West Virginia's search for a new coach might end as quickly as week's end.

Administrators certainly picked up the pace of that quest yesterday.

By last night, they apparently completed at least their third interview and contacted a fourth candidate -- Penn State defensive coordinator Tom Bradley -- within a 36-hour period of Rich Rodriguez being introduced as Michigan's new football coach.

Florida assistant head coach and safeties coach Doc Holliday, a career assistant who has spent 17 of his 29 coaching years at his alma mater, West Virginia, was the first candidate to interview for the Mountaineers' football vacancy.

Holliday, a Hurricane, W.Va., native and former Mountaineers linebacker (1976-78), interviewed with West Virginia officials Monday, sources said. He has taken part in 18 bowl games as a player and coach, having won a national championship in January with the Florida Gators. Most of his career has been spent on offense, coaching receivers from 2000-04 at North Carolina State and from 1993-99 plus 1983-89 at West Virginia.

After the Gators had a Capitol One Bowl practice yesterday in Gainesville, Fla., where reporters failed to spot Holliday Monday or yesterday, Florida coach Urban Meyer declined to say whether Holliday was contacted by West Virginia.

"That's not my business," Meyer said.

Another candidate, former West Virginia assistant head coach and offensive line coach Rick Trickett, left West virginia in January for a similar position at Florida State. Unlike Holliday, Trickett has previous head coaching experience, albeit a 5-6 season at Division II Glenville State in 1999.

Central Michigan first-year head coach Butch Jones, a receivers coach the previous two seasons on Rodriguez's staff at West Virginia, was believed to have interviewed last night in Mount Pleasant, Mich.

Bradley, a Johnstown native with 28 years' of coaching experience, all with Penn State, has no West Virginia ties. Unlike one candidate previously mentioned, Florida State offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher of Clarksburg, W.Va., who is contractually bound as Bobby Bowden's Seminoles successor, Bradley has not been singled out as a coach-in-waiting to become Joe Paterno's successor at Penn State.

In another West Virginia development, Mountaineers video coordinator and longtime Rodriguez aide Dusty Rutledge has been reassigned temporarily within the athletic department.

Rutledge, an Ohio native and longtime Michigan fan, is expected to follow Rodriguez to the Wolverines' camp, joining offensive coordinator Calvin Magee and secondary coach/recruiting coordinator Tony Gibson, who officially tendered his Mountaineers resignation yesterday.