David Blackburn was this close, thisclose, to escaping his Chattanooga Quarterback Club appearance unscathed Monday afternoon.
Having spoken to the group for more than 30 minutes at Finley Stadium, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga vice chancellor and athletic director was about to wrap up his talk when he made the mistake of answering one more question.
"David," the questioner began, "when do you report to Knoxville?"
The elephant in the room was silent no more. Unless he delivered a "no comment" - which rarely has been Blackburn's style during his three-plus years running the Mocs program - he finally would have to address the runaway rumors that he is about to succeed retiring University of Tennessee athletic director Dave Hart.
Said Blackburn: "No one has asked me to report to Knoxville. I've not been asked to interview. If I am asked, I will (interview). I won't lie to you. I was there (as a UT athletic department employee) for 28 years. My name is going to be mentioned because of my tenure. But (when I left UT for UTC) I didn't run from something. I ran to something."
He soon added, "It has to play itself out. And that has not started - officially."
Interesting word, "officially." Both UT and UTC fans could read a nondenial denial into that single word, because these things almost always are unofficially over before they officially begin. Representatives from both sides - unofficial reps, of course - speak over disposable phones or meet in darkened parking garage corners to weigh mutual interest and salary.
By the time School A calls School B to ask permission, the deal may be all but sealed, the courtesy of a request to interview becoming a a matter of etiquette rather than ethics, however disappointing that reality.
That doesn't mean Blackburn's time at UTC is done. Until he's officially announced as Tennessee's next AD, there is always a chance the Volunteers will look elsewhere.
But to view his time at UTC is also to understand that UT shouldn't bypass Blackburn, that it's time for a Tennessee guy - a guy who spent 28 years of his life inside the Big Orange athletic department - to make Vols athletics great again.
Just to listen to the Loudon native and 1990 UT grad talk about his ongoing vision for the UTC athletic department is to know he would enact similar improvements to a Tennessee program that seems to need an across-the-board tune-up, if not a complete overhaul.
It's not just that Butch Jones' football team, picked to win the SEC East at season's dawn, finished with a 4-4 league mark and wound up in the Music City Bowl. Lady Vols basketball, once a Top Five constant, dropped out of the Top 25 last week. Rick Barnes has the men hoopsters on a steady climb, but baseball rarely has been worse.
At one time arguably the best overall athletic department in the conference, UT finished eighth for the SEC overall trophy in the 2015-16 school year - men's and women's standings combined - but 12th among 14 schools on the men's side, which is where most of the money is generated.
And while a quick glance at the Southern Conference overall standings won't help Blackburn's case much regarding the men - UTC finished sixth overall on the men's side in the SoCon - the Mocs wildly excelled in the money sports, winning both the regular-season and league tourney titles in hoops as well as sharing the SoCon football and wrestling crowns. Besides, UTC did all that with no baseball or indoor or outdoor track teams to boost its numbers.
Let Blackburn produce similar results at the Knoxville campus in football and men's basketball and they'll start searching for a spot to erect a bronze trophy of him or name a street in his honor.
However, it's the way he wants to win that would appear to make him refreshingly different from too many in his profession. Blackburn all but demands that his athletes perform as well in the classroom as on the playing field, which explains UTC's student-athletes' cumulative 3.1 grade point average. He also expects his department to perform with class, dignity and character, regardless of the outcome on the scoreboard.
"We tell our athletes, 'Hang out with good people,'" Blackburn told the QB Club. "We don't focus on wins and losses. We just have to be the best us that we can be. We all have a good wolf and bad wolf that hangs out inside us. So hang out with the good one. Feed the good one. If you do that, the good will overtake the bad."
That's not to say Blackburn isn't all in to win as long as it's done the right way. Merely consider the football game he's helped the Mocs open with next season against Jacksonville State in Montgomery, Ala. Thanks partly to Blackburn's genius, it will be played on Aug. 26 and televised nationally by ESPN. Not ESPNU or Internet-only ESPN3. ESPN, the big boy.
As Blackburn noted Monday: "It will be uncontested. ESPN estimates there could be 50-60 million people viewing it. It will be the only (college football) show in town across the country. 'GameDay' is even debating whether or not to be there."
There's huge potential irony in all of this in that much of what Blackburn has accomplished was begun by Rick Hart. Now, at least partly because of that foundation, Blackburn appears to be the front-runner to replace Rick's dad at UT.
"You've got to live in the moment," Blackburn said Monday. "And right now that's here."
But in a moment or two, he may get the call to live in Knoxville and UTC will begin searching for a new AD. Sometimes in life, especially when chasing your dream, you have to run from it before you can run to it.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.