Copied and pasted from news on Will Muschamp and Troy Calhoun...
Volquest ($) and The Sports Animal are among others reporting that David Cutcliffe has elected to stay at Duke this morning. It is believed that this makes Tennessee 0-3 on their primary options, and the search now continues. It is also believed that one of the factors that caused problems between Cutcliffe and the Vols was Cutcliffe's desire to bring his entire assistant coaching staff with him from Durham; Cutcliffe was loyal to his assistants at Ole Miss in what many believe was a move that led to his removal in Oxford after one losing season.
So...
Kippy Brown becomes a very real safety net; Mike Hamilton, who is feeling increased pressure by the hour, stated earlier that he wanted to have someone in place as early as today and no later than Sunday. The Vols will have a handful of recruits in this weekend, and while Bruce Pearl and Pat Summitt are assisting with the weekend, Tennessee needs a football coach. And of course, Tennessee needs the right football coach...and it's clearly become very difficult to make the right guy happen in four days.
The collection of names that were being talked about the most late last night were Kyle Whittingham (Utah), Randy Edsall (UConn), Kevin Sumlin (Houston), and Derrick Dooley (Louisiana Tech). There's some noise on Lovie Smith (ex-Vol assistant) of the Bears this morning, but nothing substantial.
And so we wait. And we hope.