"And when that gets taken away, I don't how many times I've looked up and said, 'Hey, Lord, where we goin' now? Where are we goin' with this?' I don't quite get this, and I hold onto the faith that someday when I look back on this and I'll realize, 'Oh, that's why that happened.'

"I don't know if that's in the works or not, but I'd like to coach again," he said. "You do something for 30 years, it kind of defines who you are. And I know what comes with it. If I could be a head coach again, by about January of that year, I'd say, 'Why in the hell did I do this again?' because it comes with an unavoidable amount of stress and anxiety. And I know that would happen."

He said he feels very fortunate that the TV gig came along and just tries to be himself on the air, even though he insists his southern drawl and homespun humor makes him sound like some sort of hillbilly hick that just fell off the haywagon.

"To have the opportunity to do this TV thing, I'm very fortunate," Cravens said, "and I've immersed myself into doing my TV stuff. I can't say how much I appreciate what they've done for me. The best thing about broadcasting is you never lose — you win every night.

"But it's like playing minor league baseball. And to make a living at it, you've got to get to the 'show' (a 'major-league' job with a national network). It takes a lot of self-promotion to get there, and that's something I'm not very good at. And there's a whole bunch of guys in this business who are trying to get to that next level.

"I think each year that I'm out of coaching — although I think the TV thing keeps me involved — the window of opportunity to get back in it probably gets a little smaller," he said.

Cravens has great respect for Randy Rahe, the man who replaced him in the Wildcats' coaching chronology and who guided the 'Cats to a conference championship and an NCAA berth in 2007.

"I had mixed feelings about their success that first season," Cravens said. "I didn't wish them not to win. I just tried to remove myself from it altogether, like it didn't exist. To think how good that team was, and how good they could've been, if they had just left me alone. We would've been just fine, and there were three or four kids who left the program that would've made that team even better.

"Randy's a great guy, but trying to be friends with Randy is kinda like trying to be friends with your ex-wife's husband," Cravens said. "It's not that we're not friends, but it's not like I can say 'Hey, Randy, let's meet for lunch and talk about your job.' And I think Randy understands that. ... But Randy is still a friend of mine."