For certain Razorback fans (and who around here isn't?) the firing of Chad Morris the other day was . . . regretful.
The football coach from the Texas ranks didn't have much of a chance. On the field, he was trying to fit square pegs into round holes, for one thing. He was less than two years into recruiting the type of players he needed for his never-never football promised land.
For another thing, his players were--what?--18- and 19-year-old teens going up against 22- and 23-year-old men. There's a world of difference between a 23-year-old man and somebody who was playing in high school last year. It's the difference between, say, Alabama football and Arkansas football.
Even though some of us wanted to see Chad Morris coach again next year, when his recruits would have been another year older and another year stronger and faster, the Western Kentucky game couldn't be explained away. That was the low point for the year, for his tenure, maybe even in the program's history. Like many fans have noted before, when The Citadel beat Arkansas, it went on to win 11 games that year--and beat Army, Marshall and Appalachian State, too. In 1992, The Citadel had a very good football team.
But lose to Western Kentucky in 2019? By 26 points? At home?
College football is a big-money business, but it's also a no-excuse business. Arkansas showed Chad Morris the door.
Now the spotlight turns to Arkansas Athletic Director Hunter Yurachek, who has to take on (1) the media, (2) the fans and (3) the easier task of finding a new coach. Many of us have liked what Hunter Yurachek has said about coaches and contracts. Even more of us are waiting to see what he does.
The football coaching world has gone crazy in the last decade, with multi-million-dollar buyouts written into their expanding contracts. After a 7-6 season, former head hog Bret Bielema got a buyout that might have got Hunter Yurachek's predecessor fired. Chad Morris is supposed to get northward of $10 million for winning four games in two years. When people in Arkansas--where the median income is less than $44,000 a year--see that kind of money handed to failed football coaches, many react with: madness, madness.
When Hunter Yurachek was introduced as the new AD almost two years ago, he gave many of us hope by arguing against the "mistake in our industry," adding, "It's not a sustainable model moving forward." He was talking about contracts for coaches, and maybe more precisely their buyouts.
This week, now that he's actually looking for a coach, he gave himself a little more wiggle room: "Well, the buyout situation throughout college athletics I don't think is great. I mean, there's huge buyouts in all these contracts, and I did say I thought that--and I said it in my opening press conference--that losing football games should be condition for terms of your employment to be nullified, and that's tough to be a pioneer in that because that hurts your candidate pool moving forward."
And, the AD noted, it has to be an industry-wide change, and Arkansas can't take the lead.
Our considered editorial opinion: Why not?
Why can't Arkansas take the lead, and offer a contract that either has no buyout for the coach or at least allows the university to fire a coach for the offense of doing a poor coaching job? There are many people reading this today who know they'd be fired for failing at work. Why are coaches special?
For those who think the "talent pool of coaches" would be limited if such a contract were publicly discussed, or even insisted upon privately, we wonder . . . how? The top coaches in the nation aren't coming to Arkansas, simply because Nick Saban has a job already, as do Dabo Swinney and Jimbo Fisher.
Arkansas will probably be looking for a top coordinator at an SEC school looking to make a name, or a head coach somewhere else who'd like to get into the SEC ranks. Would somebody like that turn down the job because it didn't reward failure?
If Arkansas took this step, other schools might find the courage to follow.
And if they didn't, at least the next Arkansas football coach wouldn't get a $10 million bonus for having an 18 percent winning percentage.
Arkansas is a destination job. It's in the SEC and has had success there. An excellent year in this conference can get a team into the four-team national championship playoff. It's an attractive job. Especially with the kind of multimillion-dollar salary that a head coach can expect, without the buyout.
The college might not get a Nick Saban or Dabo Swinney with such a contract. But it might be able to get the next Nick Saban or Dabo Swinney.
Editorial on 11/14/2019