Barry Lunney, Jr., may never win a game as head coach at Arkansas, but he won the press conference Monday and it’s been awhile since a head football coach has been able to do that.
“We’ve lost what it’s like to be Razorbacks the last few weeks,” he said Monday after being announced as the interim coach after Chad Morris was fired Sunday. “We’re going to do our best to pump that back into the players the next few weeks.”
The first sentence got the attention of a lot of a fan base that is exhausted. Poor old Eddie in Clarksville may even take the bag off his head during games … in his own living room.
Lunney delivered one sound bite after another that fans have been desperate to hear from a Hogs’ football coach. Morris, bless his heart, ran laps around questions with tired clichès and coachspeak.
Maybe the biggest difference with Lunney is he played for the Hogs, he’s coached at the highest level of Arkansas high school football, had college experience elsewhere … and he’s been in this spot before.
“Twenty-seven years ago I was thrust into a similar situation,” he said Monday. “Joe Kines took over in 1992, and he said at that time, ‘We’re all interim.’ I told the players last night that I saw firsthand what it was like.”
He also was part of some big-time turnarounds for the program. In that 1992 season when Frank Broyles hauled off and fired Jack Crowe after an opening-day loss to The Citadel, Lunney was a freshman.
Nobody gave them much of a chance that first year in the SEC and they appeared to be proving that to be prophetic.
Lunney, maybe as much as anyone connected with Razorback football right now, knows exactly how much it means to play for the Hogs.
“You’ve got to understand the history and the heritage of this program,” he said.
That alone could be the defining statement for a lot of Hog fans. Never mind the fact he actually DID it on the field, leading the team to a win over No. 4 Tennessee as a freshman, then hitting a touchdown pass late to beat Alabama in Tuscaloosa.
During Lunney’s time as a left-handed quarterback, he pretty much was a prototype for Bear Bryants comment that, “you can never tell about left-handed quarterbacks and left-handed crapshooters.”
He proved he would figure out a way to win. Even when he started a couple of those seasons as the backup after missing spring practice playing baseball, he didn’t gripe or complain … he just won the starting spot back a couple of games into the sesaon.
“I’m a believer in what has been done before can be done again,” Lunney said. “What one team in history can do, another can do.”
He knows, though, it’s not going to be a traditional path and he wants to keep a talented group of freshmen together.
“There has to be a perfect storm of events,” he said. “Sticking together is going to be important.”
Nobody is picking Arkansas to beat LSU. That would be too much to really expect. But there is talent on this team and it was not playing at the level of that talent, which is why Yurachek kicked Morris to the curb.
“There is plenty of talent in this locker room,” Yurachek said Monday. “It may not be Alabama-type talent, but there is talent.”
Enter Lunney. He’s trying to stay focused on what he’s got to work with and that’s an off week before going to Baton Rouge for that game, which will be at 6 p.m. on ESPN, then closing out against Missouri in Little Rock.
“We have to play with more heart,” Lunney said. “If our guys don’t believe they can win, it doesn’t matter. That’s what we’ve seen the last few weeks. We lost some heart after the Kentucky game.”
Yurachek didn’t rule out Lunney having a shot at getting the job on a more permanent basis.
“We will look at head coaches, former head coaches and others,” Yurachek said. “All will be considered.”
Don’t get carried away. It’s unlikely Bobby Petrino or Houston Nutt are coming back. The truth is that of those two, probably the latter has a better shot than the former. Yurachek wouldn’t let The Great Playcaller operate without adult supervision like Jeff Long did.
“Being the head coach at Arkansas is a dream of mine,” Lunney said.
He knows what has to happen for him to even get any type of serious consideration.
“My sole focus is getting our players to play their best game when we go to LSU,” he said. “I just want it to be the best we’ve played. That is my sole focus.”
Which is, when you look at closely, is exactly what it should be.
