PJ Fleck Now a Betting Favorite to Land USC Job

By    |  
Updated:
Photo: Getty Images

It took mere moments for Minnesota Gophers’ head coach PJ Fleck’s name to be attached to the now vacant University of Southern California head coaching job earlier this week. That’s going to happen every time a helmet school job opens. Fleck is known as a top up-and-coming coach and he’s at a school that nobody respects as a last-stop job.

Soon after the internet became bored with articles and blogs about top candidates, sportsbooks answered the call with odds to attach to each of them. Gopher fans breathed a sigh of relief when they saw PJ Fleck in the middle of most betting boards at around +1000, usually landing him somewhere between 4-6 best odds by most outlets.

But now, the situation has had a couple days to settle down. And unfortunately, PJ Fleck has been working his way up the oddsmaker ladders. BetOnline is a top-3 sportsbook worldwide. They currently have PJ at +650 to land the USC job, behind only Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator, Eric Bieniemy (+600).

Concern?

There’s a lot of time left in the USC head coaching search. Alarms aren’t ringing yet but you have to wonder why these numbers have moved the way they have. Does Vegas know something we don’t? Have some of these coaching candidates already displayed a certain amount of interest (or disinterest) behind the scenes?

These are some red flags that are worth keeping in the back of your mind. Fleck gave his weekly press conference on Monday morning, before Clay Helton was fired, and hasn’t had to face questions yet publicly. That’ll change next week because I’ll ask if someone doesn’t beat me to it.

Eric Strack | Minnesota Sports Fan

Mentioned in this article:

More About: