Director Art Chase, who said that the reports were "not true." Additionally, Duke President Richard Brodhead told the News & Observer this afternoon that the job is still open as of today.

It remains to be seen how this will turn out, but the preponderance of reports makes us think that the odds are pretty large that Cutcliffe is the man.

Our friends over at The Blue Zone have just posted some interesting commentary about a Cutcliffe hire.

Search Committee Members Revealed

David Glenn must have one hell of a source. In his most recent WRAL blog post, he reported the six members of Duke's search committee—names that Duke AD Joe Alleva has repeatedly refused to divulge. The six are:

1) Univ. Trustee Roy Bostock

2) Athletics council chairman and Pol. Sci. Professor Michael Gillespie

3) Athletic Advisory Board Chair Leo Hart

4) Univ. Trustee C.G. Newsome

5) Psychology Professor Martha Putallaz

6) Univ. Exec. VP Tallman Trask

As the Chronicle reported last week, Trask accompanied Alleva and President Richard Brodhead to the Washington area to visit with Navy HC Paul Johnson, so his presence as a member of the search committee makes sense. Bostock, Hart and Newsome are all former football players, and Newsome is the lone African-American in the group.

Glenn's report also cites sources saying that there is significant internal argument about whether Rick Neuheisel should be included as a candidate, based in large part on his checkered compliance record.