The good thing about Louisiana-Lafayette being 10-2 and days away from its second straight Sun Belt Championship appearance is... being 10-2 and days away from its second straight Sun Belt Championship appearance. The bad thing is people outside Lafayette tend to notice such a thing, particularly when your program is led by a 40-year-old first-time head coach.
Billy Napier is a person of interest in the Ole Miss search and would be a natural choice to succeed Mike Norvell at Memphis in the event he takes the Florida State job -- and could even serve as a fall-back option in Tallahassee should Norvell's candidacy fall through. Additionally, he could factor into the Arkansas search if some bigger names pass.
Norvell earns $2.66 million at Memphis, the second highest school-funded salary in the Group of 5, while Napier makes $875,000 at Louisiana-Lafayette. While that figure does represent the highest salary in the Sun Belt, it's less than 40 percent of what Memphis currently pays Norvell. Obviously, any SEC school could exponentially increase Napier's current salary.
It's the job of any AD to avoid being caught flat-footed in the event their head coach leaves for a bigger job, and sources told FootballScoop Wednesday that ULL AD Bryan Maggard has been working to prepare himself for Napier's departure.
Despite the depth of coaching talent on Napier's existing staff, sources expect Maggard to target an external candidate if and when Napier does leave. The sources also expect Maggard to use Napier's roster and his best-in-the-conference salary to make the biggest splash possible.
As always, stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.