Stockstill Turns Down East Carolina Opportunity

During a year that has been showered by shady head coaching changes, it's good to see that there's still some very classy coaches left in college football.

One of those coaches resides in Murfreesboro, Tenn., and that coach is Rick Stockstill.

Stockstill was given the opportunity to possibly take the head coaching job at East Carolina, which is a very respected program. Unlike so many other coaches, however, Stockstill withdrew his name citing reasons of it being so late in the recruiting process.

"I have decided I will remove my name from consideration at ECU. I could not look into the eyes of these recruits and their families and tell them the things I believe in and then leave Middle Tennessee with only two weeks left in the recruiting process," Stockstill said in a statement that was released earlier today.

This all comes less than a week after Lane Kiffin ditched Tennessee after just one year, leaving their program scrambling for a new head coach during such a crucial time.

Kiffin could learn a thing or two about how you should conduct yourself in a classy manner.

This isn't the first job offer he's turned down in recent time. Earlier this season, he was solicited by Memphis to take over. Now Memphis is in a whole lot worse shape than East Carolina, but it's still a job that was probably offering a lot of money.

In the long run I think this decision will benefit Stockstill. The Middle Tennessee football program is growing in a substantial way right now. He's taken this program farther than was ever imaginable in just four years at the helm.

Recruiting is only going to get better now that the program has gotten some national exposure over the past two seasons.

As big of a surprise as this success has been, it should've been expected when he was hired in 2006. Stockstill comes from a great coaching tree that includes Steve Spurrier and Lou Holtz.

Eventually, Stockstill will probably leave Middle Tennessee for a bigger program, and you can't blame him for that. As long as the Middle Tennessee football program continues to grow, the demand for Stockstill will grow even greater.

If he does ever leave the historic town of Murfreesboro, we do know that Stockstill will leave in a classy manner that has almost been abandoned in the rest of college football.