Razorback Football

[wmr]

Do I think that he would take the Arkansas job for the right amount of money? Of course he would.

Ok.  Great post.  Literally anybody would come here for a hypothetical eleventy billion dollar salary.  Keith Carter isn't a possibility for reasons already stated.  We have less of a chance at getting Keith Carter here as AD than we do getting Kirby Smart to coach our football team.

[bigpig]

The only way we fire RS, even with the expected 2-10 finish, is if the new AD has a HC in mind who is an unofficial "yes" for the job, and who has a top shelf QB who will follow him here.

I have 0% expectation of that, or anything close to it happening. Except the 2-10 part. That's gonna happen

[Loma]

https://x.com/codyc64/status/2107213316989051341?s=46&t=FHt3TXiQXntEfO1EaA49XQ

Lol

One billionaire puts his money where his heart is, the other billionaire wants a patch on the uniforms for $2m a year.

Cody Campbell knows we have shitty coach.

[DrMongoose]

Money is not the issue if you are can and are paying QB3 at least $500,000 to not play this year.

Spending has been the major problem - what resources they do have or don't can be argued non stop - but the reality is what they do have has not been spent wisely - and this has been the problem under HY (among so many other things).

How else to explain all these other programs that are achieving a quick turnaround while we are regressing?

Tyson can say what he wants but people are not giving to football (or the AD) but they are giving to DVH and Cal because they have trust is how their money will be spent.

The big question is how do we quit operating the football program like Car Mart and start running it like Everett?

[animal]

There's gonna be a head to roll in all this. From what I'm hearing from all of  you.

A. Chancellor negated the athletic fee thingy that could have brought north of 10 million just coming off the top of tuition fees

B. AD is retarded and lacks competency in nearly every aspect of his job but apparently somebody upstairs likes him. Being given public support from Cal and Tyson doesn't really tell me much how they really feel behind closed doors. I'd imagine their main plight will be making sure the next AD they get some input. 

C. Power struggles at Arkansas are like a tradition. If there isn't one we think something is wrong. It's like watching a old c-drama. The left state minister and the right state minister are always trying to scheme to fuck over each other along with the king. Everyone wants to be the big cheese nobody wants to do the real work to get there

D. The fans get the blame. Yes we aren't giving to NIL like many of our SEC brothers and that's a real problem. Every state is suffering from economic pressures which isn't helping but the real issue here isn't the economy it's that nobody has confidence in the leadership enough to part ways with money.

[DirkPiggler]

That's not gonna happen quick. That means we will suck for the next 2-3 years until those things (hopefully) happen.

Right now the plan is pretty simple. We need better players. We have a coach on a multi-year contract. He ain't going anywhere. Do we want to give him a chance to compete or not?

It sounds like donors are giving all they care to give. That leaves it to a collective. We have failed at that twice now. Even still, if I polled 100 people asking if they would like to donate to NIL 99 would say no (thx Rick B.). 

I feel like we're just kicking the can down the road till we reach euphoria. Wake me up when that happens.

Do you trust the guy who's failed at setting up a collective three times now, after spending two years railing against NIL rather than figuring out how to manage it, to finally get it right?  I don't. 

There is no quick fix thanks to the hole we've dug for ourselves.  A magical $100MM for next year's roster would make things better but would not come close to building a sustainable plan for the future.  It might get us to the Liberty Bowl or some similarly irrelevant postseason reward.  For starters, the current AD would probably invest at least half that in magic beans and give $30MM to women's basketball or some other farce. 

Tyson is right that you have to build the program and that takes money.  But to attract investors you have to have people running the show that you trust will bring you a return on your investment.  No one with half a brain throws money at someone who's plan is "Trust me, bro," especially when the guy asking you to trust him has no track record other than abject failure in the same field in which he's asking you to invest.    Giving Hunter a large sum for NIL would kick the can down the road every bit as much as firing him and giving someone else a shot.  Simply throwing money at a business problem never fixes that issue.

Given that we're years away from competing, why not find someone who has a plan (or the ability to come up with one) to actually fix the problems going forward.  It may not work...given that we're Arkansas, it probably won't.  But we know with 100% certainty that what we're doing isn't working, and that it won't work regardless of the resources we hand to the clown driving the car. 

[no clever name]

Cody Campbell knows we have shitty coach.

I actually pay close attention to TTU.  Some of their fans wanted MCGuire fired a couple of years ago.  He was not great.  The team made stupid plays, looked unprepared at times, and couldn't keep a lead. There were plenty of fans grumbling about the high school coach not being good enough.  Then Cody Campbell bought them a football team.  They focused on linemen and linebackers. Last years defense was impressive to watch and was also on a level that TTU hadn't seen before.  They hit you and they hit you hard.  They aren't as talented this year, but they are doing the same thing.  The result, by the second half they start to pull away.

All that to say this:   Texas Tech has answered the question of Xs and Os vs Jimmys and Joes with the later being the true answer.  Same mediocre coach with better players and they are now relevant.  It can happen quick.  I'm not saying RS is even mediocre, but he certainly hasn't been given the talent that Campbell bought.

[animal]

The main question for me...

Was and is HY shackled by the higher ups? If so...Is that the real reason he hasn't already been let go? 

Somehow I get the feeling the higher ups saw NIL as something that would blow over in a few years when it was proven to be unsustainable. It hasn't and it's every bit as fringe as it always was but there isn't any slow down, no guard rails...just full steam "It just means more". We are literally competing against other schools that won't bat an eye to sink themselves 100+ million in the hole just to win the last game of the season. 

What happened at Indiana? I know it's coaching that's part of it but the administration there like overnight just got super competent in football. It's fucking nuts and they did it in a league where they have been the Washington Generals for decades. They did it in a league that coddles Michigan, Penn State, and Ohio State that now also has Oregon and USC. 


For me as a fan of Arkansas I feel like the real issues occurred at the start of NIL when Pittman was exactly the wrong man for the job. The dynamics changed and yet we were still concerned about the optics when everyone else was poaching the fuck out of players. we were getting MAC and AAC guys. Add to that a clown fuck administration and an uninspiring Pittman, then follow that up with RS who's not exactly firing anyone up. It's just been one wrong move after another and that largely gets placed at the feet of HY. 

RS likely isn't a bad football coach. Maybe whirlwind throwing a football team together in a matter of a few weeks was too big of a job for him. The evals if he had any were probably a lot of which meant for Memphis not Arkansas. Given his prior performance as a coach I'm going to guess he's not "This bad"...but still yet feel it was a very underwhelming hire. Arkansas fans wanted credibility and energy and we got a guy that looks like a shop teacher and acts like one too. Maybe over the long haul it gets better when he's had time to figure out what the fuck happened. To me the OL evals were like really bad. The OC is completely wrong for the job. We really should have stuck with a Petrino style approach at least for the 26 season especially if we weren't changing QBs. Again regardless of the circumstances if we were really at that 25 million mark then we should be as competitive as Kentucky, Miss State, and probably a few others in the league...not a distant last place. 

[Barton Fink]

HY has enough faults to warrant a change. Plus someone has to be the scapegoat. Again, that means we are accepting being the laughing stock of college football for a couple more years. I guess everyone isn't tied of losing. I am. I want to see us win now. Until the money changes, we will have a less talented team coached by an unproven coach. Good luck with that in the SEC.

No clever name is right. McGuire was an unknown coach a few years ago. An Arkansas team with more losses smoked his team in the Liberty Bowl. Since them TT said we're at least gonna give him the money to field a better team and what happened? Better results. Yet we claim Pittman couldn't get it done (with Petrino on staff) so we're not gonna give money till someone better comes along. Guess what, we hired a worse coach and are fielding and even less talented team.

Change coaches. Change ADs. Nothing will change results till the money significantly increases. That's the bottom line. If you're ok waiting a couple more years for us to get "our ducks in a row" , don't bitch about the results in the meantime. We are who we are.

[Barton Fink]

I think animal is right too. HY didn't think NIL would become what it has and we fell behind. That has come back to bite him. If we had taken an aggressive approach up front we could have at least built some momentum in wins. Instead we slide further down in the pecking order.

As for Indiana, Mark Cuban made a major contribution to their NIL. They got better talent and hired a coach that knows what to do with it.

[Son of Spam]

Look at all the teams who were nothing a few years ago and are now light years ahead of us. WTH happened? I doubt we could beat some DII teams now. Let's do whatever those teams did. Cheat, spend money we don't have, lie....hell, do something. We seem to sit on our thumbs and hope for the best.

[DirkPiggler]

HY has enough faults to warrant a change. Plus someone has to be the scapegoat. Again, that means we are accepting being the laughing stock of college football for a couple more years. I guess everyone isn't tied of losing. I am. I want to see us win now. Until the money changes, we will have a less talented team coached by an unproven coach. Good luck with that in the SEC.

No clever name is right. McGuire was an unknown coach a few years ago. An Arkansas team with more losses smoked his team in the Liberty Bowl. Since them TT said we're at least gonna give him the money to field a better team and what happened? Better results. Yet we claim Pittman couldn't get it done (with Petrino on staff) so we're not gonna give money till someone better comes along. Guess what, we hired a worse coach and are fielding and even less talented team.

Change coaches. Change ADs. Nothing will change results till the money significantly increases. That's the bottom line. If you're ok waiting a couple more years for us to get "our ducks in a row" , don't bitch about the results in the meantime. We are who we are.

We all want to win now.  That isn't happening no matter what.   Give the current group a billion tomorrow and it won't happen. 

Our choices are make a change and wait and hope for a couple of years, or status quo and wait forever with no hope.   Get the money if you can but put it in the hands of someone who can do something with it.

EDIT:  change being athletic director.   We haven't seen enough of Silverfield to know for sure yet, although returns aren't promising. 

[animal]

At present time my belief is you could give this staff 45 million dollars to spend on a single season and they would still underwhelm. That would get us maybe a citrus bowl. 

If you can't take 25 million and at least look like you are from the same conference as Miss State and Kentucky then you are in way over your head. 

[Barton Fink]

At present time my belief is you could give this staff 45 million dollars to spend on a single season and they would still underwhelm. That would get us maybe a citrus bowl.

If you can't take 25 million and at least look like you are from the same conference as Miss State and Kentucky then you are in way over your head.

It may get us to 6-7 wins. At least some momentum. Not a bottom dweller. And the next hire knows the floor for this program is at least competitive and that he can actually win here. I think RS has a very low ceiling even with a competitive NIL.

[DirkPiggler]

This is where we are now, and apologies up front to anyone who is or has suffered from cancer.  This is merely an analogy- obviously nothing in the athletic realm compares to actual loss. 

You're a 45 year old guy with a wife and kids.  Lifelong smoker, overweight.  Doc just told you that you have stage four lung cancer.  With aggressive, horribly painful chemo you have about a 10% chance of survival.  Without it, zero chance.  Accepting your fate and dying peacefully isn't an option, because you can't leave your wife and kids in that spot.  I think under those circumstances most of us would take the 10% shot and the pain that comes with it.

Your healthy buddy tells you that you don't need the chemo.  Just quit smoking, start eating healthy, and get in the gym.  All of which would have helped if you'd done it five or maybe even 2-3 years ago.  Now, it's too late for that. 

Firing HY (and Pittman before) is that chemo.  Keeping him and giving him a pile full of money are the lifestyle changes that, while necessary are not sufficient at this point. 

[The Whyte Boar]

We are still (I believe) Top 20 in NIL spending.  Are we a Top 20 team?  That would be a typical plucky Arkansas team in a tough league.  We are literally the worst team in the country.

I personally don't think NIL has really changed Arkansas' place in the pecking order all that much except to open up the top if we spend.  But spending wise and recruiting rankings wise we are pretty much where we always are/were in that 20 to 30 range.  We just aren't getting those type results.  In the SEC that would be good enough for 6-8 wins in most years.  We either drastically overpaid for what we have or what we have is drastically under coached .

[Pig Benis]

The Walton's are fortunate Sam worked hard. They are creating a med school and stem school that competes against the state flagships. They are hell bent on wrecking the public school system. They tried to annex the Buffalo River.

Are any of those bad things?

[SOM]

At present time my belief is you could give this staff 45 million dollars to spend on a single season and they would still underwhelm. That would get us maybe a citrus bowl.

If you can't take 25 million and at least look like you are from the same conference as Miss State and Kentucky then you are in way over your head.

The problem is that they took 25m and couldn't compete with Utah State. How many other teams with a smaller budget would blow the doors off this team?

[Son of Spam]

We are still (I believe) Top 20 in NIL spending.  Are we a Top 20 team?  That would be a typical plucky Arkansas team in a tough league.  We are literally the worst team in the country.

I personally don't think NIL has really changed Arkansas' place in the pecking order all that much except to open up the top if we spend.  But spending wise and recruiting rankings wise we are pretty much where we always are/were in that 20 to 30 range.  We just aren't getting those type results.  In the SEC that would be good enough for 6-8 wins in most years.  We either drastically overpaid for what we have or what we have is drastically under coached .

Seems we suck badly at talent evaluation.

[HOGSRUNWILD]

Seems we suck badly at talent evaluation.

Evaluation and development.  The QB certainly hasn't gotten BETTER.  The players from last year all seem to have gotten worse than they were last year and the new ones suck.