Well, at least there is finally some substantive news on the coaching search.

We had not only the formation of the advisory committee today but also some of the first solid information about a candidate, Notre Dame offensive coordinator Michael Haywood. General consensus of a few people I've talked with is that Haywood isn't likely to be the guy UW ultimately hires.

And it's certainly interesting that the chatter out of Notre Dame was wondering if Haywood was long for his job there.

Here's an interesting story from the Chicago Tribune today on the budding controversy over whether Haywood would ever get back his play-calling duties with Notre Dame's offense.

And here's a take from the Tribune's ND blog on Haywood's chances.

As this story details, this was Haywood's first season calling plays for the Irish. Head coach Charlie Weis handled it from 2005-2007, giving it up in the off-season after Notre Dame went 3-9 last year with one of the worst offenses in school history.

The offense has been better this year, but a shut out loss to Boston College two weeks ago helped sway Weis to take back play-calling.

Given Hawywood's ties to the power brokers at UW, however, he has to be considered a legit candidate for the job right now, though surely not a favorite to get the job.

We also learned today that the advisory committee met for the first time Tuesday night. As mentioned earlier, AD Scott Woodward made clear the committee will only advise on general parameters for a coach and will not be looking at individual candidates, scouring resumes, that sort of thing.

Woodward has said he plans to keep the search as secretive as possible, so it's no surprise the news leaked in South Bend, where it became obvious something was up with Haywood when he missed a practice for the second week in a row.

This isn't the first time Haywood as interviewed for a head coaching job --- he was considered one of two finalists last year at Houston.

Here's an interview with Haywood from last week where he talked about his personal tragedy that kept him away from one practice, as well as the struggles with the ND offense this season.

And here's an interesting story from last month on the fact that Haywood turned down a chance to join Tyrone Willingham's staff at Notre Dame in 2004 to stay at Texas. If Haywood had taken that job, there's obviously the chance that he might simply have moved with Willingham to UW and been here already.

We'll keep following this here as events develop.