In his latest Stanford coaching search update, the Mercury News' Jon Wilner reports that, best he can tell, there are five candidates to replace Jim Harbaugh.
Three of the candidates--Vic Fangio, David Shaw, and Greg Roman--were linked to the job as soon as Harbaugh left for the NFL. The fourth candidate, according to Wilner, is former Stanford linebacker and Yale head coach Tom Williams. Interesting.
The former Rhodes Scholar candidate has done good things in his two years in New Haven, leading the Bulldogs to a 7-3 record this season after a 4-6 record in his first year at the helm. Williams played for Jack Elway, Dennis Green, and Bill Walsh while at Stanford before starting his coaching career as a graduate assistant. He worked under Walsh, Ty Willingham, Rick Neuheisel, Dick Tomey, and Jack Del Rio, among others, en route to his first head coaching gig at Yale. You may recall that he was an assistant at Stanford from 2002-2004 under fellow Ivy League head coach Buddy Teevens and considers Teevens his biggest coaching influence. (I'm just kidding about that last part. I think.)
The fifth candidate is a mystery. Wilner, who makes no mention of Stanford special teams coach Brian Polian, says it could be Oregon State head coach Mike Riley or Willingham. I'll throw Mike Leach and Teevens into the mix just for fun. Feel free to add your own mystery candidates in the comments. The possibilities are endless.