Kansas University football coach Mark Mangino took a break from recruiting Tuesday in western Kansas to clear up what quickly snowballed into national news.
Reports surfaced Monday that unidentified people claiming to be affiliated with Notre Dame contacted Mangino’s attorney about the coaching vacancy. None were official representatives of Notre Dame, Mangino said, and probably were boosters or fans.
The reports quickly made their way to national radio because of the job, which became vacant when the school fired Tyrone Willingham last week.
Mangino dismissed the talk Tuesday.
“I can’t control rumors and what other people say about me,” he said. “I haven’t talked to anybody about any jobs, and I don’t plan to talk to anybody about any jobs. I’m at KU to build a Top 25 program, and that’s what I’m going to do.”
KU athletic director Lew Perkins was out of the office Tuesday and unavailable for comment.
Mangino is 12-24 in three years at KU, his first collegiate head-coaching job. His inexperience and lack of initial success in the win column makes him an unlikely candidate to be the next coach at Notre Dame, a school with 11 national titles.
Notre Dame originally pursued Utah coach Urban Meyer, a former Irish assistant, to fill the vacancy. But Meyer picked Florida instead.
That opened the floodgates for spicy rumors, and Mangino appears to have been thrown into the fire.
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“I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck the last few days,” he quipped.
