Sylvester Croom interviewed for the vacant position on the Alabama coaching staff but is now no longer a candidate moving forward, with Mike Groh seemingly becoming the favorite to land the position. Per the Tuscaloosa News:
Sylvester Croom plans to stay with the St. Louis Rams of the National Football League and is no longer a candidate for a position on the University of Alabama coaching staff, the former UA player and assistant coach told The Tuscaloosa News on Friday.
Meanwhile, multiple sources continue to indicate that Louisville quarterbacks coach Mike Groh is a leading candidate to replace Curt Cignetti as the Crimson Tide’s next assistant coach.
Obviously it's not a done deal just yet with Groh, otherwise he would have been announced as the hire by this point, but admittedly it's hard to see who else would get the job at this point. The only other name seriously being mentioned is Lance Taylor, but admittedly given his very bare resume -- basically consisting of a couple of years at Appy State and one season with the Jets as some sort of quality control assistant -- it's hard to see him legitimately snagging the job away from Groh.
If the hire indeed is Groh, by all accounts it would be a solid one. He has spent time with Nick Saban before at Alabama as a graduate assistant a couple of years back, and despite being only 39 years old he did hold the offensive coordinator position at Virginia for three years. Recruiting probably wouldn't be an issue either, and given our increased focus in recent years on recruiting the mid-Atlantic states, all of the years he spent at Virginia would likely help in that regard. In addition, if Groh were to be hired, he does have a background as a wide receivers coach, it his hiring wouldn't necessitate a re-shuffling of the staff in other areas. For whatever reason, Nick Saban is seemingly not in a rush to fill this vacancy, but even so it's hard to see Groh being a bad hire.