According to Central Michigan beat writer Drew Ellis of the Mt. Pleasant Morning Sun, Butch Jones is negotiating with Cincinnati to become its next head football coach.

If Jones reaches a deal, he will replace Brian Kelly, who left the Bearcats following a 12-0 season in 2009 and a Big East Championship. Kelly left Cincinnati to take over the head coaching position at Notre Dame.

Jones replaced Kelly at Central Michigan after Kelly left CMU to become head coach of the Bearcats following the 2006 season, when he won a Mid-American Conference title.

In three years as head coach, Jones has won two MAC titles and just recently led the Chippewas into the top 25 rankings for the first time in school history.

ESPN.com is also reporting that Jones is heading to Cincinnati.

If you’re Cincinnati, why not go back to the same well? CMU produced Kelly and Jones had an even better track record in Mt. Pleasant, so it makes sense that the Bearcats tabbed him to run their program.

Jones did a hell of a job at CMU, especially with the development of quarterback Dan LeFevour. This past season, the Chippewas ranked 33rd in the nation in total offense and 17th in scoring offense. They averaged over 33 points per game and Jones runs a spread offense similar to the one Kelly does, so he should make a smooth transition. He’ll also love working with quarterback Zach Collaros, who much like LeFevour, runs well.

While this is disappointing news for the Central Michigan program, at least Jones didn’t hide the fact that he was moving on to a bigger program. Kelly ditched his team right before a bowl game (sound familiar Cincinnati?) to coach the Bearcats, where as Jones has been upfront about the situation. With LeFevour graduating and Jones moving on, the Chippewas have to rebuild for next season.

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One of the biggest beefs that the standard news outlets have about blogs is that blogs will claim work as their own, even though they borrowed the information from an original source.

We here at The Scores Report make a conscious effort to not only link to the original source, but to also state who the source was that we got the information from.

Maybe FootballCoachScoop.com should try the same practice.

Here are two excerpts from an article Central Michigan football beat writer Drew Ellis (who writes for the Mt. Pleasant Morning Sun) wrote last night about Chippewa head coach Butch Jones, who is being pursued by other programs, including former MAC rival Marshall:

Heeke spoke Friday about working on a new contract for Jones, and sources close to Central Michigan University have confirmed that the new contract would make Jones the second highest-paid coach in the Mid-American Conference with a base salary over $400,000 and incentives that could earn Jones another $200,000 annually.

The new contract offer would be a five-year deal and begin immediately.

Jones also has a $475,000 buyout in his current CMU contract, which increases to $700,000 if he is to leave the Chippewas prior to the end of the season, which includes the GMAC Bowl on Jan. 6.

This morning, FootballCoachScoop.com wrote this about the Jones’ contract situation in their “Scoop” section:

Our source close to the situation has confirmed that Athletic Director Dave Heeke has offered Head Coach Butch Jones a new contract. According to our source, the new contract would make Jones the second highest-paid coach in the Mid-American Conference with a base salary over $400,000 and incentives that could earn Jones another $200,000 annually. The new contract offer would be a five-year deal and begin immediately. Jones also has a $475,000 buyout in his current CMU contract, which increases to $700,000 if he is to leave the Chippewas prior to the end of the season, which includes the GMAC Bowl on Jan. 6.

Sound familiar? While it’s possible that the site has its own source, the fact that their report is a word-for-word copy of Ellis’ article makes this highly unlikely. This is a clear case of a blog ripping off a newspaper’s information and passing it off as their own. Look at Ellis’ final paragraph and compare it to the last line in FootballCoachScoop.com’s paragraph. It’s identical and again, Ellis’ article posted last night and the blog posted their “scoop” this morning.

Now, you might be thinking to yourself, “It’s a MAC story – who cares.” But if FootballCoachScoop.com is stealing from Ellis, then who else are they stealing from? The blog routinely bolds the phrase “FIRST TO REPORT” on some of their stories, but are they the ones actually reporting the news first? Or are they stealing the content from beat writers across the country?

I’d love for FootballCoachScoop.com to reveal their “sources” on this story, because I’m pretty sure their “sources” are ctrl-alt-c for copy and ctrl-alt-v for paste.

Photo from fOTOGLIF