Hasn't Lavin said he'll come back when he's ready from the start? He already tried to come back for crying out loud. He's recovering from cancer which he had surgery on in October, it's not like he's recovering from having the flu. When he said he didn't know when he would be back he probably meant it, there's not always a set timetable when recovering from cancer. He was probably holding out hope he would be back this season which is why he never officially announced anything. We'll see how much it hurt recruiting when all is said and done, but Lavs sounds like he's got a good class lined up.
Bottom line, there would be people speculating even if he kept out of the public eye altogether and didn't do the phone interviews, just like there is speculation now. If we were having a better season there likely wouldn't be any speculation at all. But, losing causes people to be on edge, start rumors, say the program is in bad shape, etc.
I agree there prob would have been speculation no matter what he did.
For me personally I though the phone in's and GM talk was odd