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Meh, runway aside, LSU wound up with O because they have unequivocally the worst AD in the country who gave him the permanent job out of butthurt and spite when Herman made it known wanted to see what would transpired at Texas. Instead of simply progressing through alternative options, Alleva got the redass and hired O in a reactionary move “because he wanted the job.”

That is the LSU fan line to explain why the job wasn't as desirable as they thought, it isn't black and white like that, its hard to hire a coach when their first response is "not interested"...

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I’m no fan of Long - my disdain for him is growing - but I have much more faith in him executing a coaching search than that.

Well, his coaching searches have concluded with Petrino, Bert, and Anderson for the major sports, all thought to be home run hires at the time. 2/3 isn't bad...

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LSU also battled a perception problem that we won’t have to, in that they fired their winningest coach of all time 4 games into the season because they live in a fantasy world where they’re on equal footing with Alabama. Coaches aren’t exactly lining up to coach at a place where 10-2 and/or a loss to Alabama is unacceptable. Inversely, we still somewhat apologize for our coach who carries a .483 winning percentage and whose best season in 5 years included home losses to Toledo and Texas Tech.

What do you think the perception will be firing Bert today instead of after Thanksgiving weekend?

Lets look at the national perception of the program, true or not, perception is reality.

Bert comes into a program that not only imploded the year prior, their APR is becoming a serious concern, likely leading to penalties if not corrected.

Bert has a bad first year, a roster void of talent or upperclassmen contributors.

He progresses each year, makes 3 straight bowl games, has a set back year in a season where he loses his best O-linemen, starting QB, RB, leading returning WR, etc due to injury which results in his firing with less than 3 games to go in the season.

So you have the above perception of the program with the perception of Arkansas's history since joining the SEC as being very up and down with a bad season destined to occur one recruiting cycle of 4-5 years.

So the end result is the perception that Arkansas's expectations are no less unrealistic than LSU's, Tennessee's, or Florida's in a conference where there can be only one Alabama...

Want to make a bad situation worse for Arkansas? Fire the HC in season for on the field results.