Dabo Swinney is one of the more open, accessible and thoughtful coaches around, but that transparency ends when it's time for him to conduct a coaching search.

Let's see a show of hands from folks who, on the day Brent Venables accepted the job at Oklahoma, thought Wesley Goodwin was a logical candidate to replace him.

Swinney is skilled at keeping those types of plans to himself, as we believe the Venables succession plan was known to only a select few insiders before he announced it to the team.

Thus it's hard to predict where he'll turn to fill the spot vacated by Todd Bates' abrupt departure for Oklahoma.

But given the clues we've picked up over the last 24 hours, we feel reasonably safe in making two conclusions: