It had to happen, and on Sunday around lunchtime, the hammer finally dropped: Sam Pittman is out at Arkansas after five-plus seasons.
His firing was a combination of several factors. The most relevant statistic was his 7-19 record in one-possession games, including two September losses this year. Arkansas knew when they hired a coach who had never even been a coordinator that game management was going to be a weakness, but through 66 games on the Razorback sideline, Pittman never really got any better.
But you don’t get fired for a bad record in one-score games. The bigger issue was that the bad record in one-score games made it extremely obvious that Pittman had a very hard ceiling for what he could accomplish in Fayetteville. His 2021 team went 9-4, but that was clearly the absolute top and even matching that was going to be a challenge. Big donors don’t pay up to fund NIL for teams where 9-4 is the ceiling. I highlighted an article from Yahoo’s Dan Wolken (a Hot Springs native) who correctly noted that Pittman’s biggest problem was the fact that “the fans who have that kind of money don’t think it would be well-spent on a team coached by Sam Pittman.”
The cynics will tell you that money has always ruled college athletics, but even if that’s true, it’s never ruled it more openly than it does right now. And if the money doesn’t like a coach, that coach is not going to be in a power conference for very long. “Self-fulfilling prophecy” is an accurate description.
So we have a clear path here: from poor game management, to one-score losses, to a hard ceiling of eight regular-season wins, to the money not being willing to fund a roster that can even reach that level, to what we finally saw on Saturday: letting go of the rope. That was the one thing that Pittman in all his folksy charm still had going for him: his players didn’t always play well, but they did play hard. But against Notre Dame, they laid down and quit. Especially on defense.
If the Memphis game served, like the San Jose State game in 2019, as the clearest sign that this was the head coach’s final season, the Notre Dame game was like the Western Kentucky game in 2019: the move had to be made now. To pinpoint even further, the plays on either side of halftime – Jadarian Price housing a simple swing pass when Arkansas’ defense completely gave up, and then the fake punt after the defense actually got a stop to start the third quarter – were the most obvious quit moments.
Obviously, give credit to Notre Dame. The Irish are very good, but they are not anywhere near 43 points better than this Razorback roster. Marcus Freeman demonstrated some killer instinct by going after a team that he probably knew was in a poor place mentally. The Irish knew that the Hogs have a competent defensive line, so they did a ton of damage by throwing to their backs out of the backfield, forcing Arkansas’ wavering linebackers and secondary to make tackles in space against guys that are very difficult to bring down. And the fake punt was obviously just a foot-on-throat moment. Notre Dame wasn’t trying to be unsportsmanlike or run up the score (they could have had more points had they wanted), but they need style points for a playoff bid.
Pittman did not help his own case when he fired his local agent after the 2021 season and hired coaching super-agent Jimmy Sexton, who negotiated a massive salary increase to more than $6 million per year. That took him from the aww-shucks savior of Razorback football to a high-level coach who expected to be paid like it. When you do that and then go 7-6, 4-8, 7-6, and then 2-3, you’re going to burn up a lot of goodwill. Still, I think history will look kindly on the Pittman era, as despite what some naysayers are claiming today, he absolutely left this program in a better place than when he found it.
What about the rest of the year?
As we dive into the coaching search, we obviously have to start with the interim: Bobby Petrino. An incredible full-circle moment has him back as the Head Hog, at least for seven games. And he’s made it clear he wants more, telling Hunter Yurachek that he wants to be a candidate for the full-time job, and then starting off Monday by firing three defensive assistants, including defensive coordinator Travis Williams.
Assistant defensive line coach Chris Wilson, who has previously served as defensive coordinator at Mississippi State, Colorado, and with the Houston Roughnecks of the UFL, has been elevated to defensive coordinator. It is somewhat interesting that secondary coach Nick Perry was retained. He’s the only full-fledged position coach that Petrino held onto.
I have no idea how the team will respond. I sort of expect the offense, especially Taylen Green, to mostly be unaffected, and I guess the defense can’t get any worse. But if offensive line coach Eric Mateos is more focused on sending out his resume than on coaching this year’s team, then this might not go well. Obviously a failure to get the team to buy in for seven games with an open week to prepare is a pretty good indicator that Petrino is not a good candidate for the job beyond 2025, so that will work itself out.
Arkansas coaching search profile
This coaching search actually seems fairly straightforward, even though Arkansas is famous for having bizarre coaching searches. Yurachek hasn’t been fired yet, so it seems that he will be making the hire. If the Board of Trustees does not trust him, then they need to move really fast.
Making Arkansas into Arkansas
Let’s start by evaluating the Arkansas job.
The most-read article I’ve ever written was this November 2019 piece for Arkansas Fight that I wrote after Chad Morris was fired. I wrote that Arkansas needed a coach who would give the football program a unique identity, not merely copy a blueprint that worked somewhere else.
“What’s your plan to win at Arkansas?” should be a question asked to every candidate. Arkansas has unique challenges due to its geographic location and position in the SEC West. Chad Morris wanted to turn Arkansas into Clemson. Bret Bielema wanted to turn Arkansas into Wisconsin. The next coach needs to turn Arkansas into Arkansas.
I do think Pittman had some good qualities here: he loves Arkansas as a state and a people, and his blue collar, workmanlike attitude is a good fit. But I don’t think he really had any sort of vision of what a successful Arkansas football program would entail. From a recruiting standpoint, he shifted Arkansas’ recruiting focus to Georgia, Alabama, and northern Florida, spurning a lot of in-state kids and not hitting the Dallas metro as hard as his predecessors. From a schematic standpoint, he was all over the board (Kendal Briles to Dan Enos to Bobby Petrino demonstrates absolutely no vision, and Barry Odom to Travis Williams is also quite a shift), and his hiring choices didn’t demonstrate any sort of high-level strategy, a fact that Petrino himself pointed out in his press conference on Monday:
Let’s dive into the interesting features of this job.
Money. Don’t let anyone tell you that Arkansas doesn’t have money. But Arkansas has very fractured money. I don’t want to oversimplify, but it seems like there are three basic groups of moneyed donors. The Old Money, spread throughout the state but centered on Little Rock, are the most consistent donors and have the most political power, but their donations pale in comparison to what the Old Money at other SEC schools are able to raise. The New Money, concentrated in Northwest Arkansas and led by powerful families like the Waltons, Tysons, and Hunts, have game-changing amounts of money but are very stingy with it. They have goals beyond the Razorbacks simply being good, although they might could be convinced that a strong athletics program could be a win for NWA as a whole. And then you also have the rich and powerful Texas contingent, led by Jerry Jones, who have a lot of money but all sorts of competing interests. They might be inclined to donate to an Arkansas program that recruits Dallas heavily and tries to schedule games in Texas, but otherwise, they have plenty of other places they can spend their cash.
The key for this hire is that long-term competitiveness for the Razorback program requires getting some of the more inconsistent donors onboard. Whether that entails hiring whoever Jerry wants (assuming he’ll put his money where his mouth is) or finding a way to engage the powerful NWA donors (as with John Tyson and John Calipari) depends on the specific candidates.
Recruiting & Scheme. These are related since you have to recruit the right players for your scheme. The state of Arkansas historically produces quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers, tight ends, and some speedy defensive backs. It is generally deficient in linebackers, elite defensive backs, defensive tackles, and offensive linemen (especially tackles). That entails an offense-first approach that does not overly depend on dominating the trenches. Trying to rely on any kind of player that you can’t get in-state or in a traditional pipeline like Dallas is risky, as I wrote way back in 2017:
I write all of that say this: demographics matter! Geography always wins. The only scheme that will win at Arkansas is the one that relies heaviest on players that can be obtained through Arkansas’ traditional recruiting pipelines. It’s tempting to suggest “let’s just go hire an ace recruiter, then we can get whoever we want!” Don’t fall victim to this temptation. That simply isn’t how it works.
Petrino frankly got lucky that his very first recruiting class produced Joe Adams, Jarius Wright, Greg Childs, Chris Gragg, Dennis Johnson, and Tyler Wilson in the same class. That said, those are positions that Arkansas is most likely to strike gold with again in the future. Bret Bielema (and Pittman) landing Denver Kirkland, Dan Skipper, and Frank Ragnow over his first couple of years proved to be far less sustainable.
The role of the strategist
We may not have a ton of readers on this blog, but I’m happy that we seem to have very intelligent readers who constantly make very good points. Case in point, here’s a comment this week from reader Mitch:
I think what we’re seeing is that the mold for a successful coach has shifted away from amazing recruiter to favor X’s and O’s coaches (I’m obviously just repeating this, but it rings true to me). Mullen was a poor recruiter at Florida and it stands to reason that coaches like he (or Bobby Petrino) may do better in an era where they have a GM/team assisting with personnel matters. Not quite the NFL model but a lot closer than before.
This is a very insightful point and it rings true to me also. The coaches who are having success are not the top recruiters or top developers, but rather the top strategists and the top roster-builders. Basically, the NFL style of program management is better than the old college style of program management.
There are different ways you can structure your “front office” using this idea. One is the “GM-style head coach, strategist coordinators” like what we’re seeing work at Oregon, Oklahoma, and Texas A&M. Those are all coaches with defensive backgrounds, but you can probably name all three of their offensive coordinators. Vanderbilt’s Clark Lea is also making this model work, snagging New Mexico State’s offensive coordinator and quarterback, Diego Pavia. Pittman was sort of trying this with Kendal Briles and then Petrino, but his lack of defensive background ended up making him the weak point. LSU’s Brian Kelly also fits here, but his offensive coordinator (Joe Sloan) is now under fire after a poor start on that side of the ball.
Or you can go with the “strategist head coach” and either hire a GM-type role or hope your coach is good at it himself. Lane Kiffin is pulling this off at Ole Miss, while Steve Sarkisian appears to be struggling at Texas. Mississippi State’s Jeff Lebby and Texas Tech’s Joey McGuire also fit here, as both of their programs got a major influx of donor funds to spend on improving historically-awful defenses.
One “tell” here is how good the head coach is at his side of the ball. Kiffin, Dan Lanning, Brent Venables, and Mike Elko were elite coordinators before becoming head coaches. That side of the ball was also good when they were small-school coaches (Kiffin, Elko). Then all made splashy, impressive hires on the other side of the ball once they reached their current school. Of course, that’s basically the model Chad Morris tried (hiring John Chavis as DC), but it failed miserably. Despite that failure, I still think that’s the general idea.
With that in mind, let’s move onto the candidates. There’s going to be more interest in this job than there was in 2019, when the then-highly-respected Morris belly-flopped. Pittman demonstrated that you can win here without having a strong vision or being even a competent game manager, so other potential candidates will see that and realize they can do better. I think the Hogs have a 1A and 1B that they will be working on for the next couple months. Should both of those fall through, then there’s the X Factor. After that, remaining candidates are grouped into two categories: Fallback Options and Off-the-Wall Options.
Let’s meet all of them.
Option 1A & 1B
The Arkansas search starts here. With both of these guys, Yurachek will be doing two things: evaluating their interest in Arkansas (and following relevant programs who could make competing offers), and evaluating donor interest in backing them. Getting donors on board is essential for success. These guys are 1A and 1B because they’re not coming to Fayetteville without significant NIL guarantees. And there’s not enough money to hire them unless some of Arkansas’ more fickle donors sign up to give.
Rhett Lashlee
If the goal is to “turn Arkansas into Arkansas”, this is the obvious move. Lashlee checks every single box: NWA native, Razorback alum, strong Texas ties, SEC experience, still young and hungry, offense-focused with a scheme literally designed around Arkansas high school players (at least the original version). He offers the fitness of a Gus Malzahn-type offense without the unique baggage of the Gus Bus himself. He’s a total unifying option. For this reason, he’s Option 1A.
Are there concerns? Sure. He’s at SMU, which has more resources than most of its ACC competition. He wouldn’t necessarily have that kind of resource advantage here. The Mustangs have already lost two games this year, so maybe last year’s 11-3 season and Playoff bid was a fluke. And besides, does Arkansas really want to hire another SMU coach after how the last one turned out?
The last question there is easy to dismiss: Morris was 14-22 at SMU and Arkansas hired him before he really turned the corner. Lashlee is 32-14 at SMU and has already turned the corner (without reaching the levels of success that might extinguish his drive), so there’s no real comparison there. As for resources, that will work itself out: Lashlee can afford to wait, so the only way he’s coming home is if Hog donors are willing to pony up the cash (pardon the expression) to give him a roster built to compete in the SEC.
If Lashlee can’t get NWA and Jerry/Texas on board, then there’s probably not a candidate who can, except for the X Factor.
Jon Sumrall
Do you want the best overall resume of an up-and-comer coach, regardless of Arkansas ties? Try Sumrall, who is 36-10 as a head coach and has won nine-plus games in each of his three complete seasons as a head coach (12-2 and 11-2 at Troy, then 9-5 last year at Tulane). Sumrall is widely considered to be the next big thing in SEC football, with Lane Kiffin remarking last week that Sumrall will probably be in the SEC next year.
Born in Texarkana (Texas side), Sumrall played at Kentucky and has served as a defensive assistant at Kentucky and Ole Miss. His head coaching experience is pretty limited, and you could argue that inherited programs that were already well-positioned in their conference. But overall, he appears to be a very good hire and should be Option 1B.
The biggest concern is that Sumrall might not have the interest that Lashlee could, especially since an up-and-comer with no Arkansas ties is less likely to excite the donors. From Sumrall’s perspective, he will be a major candidate and may not settle for a lower-end SEC job. Also keep an eye on Kentucky, Sumrall’s alma mater. The Wildcats are awful this season and are staring down a 2-10 or 3-9 season that could force them to move on from Mark Stoops despite his $37 million buyout (and folks around here complain about Yurachek’s contracts). Arkansas is a better job, but Kentucky is more like home and has lower expectations. And then there’s Florida, likely to move on from Billy Napier. The Gators are a better job, and while they’ll probably take a swing at Kiffin, they could very well end up focusing on Sumrall.
The X Factor
If Lashlee and Sumrall are not interested – either because Lashlee is happy at SMU and Sumrall wants Florida, or because the big money folks can’t unify around a single candidate – then you have to move on to the X Factor.
Bobby Petrino
Petrino has made clear he wants the job. He’s already running the program like it’s his, and I think Hog fans can rest easy knowing that he’s going to give maximum effort for the final seven games.
That said, is he a good candidate? Barring a crazy 7-0 finish or something like that, he’s not a candidate over Lashlee or Sumrall in my opinion. There’s just too much baggage. I’m not even talking about the previous firing or his personal conduct. The reality is that he’s 64 and, outside of producing a Heisman winner, his second tenure at Louisville was a disaster. He struggled to recruit, and his bad reputation makes it very hard for him to hire quality assistants. Those were his undoing at Louisville and are absolute death sentences in the SEC.
It’s really cool that he’s had the opportunity to finish this redemptive arc. He came back to the place where he was fired in disgrace and has been able to at least partly redeem himself, producing good offenses and now taking over the program for a couple months. But although the shrieking of national media (Wolken here, Pat Forde here) is probably a little bit dramatic, the underlying argument is absolutely true: you have to really be blinded by highlights of the 2010 and 2011 teams to think that Petrino is a better option than Lashlee or Sumrall (and probably even more coaches).
Petrino is the X Factor because several things have to align for him to be a serious candidate: first, Lashlee and Sumrall have to fall through, for whatever reason. That’s very possible. Second, Petrino has to significantly elevate the play of this year’s team. That’s going to be very hard. I sort of think a bowl is required, which means going 4-3. Good luck. And third, the donors have to be willing to unify around him. I know that some already really like him, but those are people who are going to donate anyway. The inconsistent and sidelined donors who gave nothing to Pittman’s program have to be willing to jump in. Would they be? I have no idea.
The Off-the-Wall Options
Yurachek has a tendency to prefer established coaches over up-and-comers: Eric Musselman was previously an NBA coach, Pittman was a highly-respected offensive line coach, Calipari was… Calipari. These options would actually be very consistent with how Yurachek tends to evaluate candidates.
Dan Mullen
He went 69-46 at Mississippi State, winning nearly half his SEC games at a school lower on the SEC totem pole than Arkansas. At Florida, he went 34-15 with an SEC East title. And now he’s got UNLV with a 5-0 record and a win over UCLA in his first season.
Yes, he was fired with a 5-6 record at Florida in 2022, and his last couple of Florida recruiting classes were messy. But he’s only 53, and it’s hard to look at his career trajectory and seriously think that he’s completely lost his touch. I am fairly high on this one. If you’re a believer in the idea that “head coach as ace recruiter” is an outdated idea, then you probably should be too.
Dabo Swinney
If this happened, “heading to Arkansas” would become a euphemism for getting a fresh start, because Swinney would be following in the footsteps of Calipari with this move. Swinney is 55. He’s from Birmingham, played at Alabama, and has spent his entire career as a coach at either Alabama or Clemson. This would be quite the move. He’s 181-50 at Clemson, with two national titles (2016, 2018) and seven ACC titles. But things have soured a bit in Clemson despite another ACC title and Playoff bid last year, and industry sources speculate that a fresh start might be good for him.
But I don’t think this is a Calipari-type hire. The game has passed Swinney in ways that it hasn’t passed Cal. His stubborn refusal to adapt to the transfer portal era has left Clemson struggling to compete for talent, as they take almost no one in the portal every year. Despite a playoff appearance last year, Clemson has lost four-plus games each of the last two seasons, and they are off to a 2-3 start this year with losses to Syracuse and Georgia Tech.
I also worry that a fresh start might not help him like it did Cal. Though Cal did have a national title, he’s such a powerful figure in the basketball world that just one title was probably not enough to take away his drive to win. But Swinney is an overachiever, a wide receivers coach who got promoted to head coach at Clemson and never looked back. Two titles might be enough for him. He might just be coaching for the love of the game, and even if he adjusted his roster-building strategy, if the drive isn’t there, he’s not going to win big at Arkansas.
Should Swinney signal that he’s interested in a fresh start in Fayetteville, the Hogs would need to find their John Tyson and set up this hire with the fanfare that Cal received. And Yurachek would need to feel comfortable that Swinney still has the drive to win big. This would be an extremely high-ceiling move that you have to probe, but skepticism is warranted.
James Franklin
The logic for Franklin is the same as Swinney: he’s a very good coach who has had a lot of success, but he might have stayed in one place too long. Penn State opened the year as the 2nd-ranked team in the preseason after a massive funding drive last year led to them swiping Ohio State DC Jim Knowles and increasing their NIL spend. But a tough overtime loss to Oregon was followed by a trip all the way to Los Angeles to face 0-4, coach-less UCLA. The Nittany Lions probably should have seen the trap, but they didn’t, and the result was a putrid 42-37 loss that has left many wondering if Franklin needs a fresh start.
He’s only 53 and he averaged eight wins a year at Vanderbilt. If he expresses any interest at all in a move to Fayetteville, the Hogs should listen.
Deion Sanders
Put me down as not a fan of this one, especially as Colorado sputters again. Yurachek interviewed Sanders back in 2019 when Prime was coaching Jackson State, but now there are no more superstar children for Sanders to rely on. He won 10 games at Colorado last year with his son at quarterback, but his refusal to do anything conventionally means he’s probably never going to build a consistent winner. I think he’s not a bad coach at all, but that level of risk is not something Arkansas needs to be toying with right now.
Jon Gruden
On the record: this is a really dumb idea and should not be seriously considered. Gruden last coached college in 1989, when he was the tight ends coach at Pacific. He hasn’t coached at all since 2021, when the Raiders fired him. Yes, he won a Super Bowl, but overall he was a fairly mediocre NFL coach, posting a 117-112 career record.
I think his name gets mentioned because people see a guy on the TV saying smart-sounding things, point at the guy on the TV, and say “I want the guy on the TV.”
If you want a Super Bowl winning coach, someone should really look into hiring Bill Belichick, who has 333 NFL wins and six Super Bowls and is clearly a superior coach to Gruden. Oh wait… North Carolina already did that, and they are horrible this year. Gruden is younger, so sure, he’d be better, but probably not by much.
This is the type of hire Yurachek would be drawn to, and the Board should call 911 if he presents this as a serious option.
The Fallback Options
I think Yurachek’s seat would be pretty hot if the Hogs end up at this point, but I do think there are some good coaches here. Most would probably not elevate the program, and it’s possible that none of these can unify the donors.
Barry Odom
Odom did a great job as Arkansas’ defensive coordinator from 2020 to 2022. He then did an incredible job at UNLV as head coach in 2023 and 2024, earning him the head coaching job at Purdue. He understands what it takes to win in the SEC and commands the respect of his players. However, he was pretty mediocre as Mizzou’s head coach, going 25-25 with zero conference seasons better than 4-4.
In the “strategist” theory that we considered above, Odom would be an Elko-type hire, a defensive guy and program manager who needs a flashy offensive coordinator. That’s what he did at Mizzou (Josh Heupel was one of his OCs) and UNLV. However, the red flag is that most of his career success has come from the offense and his defenses at all head coaching stops have mostly been mediocre-to-bad.
I think Odom has learned a lot since then and would definitely be a lot lower-risk than most of the other candidates in this group… but I also completely understand that this would not be a very exciting hire for a fanbase that is begging for more.
Ryan Silverfield
It would be fitting if Silverfield coached his team to a big win that served to make his jump to the SEC possible: getting the previous coach fired and elevating his own status. Silverfield is 27-5 since the start of the 2023 season at Memphis, and his Tigers are now the favorites to take the Group of Five’s automatic playoff spot. His teams play with tremendous discipline: they rarely turn it over, are rarely penalized, and avoid negative plays.
There are some clear downsides, though. He inherited a Memphis program that was at the top of The American conference after the Justin Fuente and Mike Norvell eras, and he’s merely maintained that status. And like the fired Pittman, he’s a former offensive line coach who was promoted straight to head coach, bypassing coordinator status.
He would not be a bad hire, but like Odom, I don’t think the ceiling is very high with him.
Eric Morris
Were you in the group that wanted Mike Leach in 2017 and 2019? Well, RIP to the Pirate, but Morris is probably the purest remaining up-and-coming Leach disciple. He played for Leach at Texas Tech, and then served as an assistant for him at Washington State and for Leach disciple Kliff Kingsbury at Tech. His Air Raid offense is a ton of fun to watch and could give Arkansas a unique identity.
He’s now in his third season coaching North Texas, and he has the Mean Green off to a 5-0 start. He’s just 39 years old and has deep Texas ties. However, he went 5-7 and 6-7 in his first two seasons, so there is not much sustained success to go on. He’s not the kind of candidate Yurachek usually pays much attention to.
GJ Kinne
Kinne in his third season at Texas State. He played for Gus Malzahn at Tulsa and then coached for Chad Morris at SMU (2017) and with the Hogs (2018) as a GA. He later served as Malzahn’s first offensive coordinator at UCF (2021) before taking this job. He’s the anti-Swinney: his monster portal overhaul of TSU in 2023 led to instant winning. But he hasn’t really elevated the program since that first season, going 8-5 again last year and now a 3-2 start this year after a badly-mismanaged loss to Arkansas State in which the Bobcats scored a touchdown with a minute left when they could have taken a knee and kicked a field goal with no time left. He’s young and modern, but there’s not much of a track record there.
Kirby Moore
The Missouri offensive coordinator is the newest add to the list after the Razorbacks apparently interviewed him in early October via video call. He played at Boise State along with his brother, former Cowboys quarterback and offensive coordinator Kellen Moore. Like Kellen, Kirby is a coaching prodigy who has had eye-opening success at every stop. He was Kalen DeBoer’s offensive coordinator at Fresno State and has been at Missouri since 2023, immediately elevating their offense. Someone is going to get a very good head coach in this guy soon… but it’s probably not going to be Arkansas, since hiring a guy with this little experience is probably a risky move.
That said, if you subscribe to the above theory that Strategy > Recruiting & Developing in this era of college football, you might have this guy higher on your list.
Barry Lunney Jr.
With Lashlee and Dowell Loggains, Lunney is the other major Razorback alum in college football. A Fort Smith native and son of legendary Arkansas high school coach Barry Lunney Sr., the younger Lunney quarterbacked the Hogs to the 1995 SEC West title. He spent seven seasons as tight ends coach and recruiting coordinator for the Hogs (2013 to 2019, spanning the Bielema and Morris eras), and then served as interim coach after Morris was fired. He didn’t get the job permanently, so he became Traylor’s OC at UTSA. He was there for two years before rejoining Bielema at Illinois, where he’s done a nice job.
Ultimately, Lunney would be a fun offensive coordinator for the Hogs, maybe with a chance to eventually take the head job should the Hogs hire an older head coach. But as a head coach now? Probably not.
Dowell Loggains
Loggains is probably not a serious candidate and his candidacy would not be received well at all, but he’s a Razorback alum and Newport native so I’ll include him anyway. He spent several seasons as an NFL OC before returning to Fayetteville in 2020, coaching tight ends for two seasons under Pittman. He was the offensive coordinator at South Carolina when they had Spencer Rattler and then La’Norris Sellers last year, but overall his two seasons as play caller were pretty uneven. He’s now in his first season as head coach at Appalachian State.
I think he has some promise, so Hog fans should remember his name should we start this whole process again in a few years.
Delisted candidates
This piece is being updated as the season unfolds and new information comes out. The following candidates were in an earlier version of this point, but have since been removed, with explanations provided.
Jeff Traylor. The UTSA head coach was already a longshot due to his connection to the Chad Morris era (he was Arkansas’ running backs coach under Morris in 2018 and 2019). And while coaches and media alike raved about the work he did in his first three seasons in San Antonio, he appears to have plateaued and is now falling. The Roadrunners are now 2-3 after a 27-21 loss to Temple on Saturday. With North Texas, Tulane, and South Florida still on the schedule, 6-6 is looking like a best-case scenario. That’s not going to cut it, and it’s worth dropping Traylor off the list entirely.
What’s the plan?
Despite all the names, I think this is a straightforward search. I think you start with Lashlee and Sumrall as 1A and 1B, gauging both their interest and donor interest over the next couple of months. You can check with Swinney’s people too. If Lashlee and Sumrall fall through (and Swinney’s not interested), then you look at how Petrino has done. If he’s pulled off a miracle on the field and the donors are in, maybe that’s the move. Otherwise, I like Mullen as the top backup option. Most of the others are either too risky (Kinne, Prime, Morris) or not exciting enough (Odom, Lunney, Silverfield).
One way or another, it’s about to be a new era of Razorback football.