No Chris Petersen-to-Oregon rumors? Where's the fun in that?

For what seems like decades now, Bronco fans have been nervously following the offseason musical chairs of coaching firings and hirings, donning tin-foil hats and preparing Chicken Little speeches every time a non-WAC program needed a new head man. Me? I've been hoarding my fears and loathings for the day when Job Zero becomes available: when Chip Kelly leaves the University of Oregon and makes my life a living hell mess of worry, fear, regret, and desperation.

Friends, my day of reckoning has arrived. OH THE HUMANITY! COACH PETE IS GONE, I MAY AS WELL STOP SHOWER--

What's that?

Oregon has a replacement hand-picked to succeed Chip Kelly?

They're staying in-house to promote the offensive coordinator?

My investment in a Chris-Petersen-themed bat signal was for naught?

Uh, okay.

I guess this news is supposed to make me feel good, right? Boise State still has its head coach, I still have my role model, Joe Southwick still has someone to yell at as he comes to the sideline.

But I would be lying if I said there wasn't a little part of me that was disappointed that the Oregon Coaching Scare didn't stretch into more epic proportions - or any proportions, really.

My fears were scuttled before I could even track a single airplane from BOI to PDX. I was fully prepared to journey deep into Twitter to find the latest rumors paired, grammatical errors, and Scientology links. I would have stalked Chadd Cripe, who would have stalked Chris Petersen, who would have had a restraining order on Mark Johnson. This predestined series of events - Petersen to Oregon, me to tears - seemed so inevitable that I had already worked my way through the first two stages of grief.

I had a "Welcome to the land of unrealistic expectations, Coach Kwiatkowski; now what are you going to do about Joe Southwick?" post in draft!

Is Petersen's staying in Boise and Oregon's dismissal of a job search the healthiest outcome for me? Probably.

Was it a waste of five years of pent-up anxiety? We'll see.

I guess there's still the possibility that new Oregon coach Mark Helfrich only lasts a couple years before heading off to the pros to re-energize the Jaguars or a Jaguar-equivalent. If so, I might yet get my opportunity to throw caution to the wind and rent billboard space on Broadway Ave with a "For Pete's sake, don't go!" billboard (featuring a sad David Augusto petting a corgi).

Or maybe there is a bigger lesson for me to learn here. Maybe worrying about coaching rumors is futile when you're dealing with the most loyal coach in America. Maybe no job will ever be better for Coach Pete than the one he's got. Maybe Oregon will keep promoting from within for perpetuity.

Or maybe I should start making connections at the Boise airport, you know, just in case I need to stage a dramatic, airport-runway "please don't go" scene.

Yep, that's totally what I'm going to do.