A quick recovery not likely for Arkansas
Posted on April 26, 2012 by Jacob Bunn
Following the scandal that required the firing of head football coach Bobby Petrino, Arkansas athletic director Jeff Long decided to make an unusual and somewhat stunning move. For presumably the extent of the 2012 season, Arkansas’ head coach will be 63-year-old John L. Smith.
Smith served as the head coach at Louisville before Bobby Petrino took over. He was the head coach at Michigan State from 2003-2006. Smith has served as an assistant the past few seasons, most recently under Bobby Petrino at Arkansas. Following the 2011 season, Smith departed from Fayetteville to take the head coaching position at his alma mater, Weber State. After little more than three months in Ogden, Utah, Smith returned to Arkansas where he will serve as the head coach.
The sad part for Arkansas fans is the fact that the Razorbacks have a talented team heading into next season. While he struggled to beat Alabama, LSU, and South Carolina on a consistent basis, Petrino was likely to break some trends with his 2012 team. That opportunity is over now.
Smith was brought in with the intent of keeping the lofty goals for the 2012 team intact. But Hog fans need to be realists, and there is no way Smith can have the same impact that Petrino would have had.
How well can Smith fare this season? You decide. Do you see him outcoaching Les Miles, Nick Saban, or Steve Spurrier? And it will take outcoaching; that group has a habit of not beating themselves. I know what my answer is.
Having said all of that, I do not believe the hiring of John L. Smith was a poor decision of the part of Jeff Long. What else could he have done? This was probably one of the better options he had at his disposal.
At the end of the day, though, Long is largely responsible for this entire mess. After all, he did hire Bobby Petrino. He hired him in spite of his less than becoming reputation. Now, he has reaped the consequences for that.
The Arkansas football program will continue to suffer because of this ordeal. Recruiting will be like pulling teeth over the next year. What young up-and-coming athlete is going to want to go to a place where the current head coach’s days are almost certainly numbered? And when another head coach is hired (presumably after Smith slops together an 8-4 or maybe 9-3 season), it will take some time to build a recruiting network, which is not an easy task in Fayetteville.
Arkansas might have won the SEC Championship, gone to another BCS game, or even been a title contender if Bobby Petrino would not have acted the way he did. But he did and is no longer in charge.
In a strange way, though, Arkansas is fortunate because it could have been worse. Imagine if this affair was discovered during the final week of August. The team would be thrown into a tailspin from which it would undoubtedly not be able to recover.
The biggest blunder was the hiring of Petrino. Everything else has been a direct result of that. The athletic director is largely responsible for that hire, and for that reason, he will more than likely pay a price down the road.
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Email Jacob at jacob@bunnsports.com and follow him on Twitter at @JacobBunn
