Navy officials: Ken Niumatalolo has not been in contact with Minnesota

Navy football coach Ken Niumatalolo has not been in contact with the University of Minnesota, according to at the academy, despite a posting on Twitter indicating he is a finalist for the Gophers' head coaching position.

The tweet from Tom Dienhart, a national football writer for Rivals.com and Yahoo, reads: "A source has told me that Navy coach Ken Niumatalolo has interviewed and is a finalist at Minnesota."

An official at Navy responded to an e-mail asking about the tweet: "Coach Niumatalolo has not interviewed with Minnesota or any other school. No school has contacted the Naval Academy to even gain permission to talk to Coach Niumatalolo."

This latest coaching conjecture comes on the heels of Midshipmen offensive coordinator Ivin Japser being linked to the vacant head coaching job at Vanderbilt last weekend. Jasper since has said he has had no contact with Vanderbilt, which parted ways with former coach Robbie Caldwell after a 2-9 season.

The University of Minnesota position is available after the school dismissed Tim Brewster midway through the season and elevated Jim Horton on an interim basis.

"I'm happy here," Niumatalolo said last week when asked about other programs contacting him.  "If that does happen, I mean you're flattered. It tells you that you're as a program doing something right, somebody's looking at what you're doing."