Befuddlement U.

Sometimes the best plan is to have no plan. That seemed to work for Bob Bowlsby when he was athletic director at Iowa. While searching for a replacement for the retiring Hayden Fry, Bowlsby somehow lost the No. 1 candidate in alum Bob Stoops, who instead took the gig at Oklahoma. Bowlsby recovered and stumbled into Kirk Ferentz, who restored order after Hawkeye fans were taking to the streets, pitchforks in hand. Bowlsby left last summer to become Stanford's A.D., and his first major move came two weeks ago when he fired Walt Harris as coach. Now his handling of the Stanford search is beginning to resemble the bumbling approach that somehow resulted in the hiring of Ferentz in 1998. And much like those pitchfork-wielding Iowa fans, Cardinal faithful are growing restless. Ray Ratto of the San Francisco Chronicle summed it up, writing "the suspicion is that [Bowlsby] is going at this blinder than he thought he would, that this job is a lot harder to fill than it seems. At a time when he needed to be able to stand and say, 'This is the guy, you'll see,' it looks increasingly likely that he'll end up standing and saying, 'This is the last guy I saw.' " ... Thanks to the Midwest Correspondent.