After Rich Rodriguez was fired by Michigan back in January, the expectation was that he would take a year off from coaching and return to with a head coaching job in 2012. His name has been thrown around for a number of openings, including Tulane, Maryland (before he was even fired by Michigan) and, most recently, Arizona.
The Arizona football job has been open since Mike Stoops was fired in October. The Wildcats got off to a 1-5 start, and the decision was made to make a coaching change. Since then several names have been floated as possibilities to fill the vacancy, but nothing has come to fruition. That may not be the case this time around, however. From Bruce Feldman:
Expect Rich Rodriguez to be named the next Arizona head coach in the next 48 hours according to sources.
Joe Schad and Football Scoop are reporting similar things about Rodriguez being tabbed as Stoop's replacement. At this point, it looks like Rodriguez is headed to Arizona, where he will look to turn around the Wildcats' program in the Pac-12.
I'm sure many Michigan fans are still quite bitter over Rodriguez's three years in Ann Arbor, but I wish him well in Arizona and hope he succeeds with the Wildcats. He was ultimately responsible for not getting the job done at Michigan, but he took a lot of unnecessary heat along the way, as chronicled in Three and Out.
If Rodriguez can find a dynamic quarterback to lead his spread offense and keep his hands off the defense, I think he can be very successful at Arizona.