A Good Hire

[Brand X Hog Fan]

is relative. It all depends on wins and losses. I remember when Lou Holtz was hired and everyone was pretty nonplus about it. We wondered why in the world JFB would get a guy from the pros to come and uphold our mighty SWC tradition and more importantly beat Texas. When Lou started winning he suddenly became the favorite son of the Razorback nation. We didn't flinch when he suspended 3(?) key players for the '78 Orange Bowl. It was necessary! We won that game and had an argument that we were the best team in the land. He was a great hire!

Then, for what ever reason, Lou fell from grace. Off to Minnesota he goes to await his chance at the big time in Notre Dame. Bring on Ken Hatfield. I must admit, I missed the Hatfield era having lived in Alaska where sports news, let alone Arkansas news was scarce. I do know to this day there are staunch Hatfield supporters and equally as vehement opposition.

I moved back to Arkansas in time for the Jack Crowe debacle. I think we can all agree he was a bad hire. After Joe Kines, who I was in favor of giving the permanent job to, JFB hit a home run and lured Danny Ford out of retirement. He was a great hire! NCAA championship coach, no nonsense, played smash-mouth ball like we want it here in Arkansas. Then the injuries started coming coupled with less than stellar recruiting in the quarterback corp. We couldn't beat SMU for Pete's sake! Was that Danny's fault? I really believe he had the team to make a run the year we hired Nutt.

Houston Nutt. Hometown kid, some success as a head coach, great motivator and a decent hire. We all know how that turned out.

I said all that to say this. We just don't know what we are going to end up with from the current staff until they field a team. We will have a pretty good idea come week three this year. Until then, all speculating, arguing, fretting, blaming and cussing is wasted energy. Let's rally behind this team! GHG!