re: Where there is smoke there is fire.

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How about Bama take Sam Pittman for about four years and see if he does well or not?

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Why would Alabama get rid of Saban to hire Pittman? That doesn’t make sense. But let’s just say we do. If given four years, he would almost certainly have a 10 win season or two. Every single coach who has coached at Alabama since Bryant had at least one 10 win season. Pittman is a better head coach than Dubose and Shula, and might be better than Curry and Perkins. I can’t see how he wouldn’t have a 10 win season or two at the minimum. He had a 9 win season at Arkansas.

Let’s be honest, the Alabama job is just a more desirable job than the Arkansas job. For a number of reasons, it just is. And will naturally attract coaches and players more so than Arkansas.

One of those reasons is what Bear Bryant did at Alabama and what he did to turn a good Alabama program into arguably the number one program. And for sure a top three program. The reason Bryant came to Alabama is he had ties there. He played at Alabama. Just as Kirby waited for the Georgia job to open up, because he played there.

Arkansas is a good job but not a great job. Recruiting is a challenge there, there just isn’t as much talent in their back yard as Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. They have to recruit Texas, and they are competing against a LOT of other teams for those recruits. And the Texas schools have proven they will pay what it takes. In addition, the writing is on the wall in terms of loyalty. A coach coming in knows he will have three years to get it turned around. He knows if he stumbles just one year he will be fired. And Arkansas is just not as big a brand as the Texas/Oklahoma/Alabama/Georgia/USC/Ohio State/Michigan/Notre Dames of the world. Not a knock, just fact. So, Arkansas has some challenges.

Are there any good up and coming coaches that have ties to Arkansas? Someone that wants to come home? That is what they need and what they should have waited for instead of acting emotionally and firing their decent if not great coach with no apparent plan on how to replace him.