If nothing else, Arkansas’ search for a new football coach has publicly shown that, well, the circle that knows anything is small and doesn’t tell anyone anything.
Which, of course, leads to wild speculation among a fan base used to more leaks more from a search than a rusted boat. It appears if any big booster says anything, it’s either a wishlist or an outright wild guess.
And, we’re told by people who won’t give any names or locations, the planes being used for all this are owned by individual boosters who do not even live in Arkansas, which means the planes aren’t registered here.
Our own John Nabors may have to tweak his plane-tracking algorithm with this info.
There were people telling me Tuesday the Razorback Foundation was visiting with some higher-dollar donors and, while they weren’t disclosing any names, they were assuring them that paying the coach was not going to be a problem.
Yes, that could put the Hogs into the $6 million range for a coach.
And, no, Mike Leach may not have turned down anything … yet, anyway. One of the hot rumors going around was Leach had wanted in the $5-6 million range, which it was speculated as being out of the budget.
According to some folks Tuesday, that is not accurate. There were some reports that Hunter Yurachek and his band of merry interviewers have recently interviewed Leach.
One old-school type of logic says if a coach is not coaching a conference title game, why not announce it immediately and everybody get to work, but I’ve believed all along there wouldn’t be any sort of announcement until right around the SEC Championship Game this weekend.
Teams do that, by the way, to maximize the publicity, although in today’s world you have to wonder if that’s not a little out-dated.
Following my theory, we have a window from Wednesday-Sunday for the announcement of a coach with a press conference coming next week.
Recruiting for the early signing period got shot down the drain when the last coach was fired. But that doesn’t mean it’s that big of a deal because the new coach will have to recruit the 17 redshirt freshmen already on campus.
Most people tend to miss that. There are 17 freshmen that will still be freshmen next season that are currently in school and available for spring practice with a year of practicing with a college team.
It almost reminds me of when Jimmy Johnson basically got a truckload of draft picks from the Minnesota Vikings and used it to build a team that won three Super Bowls in four years.
No, I’m not saying the Hogs will win national championships with those freshmen, but it gives you one heckuva jumpstart on recruiting without counting against the 25 you can sign.
They’ll still have four years of eligibility, so what is the difference at this point? The new coach will still be able to sign some players, get some transfers and the usual merry-go-round of today’s college athletics.
But I’m hearing the UA is willing to spend the type money necessary to meet todays ridiculous market with a pool for assistants to get some big names.
Now, don’t ask me for the names without churning up a bunch that everybody else is throwing out there. I don’t know and haven’t heard from anyone in a position to know.
The truth is we’ll probably get an indication from the school the coach is leaving because they tend to not be particularly concerned abount covering for Arkansas once they find out their coach is leaving.
With the most recent hiring (men’s basketball coach Eric Musselman), the leaks came from Nevada, not anybody in Fayetteville.
The guess here is the same thing happens with the football search.
