Commercial Appeal article on Norvell....

Memphis quarterback Riley Ferguson reached down and merrily clanged the Liberty Bell on display at the Liberty Bowl press conference. So one mystery was solved. The Memphis Tigers will stay home and play the Iowa State Cyclones in the 59th AutoZone Liberty Bowl.
The other mystery is whether Mike Norvell will be coaching Memphis in that game. That considerably more significant mystery remains.
Will Norvell be there to lead the Tigers to yet another win at their home stadium?
Or will he have up and moved to Arkansas by then?
“I’m not going to comment on any of that,” said Memphis athletic director Tom Bowen who, incredibly, was himself the subject of (false) Arkansas rumors as the day progressed.
OK, but did Arkansas or any other school ask for permission to talk to Norvell?
“No comment,” said Bowen.
More: Memphis Tigers fall to UCF, 62-55, in double overtime of thrilling AAC championship game
\Ding! Ding! Ding!
Yes, it is that time of year again, the time when football programs learn where they are headed for the postseason, and when football coaches decide if they will be accompanying their teams.

Memphis fans went through this two years ago, when the Tigers traveled to the Birmingham Bowl and Justin Fuente bolted for Virginia Tech.
Now the question is whether Norvell will join the Tigers at the Liberty Bowl, if not Sunday’s Liberty Bowl press conference.
Steve Ehrhart presided over that event, and it was appropriately celebratory. Back when the Liberty Bowl was affiliated with Conference USA, Ehrhart desperately wanted Memphis to qualify for the game but the Tigers were never good enough.
These days, the Liberty Bowl is supposed to match a team from the SEC with a team from the Big 12. But the SEC didn’t have enough teams eligible, so Ehrhart was able to grab Memphis instead.

“It’s really momentous, especially here in the city of Memphis,” Ehrhart said, “We’ve never had the opportunity to have the hometown university play in the hometown bowl.”
If the presence of Memphis in the game might mean less money spent on hotel rooms and ribs — and it does — none other than Kevin Kane, the president of the Memphis Convention &  Visitors Bureau, said the honor was worth the lost bucks.