Brantly, Arkansas Times... on Long, CBB, etal...

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He'll be leaving, perhaps for a job at the NCAA. He could qualify for a payout of in the neighborhood of $5 million on a contract that runs through June 30, 2022. His pay is now $1,287,950 a year.

Long's departure doesn't immediately address football coach Bret Bielema's future, but it is safe to conclude it's related. Bielema said on a conference call with SEC football coaches that he had no first-hand information about Long. He said he was just preparing for the Mississippi State game Saturday. He also said Long had been "awesome" as a boss.

Long's tenure began Jan. 1, 2008.  He'll leave behind a stadium expansion worth more than $200 million, counting interest charges, and many other concrete and steel additions, though the stadium project was at the root of some unhappiness on the Board of Trustees. Long came from Pitt and during his tenure at UA chaired the College Football Playoff selection committee. He still serves on the committee and will continue to do so this year, it was announced after his firing.
The first job is choosing a new athletic director. It's safe to assume Steinmetz has been at work on that already. I don't have names to offer, but I think candidates almost certainly will include people with Arkansas background of some description (for example, a former Arkansas athletic department official is now athletic director at nearby Tulsa). Action can be expected soon after an athletic director is in place on football. No one expects Bielema to return next year. That won't be a decision of the UA Board of Trustees (it can't be under NCAA guidelines) but Long's failure to act on Bielema, in his fifth year, was a key factor in his removal.

The UA Board's push to make a change helped Steinmetz, relatively new to the job. But he comes from Ohio State, where mediocrity in athletics isn't long tolerated. The Board had issues other than football, including an unsuccessful pick as women's basketball coach and some unhappiness over men's basketball, too.

Nobody is commenting to press. But basketball coach Mike Anderson met reporters to talk about basketball and was asked about Long's firing. He said: "A tremendous thanks to Jeff Long for allowing me to come be the coach at Arkansas. It's hard for me to wrap my mind around what's transpired today."

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette wrote this morning on a Long-related topic but missed the point in a long discussion about ideas from Long for War Memorial Stadium renovations. I think his pitch was more about ending Hog games in Little Rock than a realistic pitch for stadium improvements.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette today reported in great detail the stadium issue, which I'd mentioned last week.

Athletic Director Long made one-by-one visits not long ago to members of the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees to lay out the reasons — millions of dollars worth of them — that the Razorbacks should no longer play football at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock, including the game scheduled next fall.

As I reported earlier, Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who's taken on War Memorial as a project, resisted. He has indicated, my sources say, that he could come up with some money for immediate needs at the stadium to wire it for SEC football broadcasts. The D-G article lays out some $10 million in improvements that Long said War Memorial needed, but I've been told some key work could be done for $3 million or so. Even the full amount won't make the stadium competitive with the larger and private suite-endowed Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville for net revenue.

Members of the UA Board have told me the governor's objections seemed to have reversed Long's headlong course to abandon Little Rock, at least in the short term. Realistically, the long-term is dim no matter what upgrades are made given the size and revenue-producing potential of the Fayetteville stadium and the inability to match them in Little Rock. There's also the shift in the balance of financial power to Northwest Arkansas. The bigshots prefer to attend games closer to home, on campus, the preferred venue for all other major colleges in the U.S. Little Rock was a big deal to the Delta planters who once contributed so much to Razorback financial support. Times have changed, you might have noticed.

But now on to other, more immediate dim futures:

The D-G news article and bare references in the sports pages hardly touch on the big news at UA and it isn't about where the Hogs play football, though that issue definitely contributed to Jeff Long's problem with some members of the UA Board. People who make a living counting noses on political votes have told me for more than a week that, even if the Hogs play a game in Little Rock next year (and that's fixed now), there would be a different head coach on the sideline and a different person in the press box seat reserved for the athletic director.

That was the message delivered at the private University of Arkansas Board of Trustees meeting last week with Chancellor Joseph Steinmetz, as a silent Jeff Long sat outside. Steinmetz, as he once reportedly explained to the AD some months ago, ranks higher on the campus organizational chart than even the man in charge of a $100-million departmental budget.

The UA Board didn't act so that the decision could be seen as left to the campus chief, Steinmetz. I wrote last Friday that the time and manner of Long's departure would be determined by Steinmetz.

This arrangement also allowed time for Long to make arrangements for a departure that appeared at least somewhat voluntary, as opposed to forced. Five years of mediocre football are at the core of Board unhappiness with Long, but not the only issue. He's been faulted on other coach selections, on high-handed spending, the stadium project and general arrogance.

Long's departure will provide a final answer on what his contract might provide. As I wrote earlier, reading his various contracts and amendments together, it appears he's guaranteed $1 million a year for each year remaining on his contract, if terminated for "convenience" of the university. His contract runs through June 30, 2022, about four months short of five years.Termination kicks in the payoff provision. By my reading, at least some of that payment is guaranteed by the private Razorback Foundation.

Should Long's departure lead to an upheaval on the football coaching staff, there's at least another $5 million or so due in a buyout provision on time remaining on Bielema's contract. I don't know what severance agreements might exist for assistant coaches, a hefty payroll, too.

This 2015 agreement further clarified Long's deal with the university.

Fans haven't been happy. A Facebook page was started calling for Long's ouster, along with Bielema. Signs popped up in Fort Smith (below) and elsewhere.