Hiring coaches and recruiting are NOT foolproof activities....

[hogfanmd]

Look.  I believe that vast majority of Razorback fans have come to the conclusion that coach Beliema is not having success at Arkansas and that without major changes that it's just a matter of time and finances before there is a change in leadership. With that said, when you are looking at head coaches to hire at any school it's mainly a crap shoot.  when hiring a coach NO ONE is going to look at a coach with a losing record unless they came from the NFL, so all these people have been successful somewhere.  Yet these previously successful coaches flop sometimes, why?     I believe there are 3 general categories why. 

A) Ethical reason.  Get caught doing something bad personally or people in the program in general....  ex Petrino , many many others.

B) Situational success.   A coach can be a great "sustainer coach"  I.E. they come into a good situation with a program already on good footing.  There is an infrastructure in place for winning and they build upon that and keep it going.  These are good or great coaches with a certain skill set for maintaining but perhaps not able to build it from scratch.  For example you can be a great Manager at Walmart and then take a similar job at JC Penny and fail.   Not because you are a bad manager or person but because you took a job that asked something of you that you
Had never had to do before and may or may not be good at ...many coaches have this happen to them and I think this is where coach Beliema is at from what I've seen thus far.   I'm sure coach Beliema is just as frustrated he left Wisconsin and the results at Arkansas as we are.  It's hard to fix a problem you may not have the skill set to fix. 

C). Can't feed the monster.   This coach is successful but then plateaus and unable to satisfy fan expectations and then eventually administration expectations.. mark Richt


It's the top tier of coaches that have a "franchise plan" like McDonalds that can work no matter where they go, while being able to keep scandal out of their program, and feed the monster to keep fans and administrators happy.   This is not a post to give evidence on accepting mediocrity but just honest about why the majority of coaches are not at a school long term.  We will face these challenges again on who is a good candidate at whatever point we are looking for a new head coach.   

[NaturalStateReb]

Anytime you hire anyone, you're betting on the come a little bit regardless of their credentials. Bielema had great credentials, and I don't blame Long a bit for hiring him--at the time, it was an outstanding hire. The guy won the Big Ten three times. Was there a risk?  Sure, but there always is. Bielema had shown he could win in a major conference at a school with limited resources in a poor recruiting area. With Arkansas' better resources, it made sense to suppose that he could repeat his success.

Where I think people have a legitimate right to complain is about the extension and buyout that Long gave Bielema at the end of the 2014 season. At that point, Bielema was 2-14 in league play and had a bowl victory over a really terrible Texas team--the only Texas team Charlie Strong took to a bowl. The end of the 2014 season certainly gave reason to hope, and you'd expect an extension, but there wasn't any performance yet at Arkansas to justify such a gigantic buyout.

The question is why?  What was it at the end of the 2014 season that made Jeff Long feel like had to raise the stakes so high?  As far as I know, no one in the Arkansas sports media has ever asked Long that and I doubt they ever will.