Just three weeks after firing Sam Pittman for losing too many close games, Arkansas is 0-2 in one-score games under interim coach Bobby Petrino. The Hogs put up a good fight and almost erased deficits of 15 points in the second quarter (21-6) and 11 points in the fourth quarter (38-27), but an inability to get stops proved costly in an exciting 45-42 loss to fourth-ranked Texas A&M.
The non-thinking person might stop there, but obviously, there are plenty of nuances here. While the Ole Miss game played out almost exactly like the Tennessee and Texas A&M games, I would contend that Pittman was primarily fired for the Memphis and Notre Dame losses. Memphis was one-score but looked nothing like these last two weeks. That was a much worse team and involved a blown 18-point lead.
The reality is that the Hogs have competed well despite basically not playing defense and are now in a good position to win their next two games.
After the game, the Aggies went there on social media:
But here’s the reality: this motorcycle ride may not be over for Hog fans. Petrino remains one of the best offensive minds in football, but the bigger news this weekend was what happened elsewhere: Florida State took a backbreaking loss. Florida won but fired Billy Napier anyway. Wisconsin got trounced and appears to have quit on struggling coach Luke Fickell. Kentucky took a very frustrating loss to Texas in a winnable game.
Florida is the latest job to come open, but Florida State and Wisconsin will likely be open by November as well. They’ll join Penn State, Virginia Tech, UCLA, Oklahoma State, and Stanford as open power-conference jobs. There could be others. Can Arkansas actually make a good hire this cycle?
I think if Arkansas can get to 5-7 this season (win the next two then pull a November upset), Petrino’s chances of keeping this job are very good. Arkansas’ short list of clear-upgrade coaches – Rhett Lashlee, Jon Sumrall, James Franklin, Dan Mullen – is probably too short. Lashlee very well may stay at SMU and the other three might end up at other places.
Mullen, whose appearance and demeanor is often compared to Randy Quaid’s character Cousin Eddie in National Lampoon’s Vacation movies, channeled a different National Lampoon movie, Animal House, in a now-deleted tweet this week, comparing his interest in the Arkansas job to John Belushi’s GPA: “zero-point-zero”. From his experience at Mississippi State, Mullen might be tired to coaching a lower-tier SEC school. That could also just be coach-speak given his grain-of-salt commitments to his current employer, UNLV. But if Mullen isn’t interested, who realistically is?
Mullen could end up at Penn State or UCLA. Franklin likely looks at Florida or Florida State ahead of Arkansas. And Sumrall could go to those or his alma mater, Kentucky, should the Wildcats agree to pay Mark Stoops’ enormous buyout. Other candidates are falling apart as well: Gus Malzahn’s offense has sputtered in Tallahassee, Jeff Traylor is clearly starting to sink at UTSA, GJ Kinne keeps costing his team games with ridiculous coaching blunders, and Ryan Silverfield’s team had an inexcusable loss to UAB in former Hog Alex Mortensen’s first game as interim head coach.
If Arkansas had even a semblance of a defense, they are 6-1 right now. That’s obvious. And if they can’t attract a clear upgrade over Petrino, then removing the interim tag is going to be the obvious move, probably aiming to give Petrino a smaller contract and save some money to hire a quality defensive coordinator. (Contractually requiring Petrino to spend a certain minimum amount of money on NIL for the defense might also be a wise decision.) That’s probably not good news for the job security of Hunter Yurachek, whose own administrative blunders meant that Arkansas is searching for a coach in this year’s crowded carousel instead of in last year’s quiet one.
“Mullen might be tired to coaching a lower-tier SEC school. ”
That’s like Broyles saying “We are eighth in potential” during the Nutt days.
The only reason is because of the athletic department and the Powers That Be are too egotistical to do what is right to have a good program. Thank God Tyson told Hunter to hire Calipari or we would only have Baseball to hang our hat on.
To bad we didn’t keep Barry Odom since he was part of the reason we looked great in 2021.