The overriding question at Florida State has changed from "Can the Seminoles get back into the national championship picture?" to "Will Jimbo Fisher be out of FSU's picture next year?"
The answers are no and ... who knows?
My guess is he could very well replace Les Miles in Baton Rouge. Your guess might be that Houston's Tom Herman will take over the Tigers, and Fisher will stay in Tallahassee until he's collecting Medicare.
Your guess is as good as my guess, but the guessing game is definitely on. Fisher saw to that at his weekly news conference Monday.
"I'm not talking about LSU," he said.
With those five words the purple-and-gold elephant officially plopped down in FSU's living room.
Fisher could have shooed it out with an unequivocal, "I am not interested and will not listen, much less accept any offers from LSU." But his parents apparently taught him that honesty is the best policy, even if it leads to three months of angst and scrutiny over a potential change of address.
Fisher might not listen directly to LSU, but you can bet his people will be talking to their people. That's reportedly what happened when Miles was heading for the guillotine last December.
Four sources told The Advocate in Baton Rouge that Fisher's representatives and LSU were negotiating. Before they got to carpet options for Fisher's new office, LSU power brokers decided to give Miles one more chance.
He blew it with this year's 2-2 start, so here we go again. Time to crank up the debate over which job is better and why Fisher would even consider making a switch.
After all the conjecturing, what it really comes down to is a lot of people trying to get inside one person's semi-balding head.
After 10 seasons in Tallahassee, is Fisher intrigued by a change of scenery for professional or personal reasons? Did seven seasons as an LSU assistant leave a soft spot for Baton Rouge?
You can count the people who truly know on one hand, and I'm not one of them. Chances are you're not either.
That certainly won't keep us from forming opinions. The difference is that unlike nine months ago, the LSU question won't be answered in a few days or weeks.
There's a lot of season left. It's hard to say when or if the speculation becomes the dreaded "distraction." I don't know if Deondre Francois will overthrow a receiver because he's worried about Jimbo getting his cable deposit back, or if a five-star recruit will put his commitment on hold.
I do know there are about 2,942 other things Fisher would rather deal with. Which gets back to that honesty thing.
Unless a coach truly has no interest in another job, there is no good answer when his name is linked to one. Fisher couldn't very well get up Monday and say he really misses crawfish etouffee and he'll keep us posted if anything develops.
He also couldn't issue the flat denial. FSU fans would be hurt if Fisher took another job. They would be incensed if he swore his allegiance to the Seminoles and then slithered into the bayou.
There's also the matter of money. Even if Fisher has no desire to leave FSU, it never hurts for the bosses to think he might.
He's parlayed that leverage into raises before, and I wouldn't blame him for doing it again.
But again, what do I know? What do you know?
All we know for sure is Fisher isn't going to talk about LSU. And as long as he doesn't, the rest of us surely will.
Sports on 09/29/2016