What the heck; third time’s a charm, right?

After two failed attempts to woo Chris Petersen away from Boise State, Penn State will report­edly make yet another run at the coach. Accord­ing to a tweet from CBSS­ports’ Char­lie Casserly, the Nit­tany Lions are going to take a shot at a coach who has spent the vast major­ity of his coach­ing career to the left of the Rock­ies and has shown no desire to leave the Bron­cos for jobs in locales east, west, north or south of Boise.

With the excep­tion of a pri­vate denial that was reported pub­licly, Petersen has yet to com­ment on the spec­u­la­tion con­nect­ing him to the Nit­tany Lions’ vacancy.

As Penn State is the only Div. 1-A job cur­rently open, spec­u­la­tion as to the per­ma­nent replace­ment for Joe Paterno has taken many shapes and forms over the past cou­ple of weeks. In addi­tion to the ongo­ing Petersen rumors, Ten­nessee Titans head coach Mike Mun­chak has been at the fore­front of reports, with a very vehe­ment and very pub­lic denial fol­lowed by a report of pri­vate sec­ond thoughts. New Eng­land Patri­ots offen­sive coor­di­na­tor Bill O’Brien was all but signed, sealed and deliv­ered as the next PSU coach, until he wasn’t. For­mer Cleve­land Browns and New York Jets head coach Eric Mangini has also been men­tioned as a possibility.

As has Rut­gers head coach Greg Schi­ano and Vir­ginia head coach Mike Lon­don. And Miami head coach Al Golden as well. Oh, and Navy’s Ken Niu­mat­alolo too, who shot down the scur­rilous rumors post haste.

Given all of the rumors mas­querad­ing as smoke and/our out­right fab­ri­ca­tions, it’s hard to get a gauge on what is actu­ally tran­spir­ing in the school’s first search for a head coach in nearly five decades. Interim head coach Tom Bradley, quar­ter­backs coach Jay Paterno and defen­sive assis­tant Larry John­son Sr. have all been con­firmed inter­vie­wees from within the cur­rent staff, as has Green Bay Pack­ers quar­ter­backs coach Tom Clements.

Another con­firmed inter­vie­wee? San Fran­cisco 49ers offen­sive coor­di­na­tor Greg Roman. The for­mer Stan­ford assistant’s agent told the Asso­ci­ated Press that his client inter­viewed for the job in Novem­ber and is on the short list — i.e. a final­ist — to land a job that, prior to the Jerry San­dusky child-sex abuse scan­dal, would’ve been one of the pre­mier open­ings in col­lege football.

“We should know in a week or so, that’s our best guess,” agent Michael Har­ri­son told the regard­ing a time­line. “He inter­viewed quite a while ago.”

With all of this uncer­tainty swirling, there really is an easy answer for Penn State’s coach­ing conun­drum that can be summed up in two words: Tim Mur­phy. An out-of-the-box can­di­date? Absolutely. But, and espe­cially given the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion the foot­ball pro­gram finds itself in, Murphy’s the safe yet swing-for-the-fences hire it needs to make.