Is Price right for Cougs?

The rumor persisted virtually all of Washington State's football season, subtext to the general downturn in WSU's fortunes:

Mike Price.

Could he? Would he?

Should we?

Now it has become more brushfire than isolated spark. Price, who just ended his fourth season at Texas-El Paso, is issuing non-denial denials but mostly staying out of the media crosshairs. Reliable backchannels say he's interested in succeeding Bill Doba.

By itself, that's intriguing.

For those of you who don't gawk at the supermarket tabloids on your way through the checkstand, here's the short version: Price, in late 2002, announced amid Rose Bowl preparations he was taking the job at Alabama.

Before he coached so much as a game, he had a lamentable, tawdry night with a stripper in Pensacola, Fla., and got fired. Sports Illustrated piled on with a sensationalized, shoddily reported story.

Price is believed to have won somewhere in the neighborhood of several million dollars in a settlement with SI — important not only to him, but perhaps to WSU's view of him today.

As WSU lurched through the 5-7 season that resulted in Doba's ouster, an assumption took hold — that Price cashed in enough not to need to coach again elsewhere. In other words, he's set for life.

In Lee Corso's words: Not so fast.

If the WSU job holds allure for Price, perhaps there's another motive buried within him. Maybe it's merely to position one of his coaching sons, Eric or Aaron, for the head job one day, a la Dick and Tony Bennett.

Maybe it's the way he left five years ago. Or maybe it's simply home, the place he and a lot of other people feel he should never have left.

At any rate, there's something to suggest Mike Price might take the whole sequel thing seriously at Washington State, rather than just be edging himself to within 80 miles from his vacation home on Lake Coeur d'Alene.

Of course, there are all sorts of thresholds Price, 61, has to negotiate.

Age? Four months ago, he had a stent inserted in his heart to replace a blocked artery and has said he feels revitalized.

Dues to UTEP, which rescued him from the professional dumpster? I think four years fulfills that commitment.

What about the reality that these reunions often don't fly? It has been good for Mike Riley at Oregon State. But John Robinson rode roughshod at USC from 1976-82, going 67-14-2 with a national title. Robby II, from 1993-97, turned up less motivated, less in touch and author of a 37-21-2 record. When his last two teams went a combined 12-11, he was cashiered.

On his way to becoming an NFL icon, Bill Walsh went 17-7 in two years in the late '70s at Stanford. When he returned from 1992-94, he had morphed into a 17-17-1 coach, losing badly the last two years.

In Price's favor, his time away — five years — is a lot closer to Riley's (four) than to either Robinson's or Walsh's.

How to know? That's why they have athletic directors and search committees.

There are at least two other hurdles. Virtually every new coach comes aboard with a clean slate, owing to the fact little is known about him. Price has ready-made detractors, from people who questioned his tactical skill to those who witnessed his 3-21 Pac-10 record immediately after the 1997 Rose Bowl season.

And then there was his exit to Alabama. Price insisted on coaching the Rose Bowl game and jousted with then-WSU president Lane Rawlins over it.

"That just made it kind of messy," Price told me two years ago, "which I could never understand, why people didn't want me to coach, to give us the best chance to win. I'd given my blood for 14 years. ... Gesser [quarterback Jason Gesser] would have just freaked out if I wasn't on the sidelines."

Still, the Cougars should have stood firm. They should have bid Price adieu and moved on, whatever the logistical headaches. Today, there's a school of thought that says Price would need to make amends for that awkwardness.

Now there's a new sheriff, uh, president, in town, Elson Floyd, and athletic director Jim Sterk has a reputation for making creative hires.

If they don't know this, they should: In 30 seasons of the Pac-10 Conference, Price's achievement of taking the Cougars to two Rose Bowls in six years is one of the most jaw-dropping, mind-blowing feats imaginable. He did it without cheating.

Now they've got to determine whether the fire still burns within Mike Price. If it does, their decision just got harder.

Or maybe very easy.

Bud Withers: 206-464-8281 or bwithers@seattletimes.com