The Terps fired DJ Durkin on Halloween, and Ka

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By the late afternoon of Week 11 Saturday , there were only two Power 5 head coach openings: the jobs at Maryland and Kansas. nsas fired David Beaty (effective at the end of the season) days later. Durkin and Beaty lost their jobs for drastically different reasons. Durkin lost his because he was credibly found to have built a culture that made players fear to speak out for their own safety (and, more directly, because of massive public backlash after Maryland power-brokers decided they didn’t care that much and wanted to keep Durkin anyway). Beaty lost his job because Kansas has been exceedingly terrible over four seasons in charge. On Saturday, a report connected Durkin with Kansas. Rivals reported Durkin wasn’t a candidate but had talked with AD Jeff Long about the job: It’s totally believable that Durkin, a recently fired head coach, would reach out to the only athletic director currently looking for a coach at another Power 5 school. I don’t have any reason to doubt that reporting. But a Durkin hire won’t happen, because ...Long was unusually public about distancing Durkin from the job, though.First, without naming Durkin: Then , not subtly at all: A coach (or agent) and an AD talking informally about a job wouldn’t be surprising at all, but there are a few reasons to believe Long’s suggestion that Durkin won’t get anywhere close to the Kansas job.The most obvious and biggest one: Durkin just lost his job in disgrace a week and a half ago, after he was a primary subject of a damning 192-page investigative report. Another one: Durkin’s getting more than $5 million in buyout money from Maryland, so he doesn’t have to take a job right now. His Maryland contract doesn’t include a duty to look for other work to offset the buyout, not that he’d need to take this job even if it did. And another: Durkin’s coached all over the Midwest, Southeast, and mid-Atlantic, but he has no experience in or around Kansas — most notably not in Texas, where any KU coach needs to do a really good recruiting job to succeed.Durkin makes no sense for Kansas, and Kansas doesn’t even make much sense for Durkin. It’s safe to rule this out as a fit.Also , Long doesn’t follow Durkin on Twitter, the truest measure of whether someone’s a candidate for this job or not. Get all caught up in one convenient spot."WhiteFanposts Fanshots Library FalcFans Podcast on The FalcoholicContact The FalcoholicFalcons StoriesScheduleRosterStatsYahoo Falcons NewsYahoo Falcons Team PageYahoo Falcons ReportYahoo Falcons Depth ChartYahoo Falcons TransactionsYahoo Falcons PhotosOdds About Masthead Community Guidelines StubHub ✕Falcoholinks: All the Falcons news you need for Thursday, Mar. 28New,5commentsGet all caught up in one convenient spot.EDTShareTweetShareShareFalcoholinks: All the Falcons news you need for Thursday, Mar. 28Geoff Burke-USA TODAY SportsIt’s Thursday which is kind of a mini-Friday, so start it off by diving in to today’s edition of Falcoholinks.Seeking Stability The Falcons brought in offensive guard Jamon Brown as a new bodyguard for quarterback Matt Ryan, but will he truly be the answer at a position that’s been a weak spot since Harvey Dahl? Allen Strk ponders that question as he breaks down the tape on one of Atlanta’s new faces. MOOOOOOOOCKSThere are some brand new mocks on deck for today’s Falcoholinks — and they all focus on the Falcons’ biggest area of need: the trenches. Dan Kadar’s latest mock draft for SB Nation sees Atlanta snagging a couple of ACC standouts, and Mel Kiper’s third mock brings a brand new, never before seen name to the Falcons in the first (just kidding). Peter Schrager, NFL sideline analyst and co-host of Good Morning Football takes a different tack in his latest , seeing the Falcons take a highly-touted offensive lineman.Best Laid Plans The NFL’s annual meeting is currently underway, and there’s already been one major rule change to come out of it. The league has announced that it will implement a new rule in 2019, allowing the official review of pass interference calls and non-calls. While that’s a move in a positive direction (as Julio Jones would certainly tell you), the NFL has a way of consistently shooting itself in the foot. Dave Choate expounds on that in his latest column, one that concedes the NFL has got it right — but will inevitably get it wrong in the long-term.Progress?New contracts for Julio Jones and Grady Jarrett are tops on the priority list for the Atlanta Falcons, and while he has zero ability to manipulate the cap number, owner Arthur Blank has signaled that the Falcons are making progress on both fronts. In his own words, Blank said he expects Jones and Jarrett to be “Falcons for life.” Take from that what you will, but when the guy who signs the checks is optimistic it usually bodes well for hoped-for outcome — which is Julio Jones and Grady Jarrett playing their careers in red and black.

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