CBS: Fleck Won’t Talk to UC Even as P5 Jobs Disappear

Despite being highly sought after by the brass at Cincinnati, P.J. Fleck might not even be willing to talk about the job. CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd reported that Fleck is only interested in a power five job, meaning a program in the SEC, ACC, Big 12, Big Ten or Pac-12. Unfortunately, UC is not a member of any of those conferences.

In the report, which is rather terse concerning UC, Dodd also cites a UC representative as saying “P.J. is not in play here.”

Of course, if Fleck is holding out for a power five job, he may be running out of time and options. Just yesterday, Temple’s Matt Rhule was hired as the head coach at Baylor and early this morning, news broke that Oregon would be snagging USF’s Willie Taggart to replace recently fired Mark Helfrich.

That’s three American Athletic Conference coaches who have cashed in on success in the league to land a power five job, including Tom Herman who left Houston for Texas. Plus Jeff Brohm took his talents to the Big Ten to coach Purdue, meaning the list of power five jobs available is much shorter than it was even 24 hours ago.

Its certainly possible that Fleck is happy to stay at Western Michigan for longer and wait for a power five job, particularly one in the Big Ten since he grew up in Illinois and has previously been on the staff at Ohio State (as a graduate assistant) and Rutgers, although before it was a Big Ten program. As for his current standing, with the Broncos 13-0, ranked in the AP poll for the first time in program history and slated for a date in the Cotton Bowl, he clearly has something special going at Western Michigan. Maybe he’ll just bide his time and keep building a contender in Kalamazoo. We’ll see.