Whew, How are we doing this morning?
After a wild 24 hours in college football and the coaching carousel nowhere close to slowing down, I thought to myself, ‘I’m so glad Arkansas isn’t going through this again.’ I remember the stress and chaos the Pig Trail team went through during the last two coaching searches for the Razorbacks football program. A lot of phone calls for Mike Irwin, a lot of plane tracking for Jason Carroll.
I know a few sports journalists who cover Oklahoma, and I know their world was turned upside down when Lincoln Riley seemed to up and vanish in the middle of the night like the Baltimore Colts. Former Sooners head coach Bob Stoops will step in while they look for a replacement for Riley and coach in the Sooners’ Bowl Game. If you are an active member of the Twitter world, you’ve seen the reports that Riley was a no-show, no-call for his weekly Coach’s Show. Then he didn’t want to even address the team until Stoops told him he had to. Sooners fans are all in their feelings right now.
Then look at LSU and Notre Dame. Congratulations to Brian Kelly for getting LSU to pay him an outrageous salary to leave the Fighting Irish, especially when there’s a chance Notre Dame could be in the College Football Playoffs if certain chips fall their way during Championship Weekend. So could the Irish be with an interim head coach and be playing for a national title? I’m glad I’m not that administration.
The dominos will continue to fall as December rolls on. OU needs a new guy. Whoever ND hires, his current school will be looking for someone new. Louisiana is on the move after Billy Napier accepted the Florida vacancy. Will Miami make a change with Manny Diaz?
All I can say is this- Hog Fans, sit back and enjoy the view. Grab the popcorn and get comfortable knowing Arkansas isn’t in those shoes anymore, nor should they be anytime soon. We know Sam Pittman isn’t going anywhere. I remember a press conference a few weeks ago where Sam was talking about his contract and Hunter Yurachek was going over the “Termination” section of the contract and Sam joked and said something to the effect of “You’re not going to fire me, you don’t have to go over that.”
Pittman and his wife Jamie are exactly where they want to be, and if the last two years are any indication, this program isn’t going anywhere but up (the only thing Arkansas has to worry about is keeping Barry Odom and Kendal Briles on staff).
But let’s cast that net a little wider. Not only should Arkansas not be looking for a Head Football Coach anytime soon, they shouldn’t be looking for a Head Coach in any sport anytime soon. Think about that for a moment. Read that sentence again. Every program at Arkansas is performing at a high level. To hammer the point in more, Arkansas Director of Athletics Hunter Yurachek tweeted this out Monday afternoon:
And that’s just the Fall/Winter sports. Baseball, Softball, Gymnastics are all programs that keep getting better and better. Shoot, Courtney Deifel and her staff just brought in the #1 signing class of 2022. That’s huge in collegiate softball and the SEC.
It’s a good time to be a Hogs fan.
It’s a good time to be Hunter Yurachek.
It’s a good time to be someone who covers the Razorbacks knowing they’ve got a really good thing going.
Be grateful. It’s the time of the year to count your blessings and give gratitude. So while all these other schools are looking for someone to lead their football programs and throwing big money at big names, kick your feet up and just watch it all play out around you.
