It’s early, and he’s been wrong before. But in Terry Allen’s mind, Roy Williams isn’t long for Lawrence.

“If I had to guess, I think he might (leave),” Allen, Iowa State’s associate head football coach said of Williams, the Kansas University men’s basketball coach — and a close friend — who’s being courted by North Carolina.

“It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen, him being caught up in this … (He feels) it’s not possible for him to stay at the University of Kansas.”

Allen has been good friends with Williams since Allen took over as Kansas’ football coach in 1997. They spoke at length on the phone Wednesday night. Allen said he didn’t ask Williams whether he would take the North Carolina job, but said the coach of the NCAA runners-up was hurt by the notion he ran former athletic director Al Bohl out of town.

“This whole Al Bohl situation really bothers him because he’s pointed out as the reason Al got fired,” said Allen, who was himself fired by Bohl with three weeks left in the 2001 season.

Bohl, 55, came to Kansas from Fresno State (see sanctions, NCAA) with a reputation as an aggressive fund-raiser, a salesman with a V-6 engine. Only he came off as Prof. Harold Hill — a hair too aloof, a shade too slick for the wheat-waving masses. Jayhawkers, much like Iowa and Iowa State faithful to the north and west, can smell bull caca a mile away.

Bohl was booed by Kansas fans during a pep rally last weekend in New Orleans.

“The truth of the matter is — and I’m not speaking as a vindictive person — (Bohl) wasn’t a good fit for the University of Kansas,” Allen said. “There wasn’t a person in that athletic department that wanted to work with Al Bohl. What happened wasn’t coach Williams’ fault, and now he’s being blamed for it and it bothers him.”

Ironic, isn’t it? Kansas fired Bohl to try to make Lawrence more appealing for Williams. And it could turn out to have the opposite effect.

Williams is a native of Biltmore, N.C., and both his children attended North Carolina. The Tar Heels last made a pitch at Williams, an assistant under the legendary Dean Smith for 10 years, in the summer of 2000.

At the time, Allen said, “I thought he was going. That’s home. (Williams’ wife) Wanda, her parents are still there. Their beach home is in South Carolina. His high school coach was at the Final Four. You go back to Carolina with him and his high-school buddies show up to play golf with him. He’s one of those people who has friends for life.

“There’s an old saying: ‘You never want to follow a legend.’ But it’s not bad to be the second or third guy.”