Football fans in Arkansas don’t even talk much these days about championships, instead seemingly re-focusing on just getting being able to keep things a little closer.
Yes, a program that was one of the 10 winningest programs in all of college football from 1958 to 1992 has fallen to being mentioned as one of the worst today.
It’s a slide that slipped when Frank Broyles tried to make the best of what he knew back in 1990 was going to take a heavy turn downward because he’d already had conversations and discussions about a merger between the Southwest Conference and the Big 8 didn’t include the Razorbacks.
Most fans these days don’t even talk about competing for a conference championship (which the Hogs have never won in the SEC) as the goal. These days the goal appears to be 6-6.
It was Lou Holtz who said back in 1977 that people live up to — or down to — expectations. Arkansas has turned into a program that rewarded a .500 coach with a contract extension that included a ridiculous buyout after the 2014 season.
A lot of people applauded the move. Some of us wondered at the time if it wasn’t the dumbest move made in Razorback athletics history.
Hindsight can point to that as the defining moment the foundation was laid for mediocre expectations that make average seasons as being considered a success.
Thus Hog fans find themselves mired in yet another coaching search where one person is deciding things and it really doesn’t matter what former coaches, players or even the rank-and-file fans think.
Hunter Yurachek is making the decision, which does eliminate the need for fans to settle on who to aim at if it goes wrong. Based on his recent basketball hiring, though, you kinda like the fact he’s picking the next coach.
There are some whispers that a couple of money people are pushing current Florida International coach Butch Davis, who is 68 and probably ranks third in Miami among college coaches in popularity behind Mario Cristobal and Lane Kiffin.
Kiffin, by the way, is who some fans want (imagine a single Kiffin turned loose on Dickson Street may be what keeps him from getting the job). Others hold out a pipe dream that Mike Leach gets the job, which is being content to keep coming up short, but scoring a bunch of points doing it.
Everybody’s got an answer in today’s world where more fans want affirmation instead of information. Let’s face it, if you put enough names on a hot board list the odds are in your favor one of them is going to be the pick.
Right now a lot of Razorback football fans have actually floated the idea of getting a coach in just to settle down the program, restore some credibility and set the stage for the next coach. It wasn’t intentional, but that’s kinda what Danny Ford did for Houston Nutt.
Yurachek is the only one I hear talking about finding a coach to compete for championships. Fans, by and large, apparently can’t grasp that competing for a title of any sort is remotely possible.
Apparently the athletic director is the only one that dares to speak the word championship and doesn’t exactly appear to be the type with a lot of patience for coaches that can’t point the ship in that direction.
Which is precisely the attitude everybody should have, in my opinion.
Razorback fans should be careful about hoping or even willing to be happy being mediocre. Many were ecstatic winning 10 games a year and finishing third in the SEC West just a few years after flying banners over the stadium to fire the coach winning 10 games and going to the conference championship game.
What changed? From this view it’s been lowered expectations and many willing to make excuses to not compete for a championship.
Yurachek apparently doesn’t think that way.
And it may make a difference in this coaching search.
