Take Two: What direction should Arkansas take with its search?
Take Two returns with a daily offering tackling an issue in the college football landscape. Rivals.com national recruiting analyst Adam Gorney lays out the situation and then receives takes from Rivals.com national recruiting director Mike Farrell and an expert from the Rivals.com network of team sites or a regional analyst.
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THE STORYLINE
The coaching philosophy of the last handful of Arkansas coaches has flip-flopped from run-first guys to pass-first guys and that kind of dramatic change has been problematic for the Razorbacks.
Houston Nutt liked to run the ball. Then Bobby Petrino wanted to pass all the time. Then Bret Bielema wanted to establish a dominant run game like he had at Wisconsin. Then Chad Morris came in, tried to revamp the entire system and run a spread attack.
And now Morris is gone, not even two seasons into his tenure in Fayetteville. He was wildly unsuccessful at Arkansas but there will be questions about whether Morris was set up for failure since he didn’t even have two full seasons to implement his strategy. Morris finished 4-18 at Arkansas, winless in SEC play.
There are plenty of names already emerging as possible candidates to replace Morris. Memphis’ Mike Norvell might top the list but others include FAU’s Lane Kiffin, Tulane’s Willie Fritz, even Auburn’s Gus Malzahn will be in the coaching carousel chatter in the coming days.
What exactly does Arkansas need to succeed in the SEC will be the question du jour moving forward. Should the Razorbacks try to build on Morris’ philosophy in changing Arkansas into a spread, pass-attack offense led by star receivers Trey Knox and Treylon Burks or should Arkansas change once again to running the ball, building a massive offensive line and trying to control the clock?
FIRST TAKE: ANDREW HUTCHINSON, HAWGBEAT.COM
“They’re going to try to find a guy who has a similar offensive philosophy as Chad. That has been the problem at Arkansas since they went from Nutt, a run-oriented guy, to Petrino, who was a pass-happy guy, back to Bielema, who was run-happy, and then to Morris who had a more pass-happy offense. That led to some really rough Year 1s.
“They’re probably going to want somebody more established. Morris’ overall record at SMU before coming to Arkansas was not great even though he showed progress each year. That’s something that a lot of Arkansas fans have pointed to and they’re not going to be happy if they find someone else with a really bad overall winning percentage.”
SECOND TAKE: MIKE FARRELL, RIVALS.COM
“They need to hire someone for the spread. They’ve recruited for it for the last couple of years and it’s shown to have success in the SEC in recent years. The SEC is not just a pro-style, run-it-down-your-throat conference anymore. They need an offensive guy who can recruit those skill athletes in Texas and steal from out of Louisiana and the middle of the country and stay wide open.
“Norvell would be a home run. He was on the watch list last time. He’s had success at a Group of Five program. Morris never had success. He was just a hot name from Clemson who took over at SMU and didn’t have success there and was hired by Arkansas for some reason. Norvell would be the guy to target.”