Tired of hearing his coach's name dragged through the rumor mill, Jacksonville Jaguars owner Wayne Weaver said he will start working on a contract extension for Tom Coughlin next week.

"Tom is going to be our coach," Weaver said Friday night. "We have talked. We'll sit down after the season, and an extension is on the agenda."

Coughlin's current deal is through 2003 and pays $2.4 million a year. Weaver did not say how big a contract extension Coughlin would get.

The coaching issue resurfaced Friday when Steve Spurrier suddenly resigned from the University of Florida. Spurrier has a beach house near Jacksonville, and has often been thought to be a perfect fit for the Jaguars.

Likewise, Coughlin was viewed as a good fit at Notre Dame, and both times that job came open last year, his name was high on the list of potential candidates. The fact that he went 7-9 last year and is struggling through a 6-9 season only fueled the speculation that he might leave Jacksonville.

But Weaver has long insisted that Coughlin has his support, and now he's working on a contract extension to prove that.

Earlier this week, Coughlin reaffirmed his desire to stay, and try to rebuild. He's the only coach the Jaguars have had, and he built them from scratch into a two-time participant in the AFC title game, before their recent struggles.

"We've done this once before. I think we can do it again," he said. "Obviously we've had a couple of seasons here that have not been anywhere near what anyone thought. Our expectation level in this community is very high. We encourage that and see that as a positive thing."