Per a lawsuit filed today, Mike Kerin believes he was fired two years ago because he was old.

It’s a tough thing to claim and prove, but it can be tough to defend against, too. The people whose shoulders I’ve tapped on say such cases are especially subjective, but one point kept appearing throughout conversations.

Kerin was, let’s agree, ousted during the coaching transition. He claims he was replaced by a younger man who didn’t fit the requirements of the job. That younger man would be Alex Hammond, who was hired first as recruiting coordinator and who did that job as Kerin worked out the string. Hammond was later promoted to director of football operations. Hammond’s background, impressive as it no doubt is, is devoid of any experience relevant to his position.

That’s going to be an interesting point to manipulate or to defend because Kerin might be able to leverage youth and inexperience and the appearance of putting a guy in one position to eventually push him into another. And WVU could just say, “We wanted to do something a little different that we also thought would be beneficial. So what?”

Will that happen? Who knows? And, given the climate, I suppose I should also ask “Who cares?”

But given that this is the second lawsuit levied against WVU, that those come on top of the entire multimedia rights mess and the financial concerns and that there is thick smoke emanating from two other sources right now that might make this even crazier, here’s a deeper question to consider: Is this rut worse than the winter/spring/summer of 2008?