The whole scene has just felt off since the EB. John has been noticeably quiet. It’s entirely plausible that an internal struggle was raging at that point.
I’ll say this for John: Though this timing and the “exploring firing JM” headline aren’t a good look, if this is him stepping up and basically telling Dr. Keenum that he deserves the opportunity to lead the program Keenum hired him to lead, good for John. If Keenum is micro-managing, then good on John for calling him on it and forcing the issue. Honestly, this has that feel, though you’ll (hopefully) never hear that said.
If I’m John, I’m using the entire bowl prep and performance (or lack thereof) as a nice, fresh picture of the culture problem in the program. On top of fight-gate, we had players suspended for part of the bowl game for academic issues...again?! Seriously? That should appeal to Keenum’s sense of pride in his university, if nothing else does. Maybe John’s working harder than most of us give him credit for. And God bless him if he is, because the work starts in earnest after you pull the trigger on JM. Now you have to hire a new coach...in January. That’s enough to make a man want to just take a pass for another year.