RENTON, Wash. -- Forget Jim Mora and the Washington Huskies.
The Seahawks' head coach in waiting said he is not interested in the coaching position at Washington, ending both his silence and rampant speculation.
"I am not a candidate for the University of Washington coaching vacancy," Mora said in a written statement handed out by a Seahawks spokesman on Friday afternoon. "I wish the university well with their search and the program nothing but sustained success in the future."
Mora is a former Huskies linebacker who began his coaching career at the UW as a graduate assistant under Don James in 1984. He has already signed a contract to succeed Mike Holmgren as Seahawks coach beginning in 2009. The deal is believed to be worth almost $5 million annually.
Washington (0-7), one of two winless teams in major college football, fired coach Tyrone Willingham on Monday effective at the end of this season for being 11-32 in three-plus seasons.
Speculation on a replacement immediately centered on Mora because of his ties -- and because of a radio interview a few years ago with a friend, former Huskies quarterback Hugh Millen, in which Mora made an offhand remark about Washington being his dream job. But he made that statement before becoming Holmgren's heir apparent and before Washington sank to historic lows.
The Seahawks stayed silent, wanting Mora's signed contract to replace Holmgren to speak for itself.
Yet Washington officials, inadvertently or not, were fueling the rumors by not declaring Mora was off-limits. University president Dr. Mark Emmert and athletic director Scott Woodward would only say they would not talk about who they may be pursuing.
Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press
