Everybody else is jumping up and down on Arkansas athletic director Hunter Yurachek these days and now the national guys are getting into it.
It took them awhile to see the problem.
Aaron Torres, who does a podcast and some things for Fox Sports had one and he follows the Razorbacks more closely than most of them. With LSU coach Lane Kiffin returning to Oxford, Miss., to play his old team at Ole Miss that’s the dominant story.
Not in Arkansas, though. Even with the No. 2 team in the country coming to town and nobody’s expecting Georgia to have much of a problem.
The Hogs have been that bad through two games. They didn’t look sharp in a semi-struggle win over North Alabama to open the season, then got blown out of Salt Lake City in a 43-10 loss to the Utah.
There are some facts, though, that are the source of Yurachek’s issues.
Where Yurachek’s problems began
No, he hasn’t hired the last three coaches but he was fully behind the Chad Morris hire. As the athletic director at Houston, he’d seen the Cougars play SMU where Morris was before Fayetteville.
In the media, we had bought into the image of him then and didn’t think much of the endorsement. What came after Morris was fired was the initial eye-opener, though.
Coaching searches at Arkansas are always interesting. Fans think the best coaches in the world are dying to get the job at Fayetteville, which is not the case. Talk to some of the top folks off the record.
First Mike Leach, then Kiffin walked away from the Hogs for jobs in Mississippi (Leach at State and Kiffin at Ole Miss). Neither was as close as a lot of the talk was at the time.
Some thought Kiffin was a done deal, but three people closer to Kiffin and not connected to any school told me it was never any serious interest from him.
Now that we’re seeing just how Kiffin’s personality works, I give that more credibility than I did at the time. He seems completely capable of talking out of both sides of his mouth.
Pittman’s firing and the SEC record
As a result, Yurachek turned to Sam Pittman, the offensive line coach at Georgia. He’d never been an offensive coordinator at the major college level, much less a head coach.
He did know football, though, and may have been as prepared to incorporate things he’d learned from Kirby Smart at Georgia and a lot of others for nearly 40 years. Then a pandemic hit and all that education was worthless.
Then Pittman was fired by Yurachek after it became public from the AD himself the resources weren’t provided to him to pile up wins playing the SEC. So, Yurachek fired a guy he didn’t provide the resources to win at a level Yurachek didn’t like.
During Yurachek’s first 9 seasons, the Hogs are 14-52 in SEC games. They haven’t played one this year, starting the league season against Georgia on Saturday.
Regardless of all the changes on college sports, Arkansas has been waiting on a miracle from political folks or something to level the field. Everybody thinks that will solve the Hogs’ issues.
Now the impression of the Razorbacks in football may be so bad nobody wants to come here. It’s been on a steady downward cycle since 2007. There were some good years early then it tailed off badly and quickly.
It’s how the acceleration that has gone on the last 9 years that points the finger directly at Yurachek.
Now national folks are starting to notice.
