At some point you have to blame the...

[Swinesong1]

Head Coach for the product. At some point you have to ask yourself "why do assistants leave for lateral jobs?". https://razorbackers.com/2015/12/15/bret-bielema-scary-good-losing-assistants/

[Redhogs]

Head Coach for the product. At some point you have to ask yourself "why do assistants leave for lateral jobs?". https://razorbackers.com/2015/12/15/bret-bielema-scary-good-losing-assistants/

Come on man it's only year 4...he really needs 8 to right the ship and "win the SEC" as he so boastfully predicted. Just be patient...last night was only a little bump in the road. 

[OutlawHawg]

It's not his fault we suck....now that Petrino's recruits are mostly gone he's stuck with players he evaluated and developed.

[Torqued pork]

Serious question: Is there anyone of importance on the hill who truly believes Arkansas could do much better in SEC football than what it has done 20+ years in?

[jjdlc]

My question is, out of the assistants on that list, who was really a loss?

George McDonald (2012)– Arkansas' WR coach for just the 2012 season, he was hired at Syracuse to be an OC/WR coach.  Wasn't here long enough to even move into an office.  He may have been great, who knows, he left for a promotion, eventually getting demoted back to just WR coach.  We got Michael Smith out of the deal, I take that as a win.

Taver Johnson (2013)– Johnson was the CB/LB coach for 2 seasons at Arkansas, but was later hired at Purdue as a DB coach.  The only hold over from Petrino's staff, LB/CB wasn't a strength those seasons.

Chris Ash (2013)– Defensive coordinator at Arkansas, hired at the Ohio State University for the same job.  Defense was not great in 2013, he then took a lateral move to tOSU, we ended up with Rob Smith, who had a good D in 2014, not so much since.  Probably a wash.

Charlie Partridge (2013)– DL coach, promoted to Head Coach at Florida Atlantic. Partridge made the trip from Wisconsin to Arkansas with Bielema.  Probably the one true loss, it's hard to judge his DL from that one not so great season, but it did seem to get better as the year went on, he was also a great recruiter.  We definitely seem to have downgraded.

Randy Shannon (2014)– The former Miami Head Coach was the Hogs' Assistant Head Coach/LB coach for just two seasons, moved to Florida to be a co-coordinator.  I expected more from him honestly, he didn't really help with recruiting much, and the LBs didn't really perform any better than they are now.  Hargreaves has done just about as well.

Jim Chaney (2014)– Our OC for two seasons, left for the same job at Pitt. Chaney was also hired by Kirby Smart at Georgia along with Pittman.  Does anyone really question that we were better off with Chaney instead of Enos?

Joel Thomas (2014) – Razorbacks' RB coach for 3 seasons. Thomas got called up to the NFL to be the RB coach for the New Orleans Saints.  He did a good job with the backs, so did Jamal Singleton, both ended up with NFL jobs, we struggled to recruit RBs under both.  Our RBs haven't performed as well this year, but how much of that is due to the struggles on our OL?  We were also finally able to recruit another elite RB under Mitchell.

Jamal Sigleton (2015) - RB coach for 1 season, went on to be Indianapolis Colts RB coach.  See above.

Sam Pittman (2015)– besides having a last name that sounds like an unneeded superhero, Pittman was the OL coach for the Hogs for (almost) 3 seasons. Recently he was hired as the OL coach for Georgia.  Pittman was a loss, he was a decent recruiter when he was putting in the effort, and our OL at least mostly performed well under his tutelage.  Anderson might end up great, but he isn't off to a great start.

Clay Jennings (2015) - DB coach, went on to Texas,  Texas would probably give him back at this point.  Our DBs did not perform well under him, seem to have made a lot of improvement under Rhoads.

We've seen a lot of assistants go, I'm not sure its really worse than most teams out there.  However, I don't look at that list, and see where we lost a whole lot that really impacted us negatively by leaving.

[Tusks]

Maybe CBB evaluates and hires assistants like he evaluates and recruits players.

Someone had to interview them and hire them and that was CBB.  Sounds more like he's missed on a lot of hires than anything else.

[Atlhogfan1]

Head Coach for the product. At some point you have to ask yourself "why do assistants leave for lateral jobs?". https://razorbackers.com/2015/12/15/bret-bielema-scary-good-losing-assistants/

Where were these posts  nevermind.  We know what is at play here, right?

[Arkansas Fan]

It's not his fault we suck....now that Petrino's recruits are mostly gone he's stuck with players he evaluated and developed.

Petrino's lack of recruiting was why we were in this mess. Unfortunately, Bielema can't recruit here, either.

[buldozer]

Last night CBB said the buck stops with him and he said he takes full responsibility. I take him at his word. If he has nothing to offer during this two weeks other than more of the same.... I say the bucks should stop, period. Let him become the next Jack Crowe if he wants to put a team like the one last night on the field and expect the Arkansas fans to accept it. Last nights performance was unacceptable after 4 years of his program being in place.

4 years of his superior recruiting, 4 years of his superior strength program, 4 years of his superior pro style scheme, 4 years of his superior player development program, 4 years for his teams to dominate weaker programs in the 4th quarter, 4 years for him to impose his will on others in the 4th quarter.... and I think we got sold a bunch of smoke because the only domination I am seeing is that of our players, and its not taking until the 4th qtr to do it!

[sickboy]

We've been an up and down team this year. I'm guessing we'll continue to be. I wouldn't be surprised to see us win one of Florida or LSU and lose one of Miss State or Mizzou at this point.

I can also see us rolling down hill if history repeats itself.

Either way, I'm still happy with what Bielema's built in the program since he's been here. We'll see how the season plays out. And next season. Either we continue to improve as a program or we don't. If we don't, we bring in someone else and we're in a sturdier place than when Bielema came and whoever takes over should have better tools.

One thing that's got to change is what we're doing defensively. That's the one phase of the game we've regressed at since we lost Flowers, Speight and Philon.

[HogimusMaximus]

CBB needs to get better!

[rickfahr]

Petrino's lack of recruiting was why we were in this mess. Unfortunately, Bielema can't recruit here, either.

I get tired of hearing that Petrino's recruiting was what put us in a bind. If you don't think Petrino could take his players and beat yours or yours and beat his, most of the time, then you weren't watching the same football games I was.

[Sed76]

I think most of us do put the blame on CBB. Would be nice for him to actually make some adjustments instead of giving us the same old speech that comes after every loss. It's great you take responsibility, the defense sucks so fire or demote someone and try to get the ship righted. Until changes are made it's just lip service.

[porkinsons disease]

Where were these posts  nevermind.  We know what is at play here, right?

Yeah, it is rather transparent. Always is MMQB, but never in Jump Ball.

[RazorPiggie]

Petrino's lack of recruiting was why we were in this mess. Unfortunately, Bielema can't recruit here, either.

No one can.

[hoglady]

Petrino's lack of recruiting was why we were in this mess. Unfortunately, Bielema can't recruit here, either.

Petrino always seemed to have some playmakers / game changers if you will.
This team is sorely lacking in that department. AA is it.
Petrino at least seemed to understand the need for speed in the SEC - that seems to be lost of Bielema.
Flowers and Philon were those type players on defense / unfortunately we've yet to find their replacements.
Most disappointing is the Oline - that was supposed to be Bielema's signature and it is one of the worst lines in Arkansas history.

[rude1]

In Wisky he blamed Alvarez for not paying his assistants and that is why he was looking for a move, he gets here and the same thing is still happening with an AD who has opened up the wallet to every assistant he wants to keep, yet they keep leaving him. At what point does he look in the mirror and start to wonder if there might be another reason his assistants want to leave him?

[Bubba's Bruisers]

Am I crazy, or was BB's seat getting pretty warm his last couple years at Wisky?

[Atlhogfan1]

In Wisky he blamed Alvarez for not paying his assistants and that is why he was looking for a move, he gets here and the same thing is still happening with an AD who has opened up the wallet to every assistant he wants to keep, yet they keep leaving him. At what point does he look in the mirror and start to wonder if there might be another reason his assistants want to leave him?

Who has wanted to leave him vs being asked to leave or taken a better or gone with a friend(Pittman)? 

[Hoggish1]

Head Coach for the product. At some point you have to ask yourself "why do assistants leave for lateral jobs?". https://razorbackers.com/2015/12/15/bret-bielema-scary-good-losing-assistants/

Wow, a piece that's almost 11 months old that was written after his third year.  What are you trying to say...?

[sickboy]

Am I crazy, or was BB's seat getting pretty warm his last couple years at Wisky?

I think some fans really didn't like him there. But his last three season were three consecutive trips to the Rose Bowl and two of those seasons were 11 win seasons. Maybe Wisky has fans who are even crazier than us.

[rude1]

Who has wanted to leave him vs being asked to leave or taken a better or gone with a friend(Pittman)? 

Does it matter? If they are leaving or you are asking them to leave both results from a failure to either hire correctly or administrate correctly to keep them.

[Atlhogfan1]

Does it matter? If they are leaving or you are asking them to leave both results from a failure to either hire correctly or administrate correctly to keep them.

Of course it matters.  DC at Oh St is a better job.  Being asked to find another position matters (Shannon). 

Now you are changing it to "hire correctly" vs them running from Bret?