Saskatchewan Roughriders General Manager Brendan Taman is right in the middle of the interview process to fill the vacant head coaching job.

But the rumours have come to boiling point and Taman started a media gathering on Friday in the Riders locker room with a statement.

"I know there is a lot of speculation and rumours going around. I don't control that nor really care to respond to all of that. It's just one of those things when you go through this process and there are a lot things that are true and not true and I'm not going to get into it all."

"You guys understand we're going through a process, we're half done. We have another three or four guys to interview next week. We should be done (our first phase of interviews) by this time next week. We're right on track with what we're doing."

Taman was adamant nobody is going to force their hand and hire a coach before they're ready to.

The Toronto Argonauts hired Scott Milanovich earlier in the week and Taman admits he was part of their discussion but they move on with the coaches available to them.

"It's important we hire a coach. But it's important we hire the right coach. Just by people hiring coaches for however they did their process, doesn't affect ours."

The twitter world exploded earlier on Friday with rumours that Kent Austin was interviewed by the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. It's unclear whether that rumour is true but Taman says they still haven't received permission from Cornell University to talk to Austin.

"He's got a job. He's no different from anybody else. If and when we seek permission, we'll look at it at that point as of right now I'm not going to say much about it."

As for twitter.

"With facebook and twitter stuff, obviously I don't get on it but I heard there is a lot of fake people of me doing it so that's interesting. It's hard to keep a secret to be honest with you. And not that we want to keep secrets but anytime you do anything it takes one person to tell somebody and the next thing you know it's out. Like I said, some it is true and some it isn't."

Taman also says Dave Dickenson has been talked to and it's likely an interview is upcoming.

Taman did say he hasn't received permission to speak to other coaches on some teams but doesn't believe a team will block them from talking to assistants about the head coaching job.