Arkansas athletics director Hunter Yurachek and new interim coach Barry Lunney, Jr., met with the media Monday after Chad Morris was fired as coach on Sunday.
Hogs pick up another big win, downing McNeese State, 101-58
FAYETTEVILLE — No. 23 Arkansas won its second straight game Monday night, moving to 2-0 with a 101-58 win over McNeese State.
It was Arkansas’ first game this season scoring 100 or more, and the third time in the Neighbors Era the Hogs have reached the century mark.
Redshirt junior guard Chelsea Dungee led the way for the Razorbacks, dropping in 19 points on an efficient seven of eleven shooting.
Dungee also pulled down eight rebounds and picked up two steals. Taylah Thomas recorded her second straight double-double of the season, scoring 11 points while snaring 11 rebounds.
Turning point
Arkansas once again started fast, this time getting out of the gate on a 19-7 run. Dungee was excellent in the first frame, going for 11 of her 19 in the period.
Senior guard Alexis Tolefree also got off to a nice start, scoring all nine of her points in the period. She also dished three assists, including a sweet over-the-head pass to Dungee for a three in the first.
The Razorbacks led 27-15 after the frame, and didn’t look back after that.
Hog highlights
• After not having a double-double in her career, Thomas now has two in her first two games of this season.
• Dungee extended her double-digit points streak to 19 straight games.
• Both Amber Ramirez and Makayla Daniels got into double-figures once again. Ramirez went for 13 points while Daniels dropped 11 points.
• Redshirt freshman Erynn Barnum was a force on the inside during her nearly-17 minutes played, scoring a career-best 11 points while pulling down six rebounds.
• Sophomore Rokia Doumbia also had a nice game, scoring seven points, gathering eight boards while dishing two assists.
• All 12 Razorbacks that dressed for the game scored, including freshman walk-on Avery Hughes, who scored her first points as a Hog in the fourth quarter.
Next time out
Arkansas’ homestand continues Thursday, when Oral Roberts comes to Bud Walton Arena.
Tip-off is set for 7 p.m. and the game will be stremable on SECN+.
Familiarity with Arkansas might be biggest key to hiring new coach
Even before Hunter Yurachek finally sighed and pulled the plug on the life support of Chad Morris’ tenure at Arkansas, fans were speculating about who his replacement would be.
Of course, speculation may be putting it mildly. Just plain wild guessing might be a more apt description.
At this point, the people who know probably aren’t going to talk about who’s next and the only ones jabbering about it don’t really have a clue.
Remember, everybody knows somebody.
But Yurachek and his main deputy, Jon Fagg, have proven they don’t leak during coaching searches. There has been no announcement of a search committee and probably won’t be one.
Those usually lead to leaks.
One thing Yurachek needs to consider, though, is finding something that’s familiar with the state of Arkansas and looking close at how the Razorbacks have been successful in the past. We may have lost sight of that with the emphasis on Texas recruiting.
The Hogs have always had some home-grown players heavily involved in the success mixed in with some Texas players and a smattering of guys from across the country.
Yes, I’m well aware there aren’t a lot of highly-regarded recruits coming out of this state every year. What there is, though, is a pretty good number of mid-level players that will play just a tad bit harder in the fourth quarter because they know what it means to the team and, to a large extent, the state.
Right now, there is as good of a group of freshmen home-grown playmakers on the roster as there ever has been in the state.
Keeping in-state players like Treylon Burks, Hudson Henry, Malik Chavis along with some others like K.J. Jefferson on the roster is critical during this transition. Going after some out-of-state commitments like Jacolby Criswell from Morrilton might not be a bad idea, either.
It was the legendary Bear Bryant who said one time he always took some Alabama kids because in the fourth quarter of a big game “it just meant a little more to them.” He was a master at getting a bunch of unknowns to make that one play that made the difference.
Morris was trying to duplicate in a recruiting sense what Nick Saban has at Alabama and Dabo Sweeney wins with at Clemson. He didn’t openly neglect the state, but he failed to close the deal on some pretty good players.
That has never worked at Arkansas and probably never will … for whatever reasons (books could be written on that). The Hogs have never been a consistent Top 20 recruiting program and probably never will.
When they’ve won in the past, it’s been with coaches who could motivate players they developed. Shoot, Houston Nutt, Ken Hatfield and Frank Broyles won a lot of games they simply had their players more ready, willing and able to lay it on the line.
It’s the reason the Hogs mean so much to so many in this state.
Folks remember the days when a bunch of kids that were probably a little under-sized and under-respected won fans’ hearts by simply making games close in the fourth quarter that never should have been close.
Or competing for national championships with linemen that weighed about 175 pounds by the end of the season. Granted, that’s mostly for us old folks, but the younger ones have heard the stories.
For a few years now, Arkansas hasn’t had a coach that could motivate a frog to jump into the pond and either took in-state kids for granted or couldn’t evaluate. Forget development. That has been in a four-year slide.
All of that is why Yurachek’s next hire better know something about this state.
Or be willing to listen to a staff member who does.
Lone Razorback ‘family’ member takes over football for rest of year
It made sense athletics director Hunter Yurachek would put Barry Lunney, Jr., in charge of Arkansas football when he finally pulled the plug on Chad Morris’ two-year experiment Sunday morning.
We’ll find out from Lunney on Monday morning at noon how he feels about it, but the guess is he was fine with it.
It wouldn’t be much of a surprise to see Lunney included on whatever the new staff is in some capacity.
He’s a Razorback. There’s no doubting his pedigree going all the way back to his school days in Fort Smith as a left-handed quarterback at Southside.
In his seven years as the tight ends coach with the Hogs, Lunney coached a Mackey Award winner in Hunter Henry, now spending his time with the Los Angeles Chargers in the NFL.
Lunney has proven he can work with tight ends. You wonder how he would have done in the quarterback merry-go-round the last couple of years coaching that position. He DID quarterback the Hogs’ first SEC win back in 1992 over Tennessee.
Maybe more importantly, he knows about winning in the league. His first season as a graduate assistant on Houston Nutt’s staff in 1998 Arkansas won twice as many games in that one season than they did the last two seasons combined.
While being one of the best interviews of all the assistant coaches, time with him has been limited for a couple of seasons. That’s been to the detriment of fans.
Lunney is at ease with the media in Arkansas, many of us go back to when he was a freshman. It was an area where Morris was an abject failure, at times appearing to have very little regard for the most popular method to communicate with fans.
Here’s a look at his resumè:
• Started 40 games at quarterback from 1992-95 for the Hogs, including the SEC Championship Game in 1995.
• As a grad assistant for the Hogs during a two-year run where they were ranked in the Top 25 nationally and beat Texas in the Cotton Bowl.
• His first coaching position was with Tulsa as quarterbacks coach from 2000-02.
• Two seasons as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks at San Jose State.
• As offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Bentonville from 2005-13 on his father’s staff. Barry Lunney, Sr., was a legendary coach in Arkansas high school ranks. The Tigers had two state titles, four title game appearances and six straight conference championships.
Of most importance, though, Lunney probably knows every high school coach in the state of Arkansas on a first-name basis that doesn’t include “coach.” It’s not a stretch to wonder how much the last two head coaches listened to him.
Now, for at least a few weeks, Lunney will guide a team through the remainder of a schedule that includes a bye week, a road game in Baton Rouge and finishing in Little Rock against Missouri the day after Thanksgiving.
But the most important part of his job is recruiting … the players on the current roster. The NCAA transfer portal has made that an important job.
And nobody can sell the Hogs better.
He is part of the family, after all.
BREAKING: Hogs announce Morris out as coach; Lunney to serve as interim
Chad Morris said after a 45-19 loss to Western Kentucky on Saturday he was the man for the job of turning around Arkansas football.
Instead, he will be a footnote to the worst two years in program history.
Morris coached just 22 games and delivered miles of coachspeak doubletalk, but just four wins. None of them came over a Southeastern Conference opponent.
Despite his confidence he could turn things around, nothing appeared to change for the Razorbacks and, apparently, everyone finally threw their hands up over it all following the loss Saturday, according to multiple media reports.
Here is the press release from the UA:
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Arkansas has made a change in leadership in its football program. Vice Chancellor and Director of Athletics Hunter Yurachek announced today that Chad Morris has been dismissed as the head football coach.
Morris was hired in December 2017 and was in his second season as the head coach of the Razorback football team. The Razorbacks had a 4-18 record in Morris’ tenure at Arkansas, including a 2-8 record this season.
“As part of my continued evaluation, I have come to the conclusion that a change in leadership is necessary to move our football program forward and position it for success,” Yurachek said. “It is clear that we have not made the progress necessary to compete and win, especially within the Southeastern Conference. Throughout our history in football, as well as with our other sport programs, we have demonstrated that the University of Arkansas is capable of being nationally competitive. I have no doubt that as we move forward, we will identify a head coach that will help lead our program to that benchmark.
“I want to express my personal and professional regard to Coach Morris and thank him for his investment in the lives of our student-athletes.”
Yurachek announced that a national search for the next head football coach will begin immediately. Assistant Coach and former Razorback quarterback Barry Lunney Jr. will serve as the interim head football coach for the remainder of the 2019 football season.
That was made worse because former Arkansas quarterback Ty Storey, who was part of a quarterback shuffle that saw six different players behind center, was the quarterback for the Hilltoppers and showed against the Hogs what fans had hoped for when he came out of Charleston.
Tight ends coach Barry Lunney, Jr., the Razorbacks’ longest-tenured assistant, serving as the interim coach. The Fort Smith native has been on staff since 2013 and was a four-year starting quarterback at Arkansas from 1992-95.
We will keep you updated on the details.
More and more, Hogs football looks like the unwilling led by the unknowing
If Chad Morris had many folks left trying to make a case for him to remain coach of Arkansas’ football program, most of them had left the general vicinity of the stadium before the end of the third quarter.
The players don’t appear particularly interested. The fans are past the frustration level. It’s so bad Arkansas State Police had a very visible presence at the end of the latest debacle Saturday, a 45-19 loss to Western Kentucky.
This team has gone backwards from the first game Morris coached here. There have been complete collapses as the season has dragged on.
Even folks on the SEC Network have noted it.
“I see no improvement,” former Auburn coach Gene Chizik said Saturday night.
Chizik also noted there may be lockerroom issues based on the lack of development or improvement.
Those issues have been whispered for awhile.
In the post-mortem following Saturday’s loss where a former Arkansas quarterback came into Fayetteville less than a year after starting here and looked like an All-American candidate, Morris blamed the players.
Former players are sick and tired of hearing that.
AMEN! This is NOT a player problem. 4 out of the 5 years I was at the UofA. I honestly felt like I improved my game in 1 or more areas. Year 5 that wasn’t the case. These coaches are good guys just not sure if they know how to develops players and come up with game plans. https://t.co/ChBtObATrZ
— Jared Cornelius (@officialjred) November 9, 2019
Jared Cornelius basically disappeared from the Razorbacks’ offense last year. He wasn’t the only one.
As a guy who played at 18 stop blaming the kids you have and start developing them. The recruiting blame game isn’t the answer: coaching them up is. Today should be about the seniors either way. #wps
— Dan Skipper (@DanSkipper70) November 9, 2019
Morris said he’s the man to get it fixed, but he’s done nothing to offer any evidence that he even has a clue what to fix or how to handle it.
I’ll admit it, I was wrong about Morris. When he was hired in December 2017, I thought he had the right plan at the right time to pull the wagon out of the ditch.
Lately, it appears Morris can’t even find the ditch where the wagon is and has somehow managed to lie enough to convince himself he has a clue what he’s doing.
His solution is to recruit his way out of it. That’s always a critical component, but new coaches who have any degree of success are able to motivate, develop and coach up the players they inherited.
The Hogs have now had two coaches in a row that simply didn’t appear to have much interest in doing that and were hell-bent on building something they watched somebody else build … that wasn’t in the SEC.
Morris has one of the best running backs in the SEC in Rakeem Boyd and he averages 23.1 yards every time he touched the ball on Saturday against the Hilltoppers.
And he got the ball just eight times.
Morris didn’t really have an acceptable answer, either. All it did was make it look like he’s looking at the band or something during the game and not paying attention.
“Well, I think a lot of it had to do with … we had four possessions in the first half,” Morris stumbled through saying later. “The time of possession, we fell behind. Tried to mix it up a little bit, tried to throw the ball a little bit, but I think time of possession had a little bit to do with that.”
Part of that was because Western Kentucky didn’t have much of an answer for Boyd just like Arkansas’ defense didn’t have much of an answer for Storey.
Morris has managed to coach a team his first season to 2-10 that should have been 5-7. That’s not even taking into account a couple of other games that could have been won.
This team this year should be sitting with at least six wins today. Instead, they are staring another 2-10 season in the face and a coach who is drowning in the deep water of the SEC and can’t even find the shore to start swimming to it.
Morris has a team that is unmotivated and trying to win games without a clue of what to do or how to do it.
As Chizik said, there’s no chemistry and no consistency and no improvement anywhere.
He’s right when he says all fans want is hope.
All Morris is offering is a bunch of coach-speak doubletalk.
Musselman adds highly-recruited Moody to solid recruiting class
Moses Moody, a 6-foot-5 shooting guard from Montverde, Florida, Academy, committed to Arkansas on Saturday as coach Eric Musselman adds another big catch to his 2020 class.
The No. 8-ranked shooting guard nationally per 247Sports.com, he also considered Michigan and Virginia among his final three.
Moody joins point guard Davonte Davis in Arkansas’ 2020 class.
Morris not making progress fast, but any firing just speculation at this point
NOTE: As of 6 p.m. there is no word that Chad Morris is going to be fired from any official word. If that changes, then all of this is moot.
Chad Morris had maybe the last best chance to avoid the worst start to a tenure at Arkansas in program history Saturday and promptly did absolutely nothing with it.
Then tried to convince he was the one to get things turned around.
“Absolutely,” he said. “I am the guy.
Whether athletics director Hunter Yurachek agrees with that or not isn’t exactly known. While some fans want things to be decided by a consensus of people who write some checks, that day is long gone … and it’s not coming back.
“There’s no question,” Morris said. “I knew this was going to take some time. I knew this was going to be a process of recruiting and developing and building.”
Then he proceeded to basically tell everybody he inherited a huge mess and in the SEC you don’t get that fixed quick.
“I knew the strains that take place weekly in this conference,” he said about the depth required in the league. “Right now we don’t have that.”
Morris said he’s got to recruit his way out of this hole.
There were some folks that were confident Morris was going to be summarily fired after the loss, especially the complete lack of progress being made.
“Right now, it’s unfortunate we’re playing as many young guys as we’re playing, but that’s the truth,” he said.
Either the previous staff left the coffers as bare as it’s ever been or Morris is finding out that he wasn’t going to come in and start recruiting at the level needed to get things turned around very quick.
“We have some major deficiencies that we have to fix,” he added in maybe as big of an understatement that has ever been uttered.
All of that might have some validity if there was any sign of visible improvement the fans could see.
Right now the argument can be made this team is getting worse with injuries, players getting kicked off the team and suspended for games. Freshman running back A’Montae Spivey was suspended for the game with Western Kentucky.
While fans have been clamoring for a youth movement at quarterback, John Stephen Jones really wasn’t that effective and K.J. Jefferson ran over another poor defensive back … then injured his shoulder.
There wasn’t a lot of change.
“It’s going to take some time,” Morris said. “This is not an overnight fix. We’ve seen that now for two years. We’re all frustrated. We’re all incredibly frustrated.”
That is an accurate statement. With attendance announced at 42,985 that counted at least 15,000 empty seats as customers, the entire department has to be looking at things from the financial angle.
That’s where the Razorback Foundation comes into play because they are the ones that would be on the hook for Morris’ contract buyout.
Morris is correct when he talks about a youth movement, especially in the offensive and defensive lines where even the youngsters are getting injured. It’s gotten to the point where they are a couple of injuries away from having to burn another redshirt lineman.
“We’re asking a lot of 18-year old young men to step in and play against some older guys,” Morris said. “here’s no excuse in that, but they’re having to grow up and they’re having to grow up the hard way.”
Fans have all but abandoned coming to games. There may have been more empty seats than folks in the stands at the start of the game. That hasn’t been seen in years.
Despite what a lot of folks anticipated, there wasn’t any firing Saturday after the game. That means, once again, the only folks we hear from are the ones that don’t know a thing. The ones who do know aren’t saying a word.
Morris will meet with Yurachek on Sunday, which happens after every game, so don’t read a whole lot into that.
“Everybody’s frustrated with that and I get it … I am too,” Morris said. “But I also understand that to get this thing right, it’s going to take some time in this league.”
More and more, this looks like a coach and staff that feel they aren’t going anywhere immediately.
And it really may not matter what you think.
Morris says he’s the man to get Arkansas football rebuilt … after another loss
Arkansas coach Chad Morris said after the 45-19 loss to Western Kentucky on Saturday that he is “the man for the job” to get things back on track.
