The latest Twitter rumor is that Alabama assistant Jeremy Pruitt is interviewing for FSU's defensive coordinator position and may even be the favorite.

For a number of reasons this rumor has me a bit dubious. Not least of which is that we're talking about (a) a guy that has not been a coordinator on the college level; (b) a guy that has three years total college coaching experience; (c) his college coaching experience has been with the 3-4 defense; and (d) this is a critical hire for Jimbo both because he turns over the defense completely to the defensive coordinator and because Jimbo is entering his 4th season as coach, traditionally a sensitive time in a coach's tenure.

But maybe I'm missing the bigger picture.

Then I remembered something about the last time Jimbo hired a defensive coordinator: the Sal Sunseri rumors. A quick Google search confirmed that just a few days before Jimbo actually hired someone else, sources started popping up claiming that Sal Sunseri was the leading candidate for the job. Like Pruitt now, Sunseri was an Alabama position coach at the time. In fact, Sunseri wasn't the leading candidate and obviously he wasn't hired. It actually later came out that Jimbo called Bud Foster and asked Foster to take the job if Jimbo wasn't able to land Mark Stoops. So it appears that Sunseri wasn't even the second leading candidate last time - if he was a candidate at all.

My recollection is that Mark Stoops didn't show up on a lot of "hot boards" last time around. This is not to say that the Hot Boards being floated aren't correct this time, and I am certainly not predicting whether Jeremy Pruitt will or will not end up being named defensive coordinator. But given how things unfolded last time, it is probably a good idea to take the rumors, especially rumors of an Alabama position coach being a leading candidate, with a good grain of salt.

Taking an "I'll believe it when I see it" approach is the way I'm leaning at this point.