Rice still waiting

I found it quite interesting to hear that Jerry Rice Jr., the son of the future Hall of Fame receiver who set pretty much every receiving record during his brilliant NFL career, visited the Yale campus a couple months back.

Rice appeared to be a long shot to leave the west coast to play in the Ivy League when I first reported about his visit and while that still seems to be the case, it is intriguing that the star at the Menlo School in Atherton, Calif. has yet to pick up a scholarship offer from the Pac-10 school. It should be worth noting that the last story I saw on him stated that Cal and UCLA are looking at Rice, a talented receiver prospect who was named the utility player of the year in California's Peninsula League as a senior, as a preferred walk on while Arizona, Stanford and Washington State have also expressed interest but not enough to offer him a scholarship. His only scholarship offer thus far has come from Air Force. On the site for the All-American Bowl which Rice will play in on Friday, Yale is mentioned along with Cal, UCLA, Stanford and Arizona. Of the 88 players on the rosters for the All-American Bowl Rice is one of three players who lists an Ivy League school among the colleges under consideration and the only player on the West squad. Receiver Anthony Curto out of Clifton Park, N.Y. lists Princeton and Georgetown while defensive back Mike Giresi from Westerville, Ohio has Penn along with Villanova, Pittsburgh and Purdue as schools he is considering. The game will be played at 5 p.m. on Friday at Coastal Carolina's Brooks Stadium and will be televised live on Fox College Sports.

Now back to the most popular subject regarding Yale football these days - the search for a new coach. I consider this to be the calm before the storm with so few people on campus between Christmas and New Year's. Expect the interview process to pick up steady after the holidays. I will be very surprised if a new coach is not in place by the time Yale holds its annual awards banquet and named the 2009 team captain next month. Then again, the early word was that a new coach would be in place by Christmas and we all know that hasn't happened.

The Yale coaching search is going national as an item appeared on SI.com site under "Campus Clicks" touting recently fired Romeo Crennel as the perfect candidate. Something tells me Eric Horowitz was being a bit facetious. Speaking of coaches with NFL experience, those who were hoping to see Dick Jauron return to Yale as the Bulldogs' head coach will not get their wish as reports out of Buffalo have Jauron returning as the Buffalo Bills' head coach. The way things are going in the NFL these days, it might save time reporting which coaches are not being fired rather than detailing the ones who are. Denver's Mike Shanahan is the latest one to go, making him the fourth head coach let go since the end of the regular season.