A third SEC coach has fallen. LSU announced Sunday night that Brian Kelly is out in his fourth season. He went 34-14 but never sniffed the playoff, and things are headed in the wrong direction this season.

Two SEC jobs more prestigious than Arkansas are now open, plus other power conference jobs like UCLA, Penn State, Oklahoma State, Virginia Tech, and Stanford. Several more SEC coaches could follow: between Shane Beamer, Mark Stoops, Hugh Freeze, and Jeff Lebby, it’s possible only one of those is still coaching at his school next year. And reports surfaced Saturday that Texas’ Steve Sarkisian may try to jump back to the NFL.

Arkansas picked one crazy year to fire a coach and jump into this carousel. They probably should have done this last year or even after the 2023 season, but here we are. This had to be done, and Arkansas can’t be looking for a short-term fix like Sam Pittman was. As we discussed yesterday, the entire athletic department structure, gameday experience, and program management needs to be reconsidered. History and pride need to be put aside in order to find a coach who can help Arkansas establish an identity as a program that does something other than fumble away winnable football games, because that’s about all Arkansas has done for nearly 15 years.

Going for the biggest name would be incredibly stupid. Bret Bielema was an established, prestigious name. Chad Morris was a can’t-miss up-and-comer. Both failed. Given the wildness of the coaching cycle, Arkansas is almost certainly not going to get the most obvious names (James Franklin or Jon Sumrall come to mind). The Hogs need to forget winning the press conference and get a coach with the right attributes.

But what are those attributes? Here are a few that come to mind.

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  Box Score Breakdown: Arkansas 109, Southern 77
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  The Day After: This is life as a doormat
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  The Week Ahead: A desperate race for a good coach begins

Coaches should be delegators, not calling their own plays

Coaches used to be play callers: arrangements like Houston Nutt’s where he had no offensive coordinator in Fayetteville were actually pretty common. Nutt was eventually forced to hire an OC (he picked – or was forced to pick – Gus Malzahn, of course), and the no-OC practice eventually went away.

But in the last few years, head coaches who insist on calling plays have grown fewer and fewer, and the holdouts are really struggling. This is all part of the NFL-ification of college football. Coaches have a ton of responsibilities, and play calling distracts from those. They’re better off in an overall program management role, leaving play calling to assistants.

Look at the current AP rankings. Near the top you’ll see a bunch of defensive-minded head coaches like Oregon’s Dan Lanning, Texas A&M’s Mike Elko, Georgia’s Kirby Smart, and Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman. Lanning and Elko sprung for a hotshot young offensive coordinator (Will Stein and Collin Klein), while Smart and Freeman went more conservative, settling for veteran play callers (Mike Denbrock and Mike Bobo).

The offensive-minded head coaches include a lot of guys who gave up play calling, like Ohio State’s Ryan Day and Ole Miss’s Lane Kiffin. Both have proteges as offensive coordinators and play callers, and both went all-in on a big-name defensive coordinator (Matt Patricia and Pete Golding).

Here’s a simple way to look at it. I grouped all 17 SEC head coaches who have coached at least one SEC game (so both Sam Pittman and Bobby Petrino are included) into four buckets: 1) coaches with no side-of-ball specialty or who were never coordinators, 2) offensive coaches who call plays, 3) offensive coaches who don’t call plays, and 4) defensive coaches.

Here are their SEC records:

• No Specialty/Never Coordinator: 3-9 (.250)
• Offensive, Calls Plays: 9-16 (.360)
• Offensive, Doesn’t Call Plays: 11-3 (.786)
• Defensive: 14-9 (.609)

Two of the three No Specialty coaches have already been fired (Sam Pittman, Brian Kelly), and the third (Shane Beamer) is on a very hot seat. The offensive play callers are struggling: Billy Napier is already gone, and Hugh Freeze and Jeff Lebby are on hot seats. Steve Sarkisian won’t get fired, but he’s not having fun at Texas. Only Josh Heupel is doing fine in that group.

Meanwhile, Kiffin, Eli Drinkwitz, and Kalen DeBoer gave up play calling at some point in the past and are all thriving right now. Three of the five defensive guys are doing great (Clark Lea, Kirby Smart, Mike Elko), one is surviving (Brent Venables), and the other is Mark Stoops.

There’s a pretty clear pattern there, and it extends beyond the SEC. The top Big Ten teams are Ohio State, Indiana, and Oregon… and none of those head coaches call plays. Arizona State’s Kenny Dillingham has a background as an offensive play caller, but he gave those up last season as the Sun Devils made a stunning run to the College Football Playoff.

A big reason why this happening is because as programs have more roster management, development, and planning responsibilities, everything revolving around the genius of the head coach is increasingly an inefficient way to operate. Coaches that can hire good assistants and then delegate to them simply do better over the long. It’s the same division of labor principle that drove the rise of industrialized society in the West. Coaches whose primary skill is play calling (and who struggle to delegate) have declined in recent years: think Bobby Petrino or Chad Morris. Some, like Gus Malzahn, tried giving up play calling, hated it, and went back to coordinating (Petrino obviously did this too). That Kiffin has succeeded despite giving it up is a testament to the other coaching skills he’s developed over the years.

If you want to mark off some candidates using this criteria, there are several that can go: Rhett Lashlee, Eric Morris, and Alex Golesh all call their own plays. Obviously, they might offer to give that up, but hiring a head coach whose primary skill is play calling is not a good idea in this day and age.

Coaches should not be hotheads

This is part of Brian Kelly’s fate at LSU. The game’s most famous hothead is out. Billy Napier was also known for his fiery temperament, and he’s gone too. How many hothead coaches do you see in the NFL? Not many in the modern game. The old-timers will call this softness, but whether they are right or not, it’s reality.

Petrino’s fiery behavior alienated his team during his second Louisville stint. Fiery greats like Nick Saban and Steve Spurrier retired in recent years. Those guys won, so it was more tolerable, but when Petrino, Kelly, and Napier started losing, the leash got much shorter. Modern recruits aren’t interested in being screamed at.

Coaches must embrace a modern program structure, NIL, and the transfer portal

This one really hurt Sam Pittman, who may have been handicapped by his athletic director. But Pittman acted skeptical about NIL (bad idea from a recruiting perspective), and he really could have used a general manager and maybe an analytics director. Arkansas was behind on NIL and seemed to have issues with negotiations, hence the massive exodus of players each of the last two offseasons. You also never heard anything about modern analytics, and it seems unlikely that they were collecting any kind of data that could help improve everything from talent evaluation to player development to in-game strategy.

Then in the basketball program, you have John Calipari revolutionizing the idea of “donor insurance” for NIL contributors. The difference between Arkansas’ football and basketball programs right now is maddening, and it all starts with having a head coach who knows what he’s doing.

Coaches must have a clear vision for their program

This one was Pittman’s biggest downfall. He was a Band-Aid hire whose job was to try and re-instill some pride in a football program that had lost its way, and he knocked that task out of the park. But he was not supposed to be a long-term hire, and the second he fired his local agent and hired Jimmy Sexton, he put himself and the entire football program on a bad path.

Pittman never clearly articulated what an elite Arkansas football program would look like. All he really had was playing hard and playing with pride. That works great for covering the spread as an underdog, but there’s no way to build on that, and Pittman never really did.

There are plenty of examples of a clear vision. Kirby Smart probably showed the clearest vision when he was hired at Georgia, and the Bulldogs became exactly what Smart wanted them to be. Pittman was a part of that, but I don’t think he had the same vision that Smart did, which is probably why Smart is going to be a Hall of Fame coach and Pittman isn’t.

One good example right now is Mike Elko at Texas A&M. The obnoxiously rich Aggie boosters threw stupid amounts of money at the biggest name they could find, Jimbo Fisher, and the resulting return on investment was the equivalent of a bad night at the casino. To their credit, they learned their lesson, and let the smart people at Texas A&M (yes, there are a few) make the next hire. Yes, the smart people almost hired Mark Stoops, but they ended up with Elko, a team-first, blue-collar, attention-to-detail guy who never makes it about himself. After Fisher and Kevin Sumlin, that was quite the shock to Aggie fans, but it’s exactly what they needed, and it’s no surprise it’s working out.

Even from an X’s and O’s perspective, Elko has a clear plan. His defenses, as we discussed in the A&M preview, are built on being vanilla and fundamentally sound on early downs, and then exotic and dangerous on third down. While analytics have increasingly favored this bend-don’t-break approach, it does mean that you surrender a lot of field position in order to prevent points. But who did Elko hire as his offensive coordinator? Collin Klein, the former Kansas State quarterback who runs a version of the old Bill Snyder offense. Klein’s offense is all about staying on schedule with a high-efficiency run game that never goes backwards. That allows it to win back the field position that Elko’s defense loses. Both sides of the ball are working together.

Meanwhile, Pittman’s three offensive coordinators were Kendal Briles, then Dan Enos, then Petrino. What was Pittman wanting to accomplish there? Briles’s offense made things easy for the quarterback and was built with an emphasis on explosive plays. Enos’s offense was very quarterback-centric and not explosive at all. The whiplash of that completely unnecessary transition created a lost 2023 season. And it all happened because Pittman did not have any clear plan about what he wanted his offense to do.

Where the coaching search stands

Here’s a quick summary of the major candidates for this job, taking the above criteria into consideration. The “total program reset” mentality means that I’m favoring a young up-and-comer, not some retread. And definitely no one with any ties to the program since 2007. Arkansas needs to put its history and pride aside and hire someone with a vision to build the program from the ground up.

Bobby Petrino. There is no reason to continue to consider him as a candidate. Let’s move on, folks. We’ll always have the highlight videos.

Rhett Lashlee. I’m souring on this one, despite the high natural fit. He may not be interested anyway given his resources at SMU. But he calls his own plays, and this season has a gone a bit sideways for the Mustangs after a 13-12 upset loss to Wake Forest on Saturday.

Alex Golesh. Another guy who calls his own plays, Golesh would still be a fine hire, though the Razorbacks are definitely going to be behind a few other programs in contending for his services. His mishandling of the end of the Memphis loss won’t inspire confidence, however.

Jon Sumrall. He’s the best of the most common names being thrown around, but it’s hard to imagine the Hogs actually getting him since he’ll have attention from every open job in the south. I think he’d be the obvious home run.

James Franklin. Does he want this? I mean, he’s already done his time at a lower-end SEC job, and then spent more than a decade at a power program. How much drive would he have to go back to Arkansas and rebuild it? I think if he’s interested and has the drive, then he’d be a solid choice. But I think Arkansas needs more energy than what he’s likely going to offer. I could see him focusing on Florida State or Virginia Tech in order to stay out of the SEC and Big Ten.

Ryan Silverfield. He’s not my cup of tea. He’s done a nice job at Memphis, but the last two Memphis head coaches who did a nice job have struggled after making the jump. He doesn’t have any obvious qualities that make him a can’t-miss candidate.

Eric Morris. Look, it’s hard to argue with the work he’s done as a quarterback developer. Being quarterbacks coach for Patrick Mahomes, then turning Cam Ward from zero-star recruit into first overall draft pick, then turning a zero-star recruit into one of the nation’s leading passers this season is a ridiculous resume. But making him an SEC head coach carries a risk of promoting him beyond his competence. I like this as a high-risk, high-reward option if others don’t work out.

PJ Fleck. I’ve seen his name mentioned, probably because his starting quarterback is Drake Lindsey. He was a hot hire out of Western Michigan several years ago and he’s done a nice job at Minnesota, though he’s probably plateaued. The additions of better-resourced schools like Oregon and USC to the Big Ten isn’t helping. He’s still young and energetic enough to be a good hire if the Hogs were able to lure him away.

Dan Mullen. His now-deleted “0.0 interest” in the Arkansas job tweet caused most Hog fans to move on from him as a candidate. He’s a good coach, but it’s sort of like James Franklin: he’s already done his time at a lower-end SEC school and then a bigger program, so why would he go backward? I feel like he’d have more interest in UCLA or even Oklahoma State.

Jon Gruden. No.

Gus Malzahn. No.

Will Stein. Now we’re into the interesting coordinators. Stein actually replaced Barry Lunney Jr. as UTSA’s offensive coordinator, and his work there and at Oregon has been really impressive. He’s a skilled quarterback developer and offensive designer, and he’s had time in a successful power program. He’ll have plenty of options, but this would seemingly be a good hire.

Mike Shanahan. I’ll be honest: I thought Indiana’s offensive coordinator was the Mike Shanahan, the 73-year-old former Broncos coach and father of 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan. Nope! This guy isn’t even related to that family. The 35-year-old has been Curt Cignetti’s offensive coordinator for the last few year at James Madison and now Indiana. It’s possible that Cignetti is simply an incredible puppet master, but it seems more likely that he’s hired good assistants, and Shanahan is a potential star. He hasn’t coached away from Cignetti and he has no SEC ties, so this one is a bit risky.

Collin Klein. Klein is considered a rising star in the coaching industry. He’s has a deep knowledge of the SEC and Arkansas’ most common recruiting grounds, and above all, he’s a fantastic offensive designer. Texas A&M’s offense is an absolute machine right now. While I personally lean towards a defensive guy if the Hogs are going to hire a coordinator, Klein is the absolute best choice should the Hogs choose a current offensive coordinator.

Glenn Schumann. This feels like a Deep South SEC kind of hire, but Georgia’s defensive coordinator is only 35 and is a well-connected name. He’s spent his entire playing and coaching career as an assistant to Kirby Smart, first as a player, grad assistant, and off-field role at Alabama, and then in on-field roles in Athens. Hiring Saban-Smart assistants has been hit-or-miss over the years, but he’s definitely not at the bottom of my list. The biggest concern is that he could leave and go back to Georgia or Alabama if either opened in the future.

Kirby Moore. Many reacted negatively at the report that Moore (may have) interviewed for the job, but I’m sorry to inform those folks… Moore is probably a better candidate than many of the others out there. He’s certainly not at the top of the list, but he’s a rising star in the coaching industry for a reason. He coached under Kalen DeBoer and has coordinated good offenses everywhere he’s been.

Jesse Minter. I haven’t heard his name at all, but Arkansas would be dumb to not at least gauge his interest in a college head coaching job. He coordinated Michigan’s dominant 2023 championship defense and is now John Harbaugh’s defensive coordinator with the Chargers. His Arkansas ties are more of a fun note than a reason to hire him: his father, Rick Minter (current Chargers senior advisor), is a Henderson State alum and one-time grad assistant at Arkansas under Lou Holtz. He maintained a permanent residence in Little Rock for many years as he bounced around jobs, and Jesse was born there.