The Elephant in the Room Part II

[buff2.0]

Tardville wants to get UAPD after the student. lol

how long until Lanny runs for governor?

[Lurk]

how long until Lanny runs for governor?

With Douglas as his press secretary.

[Trigger7672]

https://x.com/nwahutch/status/1710279241777004551?s=46&t=lD8yygcF-k5I6Qnx3SfeHw


Our sports media members really are the worst.

[vegashog]

that they feel this is 'news' is beyond me.

[HogOfWar]

https://x.com/nwahutch/status/1710279241777004551?s=46&t=lD8yygcF-k5I6Qnx3SfeHw


Our sports media members really are the worst.

Someone is going to get sued, I bet.

[piglosopher]

Enos should have ignored it but he's only guilty of being snarky

What a nothingburger to prop up a crappy media site.

[Pig Benis]

how long until Lanny runs for governor?

Does he actually make money off that site? I venture over there occasionally to read about baseball but that board is truly awful.

[HogOfWar]

Enos should have ignored it but he's only guilty of being snarky

What a nothingburger to prop up a crappy media site.

Basically. I mean, it was pretty tame.

[egregious]

trying to figure out who was dumber for getting into a Rinky Dink media story - Enos or the governor

[buff2.0]

Our sports media members really are the worst.

Evar.

[animal]

Anything to take the focus off how bad things are they'll have made this guy an example win or lose this next week.

[obijuana]

 

https://x.com/nwahutch/status/1710279241777004551?s=46&t=lD8yygcF-k5I6Qnx3SfeHw


Our sports media members really are the worst.

Looks like the moneyshot missed his chin.

[bigpig]

I assume this is the (potential) Hog head coaching search thread. Fayvillians has a list of potential coaches to watch this weekend:


Coach Watch
If you've given up on the current Arkansas regime, it's hard to blame you. But hope springs eternal, so you'd probably rather watch potential Razorback coaching candidates in action. After all, no one wants to get into Flight Tracking Season and realize they don't actually know anything about the top candidates. Here are some options for you, as several of them have very big games this week.


Liberty at Jacksonville State (Tuesday, 6:30 pm, ESPNU). You may remember Jamey Chadwell, who was the interim coach at Coastal Carolina in 2017 when the Chanticleers came to Fayetteville and nearly beat the Hogs, who were saved in what can only be called The TJ Hammonds Game. Chadwell eventually got the full-time gig and had a pair of 11-win seasons for Coastal, and now has Liberty 5-0 in his first season. The Gamecocks of Jacksonville State are 5-1 in their first FBS season, so this should be a good matchup.

Tulane at Memphis (Friday, 6 pm, ESPN). Willie Fritz was widely thought of as a candidate for the job back in 2020, and for good reason. Since that time, he's added a New Year's Six bowl to his resume (the Green Wave took down USC in the Cotton Bowl last year). He's 63, but he's been a winner at every stop: two FCS title game appearances at Sam Houston, an 8-0 Sun Belt record in Georgia Southern's second season in the FBS, and now 16-3 in the last two seasons at Tulane. The winner of this game is probably the American favorite.

Indiana at Michigan (Saturday, 11 am, FOX). Watch Michigan to check out their defense, which ranks #1 in our model. Defensive coordinator Jesse Minter was in fact born in Little Rock, though his connections to the Natural State are minimal, as he did not grow up here (he grew up in Indiana). His father Rick was a GA for Lou Holtz at Arkansas in 1978. Anyway, Minter spent four years on John Harbaugh's Ravens staff and has coordinated the Wolverine defense since 2022. Would be actually be a candidate? No idea, but I like watching good football, and Michigan plays good football.

Kansas at Oklahoma State (Saturday, 2:30 pm, FS1). The obvious first call for the Hogs should there be a coaching search would be Lance Leipold, a guy who just wins. He went 109-6 as the head coach of Division III Wisconsin-Whitewater, winning six national titles in eight seasons. Buffalo gave him a chance at the FBS level, and he delivered MAC East titles in his fourth and sixth seasons at the helm. Now at Kansas, he took over the Power 5's most moribund program and quickly went from 2-10 to 6-7 to 5-1 this year. A win over Oklahoma State would ensure the Jayhawks bowl eligibility for the second straight year.

UNLV at Nevada (Saturday, 4 pm). I doubt Barry Odom would be a serious candidate unless top options all said no, but the work he's doing in Las Vegas is impressive. The Rebels are 4-1 after more than a decade of bad football (UNLV hasn't been good since they beat Arkansas in 2000 Las Vegas Bowl). Odom's defense is massively improved, but all eyes are on his innovative offensive coordinator, Brennan Marion, whose "GoGo offense" has been really influential in coaching circles in the last few years. Marion, just 36, is almost certainly going to get a Power 5 offensive coordinator job this offseason. I tend to think that Marion's scheme is exactly what Arkansas needs to succeed, so I've been following the Rebels closely all year. A retained Sam Pittman could look to Marion to replace Dan Enos, or Odom, if hired, could try to lure him to Fayetteville.

UL Monroe at Texas State (Saturday, 6 pm, ESPN+). Deion Sanders' total rebuild at Colorado is getting all the attention, but new head coach GJ Kinne did the same thing at Texas State, bringing in an army of transfers to transform a program. Kinne, a former Tulsa quarterback under Gus Malzahn, is just 34 years old, but his rebuilt Bobcat squad stunned Baylor in his first game as coach and are off to a 4-2 start. Kinne spent the 2018 season as an offensive analyst on Chad Morris's staff at Arkansas and was Malzahn's offensive coordinator at UCF in 2021. In his only season as Incarnate Word's coach (2022), he took the Cardinals to the FCS Semifinals. The obvious downside to Kinne is that he's been a head coach for all of two seasons, and just one at the FBS level, but his teams are fun to watch.

NC State at Duke (Saturday, 7 pm, ACC Network). If the lack of connections to great programs from Leipold, Fritz, and Chadwell are a concern for you, consider Mike Elko, who has coordinated defenses for powerhouse programs (Notre Dame in 2018 and Texas A&M in 2019-2021), is a Power 5 head coach (Duke), and has proven he can win at a historically-disadvantaged program (13-5 in two seasons). The Blue Devils are 4-1 and have a win over Clemson and a close loss to Notre Dame.


https://www.fayvillains.com/2023/10/10/the-week-ahead-week-7-2/

Elko, with someone like Brennan Marion as OC would be very intriguing.

[Guardrail]

Coach watch is waaay early. The UofA SOP is to wallow in squalor for at least a couple seasons before trying to replace anybody. Unlike some place like, say, Auburn who fired a national champion coach a couple years removed from a natty for having one bad season who was 33-19 in 4 seasons.

[bigpig]

Coach watch is waaay early. The UofA SOP is to wallow in squalor for at least a couple seasons before trying to replace anybody. Unlike some place like, say, Auburn who fired a national champion coach a couple years removed from a natty for having one bad season who was 33-19 in 4 seasons.

Too early yet to make an announcement, but I guarantee you HY has a list he's looking at.

If we scratch and claw somehow to 6-6, nothing changes. If we miss a bowl, but only barely, like 5-7, I think Pittman will be given the chance to make changes to OL and/or OC. If he refuses, or if we slip to 4-8 or worse, I think a change will have to be made.

[DirkPiggler]

Too early yet to make an announcement, but I guarantee you HY has a list he's looking at.

If we scratch and claw somehow to 6-6, nothing changes. If we miss a bowl, but only barely, like 5-7, I think Pittman will be given the chance to make changes to OL and/or OC. If he refuses, or if we slip to 4-8 or worse, I think a change will have to be made.

This makes sense.  You can't let a coach survive 1-7 or 0-8 in his fourth year or later.  In fact you should have an 0-8 clause written into every coach's contract where you have the option to fire for cause with no buyout if that happens even in year one.  We've had exactly two coaches who have gone 0-8 at Arkansas, and hindsight tells us we would have been better off firing both of them as soon as they did it the first time.

[egregious]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/other/illinois-woes-begin-and-end-with-bret-bielema/ar-AA1i89V4?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=6123ce8bc0604cdb8bd53695b07381d4&ei=27

just a little day lightener for this dreary thread

It can always be worse.

[BASS]

He needs to add wazzu's and Oregon states coaches to the list.

Those places are not easy to recruit to or win at.

[Feral]

Tulane at Memphis (Friday, 6 pm, ESPN). Willie Fritz was widely thought of as a candidate for the job back in 2020, and for good reason. Since that time, he's added a New Year's Six bowl to his resume (the Green Wave took down USC in the Cotton Bowl last year). He's 63, but he's been a winner at every stop: two FCS title game appearances at Sam Houston, an 8-0 Sun Belt record in Georgia Southern's second season in the FBS, and now 16-3 in the last two seasons at Tulane. The winner of this game is probably the American favorite.

Why do people keep mentioning Fritz?

Not only is he older than Sam, he's been at Tulane for nearly a decade and has had ONE good year.

Here's his year by year record at Tulane:

4-8
5-7
7-6
7-6
6-6
2-10
12-2

[Lurk]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/other/illinois-woes-begin-and-end-with-bret-bielema/ar-AA1i89V4?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=6123ce8bc0604cdb8bd53695b07381d4&ei=27

just a little day lightener for this dreary thread

It can always be worse.

Thank you. It's always nice to see that some things never change.

I bet Bert has a big old buyout clause too.  Edit: Nope, only 3mm.