Need advice on a situation

Hey guys,

I need a little advice on how to handle this situation. Heres the story:

Two weeks ago (the Friday before Sandy hit) I had a meeting with a MD (alumn from my school) at a BB. By all accounts everything went well-we had ~ an hour and a half lunch shot the shit for a while and really hit it off. Although his group wasn't hiring at the moment, he told me that he'll keep me in mind if an opportunity comes up, but in the meantime to follow up with one of his friends (who is also an alumn) who is an exec at another bank.

Obviously I followed up on this advice and sent this exec an e-mail. He responded a few days later with a short reply indicating that he'd love to help out, but right now the bank is in crisis mode over Sandy (they're located way downtown) and he'll give me a call once things start to clear up. He also CC'd his secretary and requested that she put this on his to-do list. Another interesting note is that my girlfriends dad actually played football with this guy at my school, so all signs point to him being a big help for me.

But here is the issue: I saw on the banks website that they had an opening for a position that I'd be incredibly interested in and I'm not exactly sure how to handle this. On one hand, I feel like I'd get an awesome recommendation from my connection and definitely an interview, so I want to talk to him first before applying. On the other hand, this job was posted on Oct. 19th and I don't want them to start interviewing and get left empty handed.

So in short, do I wait to talk to this guy before applying so I can put his name on my application or do I just go ahead and apply?

Thanks