What happened with the football coaching situation this summer is only the strangest thing to happen to WVU football coaching in four years. I think it trumps what the Product and the Waterboy perpetuated in 2007-08, as well as the hurried hiring of Bill Stewart in the hours following the Fiesta Bowl, but that’s always up for debate.

What we can say, with certainty, is it was the most compelling, most irresistible football coaching of the story of the offseason.

Or is that wrong?

Suddenly, there are darkhorse candidates. We don’t yet know what awaits Chip Kelly at Oregon. This financial fiasco in Houston is, perhaps, a powder keg that could explode in various manners for various coaches. And here comes Pitt and erstwhile football coach Mike Haywood!

You remember him from the Dakichesque 16 days in charge of the Panthers and the domestic violence arrest that prompted his termination.

Haywood and his representation first asked last month that Pennsylvania review the process by which he was fired by Pitt. Doesn’t require much imagination to see the seeds for a lawsuit somewhere in that request. Well, now Haywood has formally asked two state agencies to take a look at Pitt’s employment practices and, specifically, the possibility of termination without due process.

Read (again): lawsuit. Damages. Compensation. It’s all there in an accusation veiled as exploration.

And that’s where things get interesting. And ugly.

Shannon Powers, who is the director of communications for the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, said the basic allegation is that Haywood was fired based on race. Haywood’s lawyer doesn’t specify that, but, apparently, doesn’t back away, either.

Buzbee said the most important issue is the lack of due process, but did mention the fact that Haywood’s replacement, Todd Graham, is white.

Pitt hired former Tulsa head coach Graham as head coach of the Panthers on Jan. 10.

“It’s certainly something that needs investigation,” Buzbee said in June. “Understand that Coach Haywood was replaced very quickly by a coach that’s paid $500,000 more per year. The way this has all happened raised a lot of questions.”