You can't help but wonder with each successive Carlton win whether the name David Teague is popping into the minds of the club's powerbrokers a lot more than it was just a couple of months ago.
The reason, of course, is obvious. After replacing sacked predecessor Brendon Bolton midway through 2019, Teague produced a more than 50% winning record from a list which had won just one of its first 11 games.
It was enough to land him the gig full-time. But a winning percentage of 38.4 over the next seasons simply didn't cut it. North Melbourne's ill-fated appointment of Rhyce Shaw the same year as Teague also certainly turned the popular tide very much against the interim coach becoming the incumbent.
It's clearly worked against subsequent caretakers in a subconscious sense at least, perhaps when you look at Mark McVeigh at GWS in 2022 or Andrew McQualter at Richmond at the end of 2023.
But should that more recent trend and AFL football's notorious following of fashion cost Josh Fraser his chance at Carlton, if indeed he does at some stage soon declare his official candidacy? Like a lot of people, I've moved from ambivalence on this question to "absolutely it shouldn't".
Because to say Fraser is this year's Teague is scarcely doing justice to the remarkable transformation this Carlton side appears to have undergone over the last two-and-a-half months with nine wins from 11 games after winning just one of its first nine games under Michael Voss.
The Blues' 76-point belting of Brisbane on Saturday night was breathtaking stuff, Carlton's highest score since late 2012, and surely, aside from two finals victories in 2023 and one in 2013, their most significant win in that whole period.
But while most of the other wins haven't been against the same calibre of opposition, the numbers surrounding Carlton's surge under Fraser simply don't lie. This is not just one of those "sugar hits". The Fraser version of the Blues has real substance.
The one thing undeniable about how Carlton looks under Fraser is it's cleaner. The Blues are more patient with the football, happier to hold up a little longer and find the easier option rather than relying so much on winning contests around the ground.
That puts the defensive structure under less pressure. And it's making the Blues' forward set-up and delivery a lot less haphazard. The numerical proof is quite stark, too.
Over the first 10 games this season, Carlton had the equal fifth-highest percentage of contested possession in the AFL. Over the games since, that ranking has been 17th. In contrast, the Blues' uncontested ball differential ranking in that first block was 14th. Over the last 12 games, it's first. That's some difference in game style.
But wait, there's more. Uncontested marks have gone from 13th to first (between rounds 10-21). Inside 50s from 14th to seventh.
And the most significant scoreboard impact? Carlton was 15th for points conceded over the first 10 games, and has ranked third since. Terrific pressure and a more organised defence has improved the points from turnover differential from a miserable ranking of 16th to third over the last 12 games. And the efficiency near goal. Scores per inside 50 have climbed from 13th to sixth.
That's the Champion Data case. None of which on its own, of course, probably does justice to the easy, encouraging connection Fraser seems to have enjoyed with the Blues' players now under his direct tutelage, which has seemed obvious even from the outside since day one.
Carlton's coaching selection panel of Graham Wright, Chris Davies, Rob Priestley, and premiership coach Adam Simpson should of course in their consideration of Fraser's claims think about the "sugar hit" factor, which is not necessarily a slight on Voss.
It's just a fact of the human condition that Voss's strong, fairly alpha personality won't have rubbed up well with at least a percentage of Carlton's players. Nor will those who felt their claims on a senior berth unfairly ignored be anything but positive about the switch.
But at the risk of invoking famous Australian movie "The Castle", there really is a "vibe" around what the Blues are doing right now under the interim coach, who has quietly been plying his craft since 2014 at NEAFL and VFL level.
And perhaps the value of incumbency, and the connection Fraser has been able to quickly forge, is greater when the most widely-recited names also contending for the job - Daniel Giansiracusa, Corey Enright, James Kelly, or Jaymie Graham - are in a similar boat when it comes to senior experience.
Perhaps it's also worth Carlton noting that among the 10 interim AFL coaches from 31 appointments since 2000 who ended up getting the job permanently, there's more stories to tell than Teague's or Shaw's.
Paul Roos did land the Swans' first flag for 72 years. Grant Thomas got St Kilda to two preliminary finals, as did Neil Craig with Adelaide, and Brett Ratten took the Blues from laughing stock in 2007 to three finals appearances in a row from 2009-11.
Oh yeah, the Blues might also be familiar with a guy called Jesaulenko, who stepped in seven games into 1978 and had his team on the premiership dais by Grand Final day 1979. Sure, that's a fair while ago. But the "Teague Train" gambit isn't.
Perhaps, even sub-consciously, those senior Blues are thinking: "We're not going there again." But would appointing Fraser be any bigger a gamble than allowing a historical precedent to reject the rapidly growing evidence that Carlton clearly already has its man? I don't think so.
You can read more of Rohan Connolly's work at FOOTYOLOGY.