re: Sounds like Howland is the man at MSU

Not really. I'm pretty sure Scott Stricklin had feelers out that if he were to can Ray he could make a decent hire. Howland wants back in coaching bad, and it doesn't look like many major jobs will open(State, Bama, and DePaul right now) this year. I could see this about being a done deal when Ray was canned. Andy Katz tweeted we should go after Howland right after Ray's firing was announced, so word might have leaked.