Amid all the managerial tumult and to-ing and fro-ing this autumn, one set-up has remained constant.
All around the country, it seemed county boards everywhere were frantically punching the phones, casting around for a willing recruit from the dwindling pool of inter-county managers. A few are still stuck in that process.
Pundits' chairs were vacated as long-time talking heads decided to give it a crack at the coalface. Recently retired Dublin footballers were getting calls out of the blue asking whether they were at much next year. In Mayo, whole backroom teams were being sent forth for consideration.
But in Clare, nothing ever changes.
The longest serving manager in inter-county football - and now inter-county GAA following Brian Cody's departure in July - Colm Collins is set to prolong his reign into a 10th season.
Collins had struck a wistful (rather than recriminatory) tone in the aftermath of their ultimately lop-sided loss to Derry in June's All-Ireland quarter-final, leading the assembled to wonder whether this was to be his valedictory season in charge and that he was now content he'd done as much as he could.
Nonetheless, he held fire on any definitive pronouncements and informed the media that, much and all as he respected them, they would not be the first people to know about his intentions one way or the other.
It will be his tenth one-year term in a row. Once again, the feedback from the players was too good for him to countenance leaving.
"I'm there since 2014. And it's always been a one-year term that I've taken," he told RTÉ Sport this week.
"It was the same again this winter. The players reviewed the seasons and if they came back with any negative stuff I was gone, I would have stepped down no problem.
"The final thing is that I am involved with some very good people here and I enjoy this job as much as I have ever done. Those are the reasons why I decided to come back."
Collins' ninth campaign in situ was among his most successful, Clare stunning Roscommon with a late sucker punch to reach the last-eight for the second time in his reign, and easily preserving their status in Division 2. That the latter achievement now seems so humdrum is a testament to Collins' legacy and enduring success. They also beat Meath en route to Croke Park, although that may be a less eye-catching scalp than it used to be.
The lauding of the Clare boss is nothing new. The Kilmihil man may be one of the most relentlessly praised managers in Gaelic football, almost to the point where the county as a whole may feel patronised. It is customary in end-of-season wrap-ups to tip the cap to Collins for keeping Clare where they are.
His appointment as Clare manager back in late 2013 represented something of a gear change for the county's football scene. Over the previous half-decade, they had occasionally experimented with celebrity grandees from outside. But neither Páidí Ó Sé (2007) nor Mick O'Dwyer's (2013) spells in charge delivered much. Collins directly succeeded the latter in the job.
Micko's magic had long waned at that point and Clare exited the championship in desultory fashion with a 3-17 to 0-10 loss to Laois in their first qualifier match. RTÉ's touching 'Micko' documentary from a few years ago, celebrating the life of the all-time great, understandably decided that his short spell in charge of Clare didn't add much to the overall portrait and omitted it from the story altogether.
All told, Clare football was at a particularly low ebb when Collins, previously involved with the Clare U21s, was given the job in late 2013. The fact that the hurlers had just come out of leftfield to win an unlikely All-Ireland title rendered them even more of an irrelevance within their own county. Collins' son Podge was famously one of the stars of that adventure. After the failure of their recent high-profile Kerry imports, Collins' appointment was a turn inward.
Clare's totemic midfielder Gary Brennan had been around the set-up since 2007, essentially spending the entirety of that period pre-Collins in Division 4.
In Collins' first year in charge, Clare escaped the bottom tier for the first time since the league was re-organised into its present format in 2008.
"He got rid of the excuses," Brennan told RTÉ Sport, when reflecting on Collins' reign this summer.
"We used to be moving around from pitch to pitch (for training), looking at different venues. There might have been a sense that we weren't being treated the same as the hurlers. He removed that sense among the players.
"He'd often talk about being a team that people in Clare would like to watch and support. That was very important to him."
2016 probably stands as their best season since 1992, with a Division 3 final victory over Kildare in the spring and a journey to the All-Ireland quarter-final that autumn.
While their championship form has yielded a couple of excellent runs, it is their consistency in the league that has attracted the most praise. They've been a constant presence in the second tier since 2017.
Brennan notes that Collins hadn't exactly pulled up trees, results-wise, with the Clare U21s, but that the players who came through under his tutelage raved about his management.
Listening to Brennan's account, Collins seems less a manager and more a devoted father of football in the county, his influence stretching beyond the team itself.
"He was well respected in the county, he'd been involved with the U21s, he hadn't had massive success with the U21s or anything but players really liked what he was doing
"He'd a lot of work done with Cratloe in bringing them up to the level of competition they were at.
"He had a very good understanding of what would make a difference to us when he came in. He put more structure on the team, got us putting more value on the ball, not giving it away so easily.
"He's very well read, he'd be well educated. He's interested in leadership and management and psychology. He'd often quote Bill Belichick and he'd pluck different quotes apt to the situation.
"His greatest strength is that he gets everyone behind him. Everyone in the county is behind him. Players want to row in and play well for him.
"He gets good people behind him - Paudie Kissane, Ephie Fitzgerald, Mick Bohan, Alan Flynn, Brian Carson, now Gerry McGowan - he's got excellent coaches involved and has trusted them and backed them. He was central in getting a supporters club up and running to support the team.
After the loss to Derry, there was a sense that Clare's head had collided painfully with their own ceiling. The Ulster champs, who were themselves caught flailing in the semis, pummeled them the goals in the last-eight, giving the impression that Clare were well in over the heads and didn't belong in that environment. The man staying on doesn't agree. On the announcement of his latest one-season term, Collins sounded a different message.
The quest now is to break into the Division 1 orbit, start properly frightening the elite. He sounds more full of beans than ever.
"When I started in 2014, we were miles away from where we currently are, but there is absolutely no point in taking your foot off the pedal now. We will go back and keep driving for improvement.
"We will work on the things we didn't get right this year. That means working a lot harder. All of us involved have to up our game."
