Jeff Long will leave before Bert

He hired John L Smith and handcuffed us to a 7 win/season HC. But profits!!!

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Bert leaving of his own volition is quite literally the only way we can get out from underneath his contract.

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I just don't see this happening, unless the team next year completely melts down, like 2/3 wins total.

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It hasn't happened because this conference is a meat grinder on both the field, in the office, and on the recruiting trail

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Bert's biggest problem, other then his weight, is that he gets really complacent. If something good happens he'll take his foot of the gas. If you do that in the SEC bad things will happen to you.

I don't think its something he can change though, its hard wired into who he is.

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I honestly don't have an issue with Jeff Long. He got us

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Petrino

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John L. Smith

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Bielema

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He's 0-3 on head football coaching hires, two of whom were profound and public embarrassments to the university. Bielema, while not the unmitigated PR disaster the other two were, puts forth an historically inept and embarrassing on-field product that is compounded by his public arrogance and blustery persona despite having done nothing in this conference.

Oh, and Long is 0-1 on men's basketball coaching hires as well.

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When Bielema does go (and it looks like he will), I think Long will be able to get us something better.

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Long's contractual ineptitude has made Bielema unfireable for the foreseeable future barring a Harleygate-like event.

If Bielema goes south and has to be fired, Long likely won't be afforded the chance to make another coaching hire.

I'm with you, man. Petrino didn't work out, but it was a phenomenal hire from a football point of view. He proved to everyone that winning at Arkansas was possible. It breathed life into the program after Nutt and all his shenanigans. I'm forever grateful for that.

John L. Smith sucked, but that year was going to suck anyway. There was not ever going to be a good temporary hire, and you're not going to get a quality hire for permanent HC in April, so he went with the guy who had a successful career at Louisville and HC experience at Michigan State for a few years. We were supposed to have a loaded team on top of that. On paper, it was about the best thing he could have done as a stopgap. Who were the other available candidates for interim coach on staff? P. Petrino? Haynes? They had no previous HC experience, and we saw firsthand what both of those glorious assholes can do as HC after they left Arkansas.

Bielema is also a fantastic hire on paper, even if he didn't pan out. His win percentage at Wisconsin is no joke. Unfortunately, we now have an additional two hires at Wisconsin since then that have been, in a word, underwhelming at their previous stops. They flourished at Wisconsin. It turns out a good record at Wisconsin is a complete facade when you have to coach somewhere else a bit more challenging.

As far as I'm concerned, the premature extension for Bielema has been his only huge short-sighted mistake, and it's going to cost us dearly. For that, I won't think we're losing an invaluable asset if he goes. But I've always liked Long and still do.

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I don't blame him for Petrino. How long does Petrino have to be a head coach before Petrino himself is responsible for his off-field performance?

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Let's not act like we thought we were getting Mark Richt-level character when we hired Bobby Petrino.

We knew what we were getting -- a hell of a football coach who also had a well known reputation for being a disingenuous drifter who had no loyalties to anyone. We hired a guy who interviewed for his former boss's job when he still had it and then lied about it, signed a decade-long deal and declared Louisville home and then bolted for the NFL 10 months later, and left the NFL in the middle of a season and outright lied to his owner's face about it immediately before taking our job.

If you get into a relationship with a serial cheater, you can't feign ignorance and cry in your beer about how shocked you are when she leaves you high and dry for another man.

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None of that changes the fact that he fired himself. Long just happened to be the one to hand him the pink slip.

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I'm not arguing that.

My point is that you can't hire someone with a public reputation of shadiness and deceit and be absolved of blame or liability when it goes south due to byproducts of those very character traits.

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Pigfeet

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You make some good points and definitely some worth thinking about.

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but the fact that Jeff Long just isn't the right man for the athletic side of the game

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On the flip side of things, Long did make two really good hires for Arkansas Football and Basketball on paper. I think we can all admit that much. I would have preferred Gundy for football, but Bert certainly had a great resume when hired by Long. The issue becomes Long's quick trigger to give coaches new contracts with crazy buyouts. He did the same with Petrino before his initial contract was up and he did the same thing with Bert. What Long seems to fail to realize is that in the history of Arkansas football, no coach has willingly left the program for another head coaching job.

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I don't think he'll have the balls to fire Bert, because he knows that the contract he gave Bert will be looked at as his failure.

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Right now, it will cost us way too damn much money to fire him. Yes, Long screwed up. Just as I pointed out above, he is too trigger happy when giving new contract before it is even time to do such a thing.

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No one can argue at the fundraising/facility upgrades. My question is: How much credit goes to Long or the how much of it goes to the loyal, passionate fan base that has given their hard earned money with the hopes of having successful programs?

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He has been great in this regard. At some point though, the fans are not going to show up. See basketball this season. You become numb after a while. Razorback fans have been fooled too many times under Bert, IMO. I think the end of this season has the fans sick. Ive seen people complaining I never thought would complain.

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I argue that any passionate, qualified person could have achieved the results that Long has.

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He has basically done a great job on one side, but failed on the contract thing with Bert. Again, when we hired both Anderson and Bert, we all thought they were both homerun hires, because they were on paper and according to their resume. I understand if some people do not like Long because he is from the north, but hiring wise, he hasn't really failed. Neither hire turned out worth a shite so far.

Just like Charlie Strong and Texas. I think Strong is a great coach, but for some reason he did not work out at Texas. I would imagine Strong will do great things at USF.

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On the flip side of things, Long did make two really good hires for Arkansas Football and Basketball on paper. I think we can all admit that much. I would have preferred Gundy for football, but Bert certainly had a great resume when hired by Long. The issue becomes Long's quick trigger to give coaches new contracts with crazy buyouts. He did the same with Petrino before his initial contract was up and he did the same thing with Bert. What Long seems to fail to realize is that in the history of Arkansas football, no coach has willingly left the program for another head coaching job.

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People need to remember this. Does it appear that either of those coaches are going to work out atm? No but they were respected hires around the country. Many were impressed we were able to pull Bert from Wisc when he was having some good success. I'm not saying he gets a pass in any way for the failed hires but as you said both looked good on paper and I believe that does count for something. It also helps that Long is a respected AD around the country. Most of my blame on him goes towards the early buyouts, I understand why he did them but it was still a mistake.

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Petrino was known for being a job-hopper. That's far different than having a penchant for doing illegal things. Or even committing NCAA violations. I think we all expected for Petrino to leave for a big job if it opened, not the other two.

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Meh, he was known for more than that. Disingenuousness and a penchant for petty douchy behavior followed him wherever he went.

Job hopping isn't a character flaw (despite what ESPN talking heads would opine), but he had his share of red flags that made his downfall less surprising than it otherwise would have been.

Point being that his hiring was oddly both a win and a loss for Long.