John Frierson of the Chattanooga Times Free Press reports that the Tennessee-Chattanooga head coaching search is down to three candidates, and Georgia running backs coach Tony Ball is not one of them. Frierson notes that athletic director Rick Hart met with Ball last week to discuss the position.

Though Ball is a UTC alum, you can’t fault him for balking at a head coaching position at a school where support for the football program is very shaky.

Interesting tangent – one of the finalists for the UTC job is Hugh Freeze. If you read the book The Blind Side, you might recall that Freeze was Michael Oher’s high school coach in Memphis and followed Oher down to Oxford where he ultimately became recruiting coordinator. He’s been the head coach at NAIA Lambuth University for less than a year after he was released by new Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt.