Wisener: Church talk includes UA replacements

Arkansas coach Chad Morris taps the helmet of running back Chase Hayden prior to a game against San Jose State on Saturday, Sept. 21, 2019, in Fayetteville.

A church lobby on a Sunday morning in the fall is not off limits for football conversation, at least with the local group that offers me communion and a collection plate each first day of the week.

Such talk certainly should have been quieted, if not silenced, at our most recent service. It was an off week for the Arkansas Razorbacks, which meant no further blemish to a team whose 2-8 record suggests a program off-kilter. And, with a 3-0 record under new coach Eric Musselman, though losing a prized West Memphis recruit to Auburn, the basketball Razorbacks bring more positive vibes than the UA football team.

But since Razorback athletics is the prevailing sport in this state, and the football team, even in this downer of a decade, is the primary moneymaker in the university’s athletic department, football is a topic to be discussed at length in season and out of season.

Especially with the Razorbacks between head coaches, Chad Morris ushered out and who knows who coming in, and the guessing game in full swing as to who gets next crack at, modifying a line from Donald Trump’s playbook, making Arkansas great again.

Several names came up before and after services Sunday. For once, though, Gus Malzahn’s name was not prominent after Georgia, renewing the South’s oldest football rivalry, slapped Auburn all over Jordan-Hare Stadium, blanking Malzahn’s Tigers into the fourth quarter of a 21-14 road victory.

Malzahn, with more Arkansas ties than any Razorback head coach since Houston Nutt, is the blue-plate special among fans who think Gus wakes up every day dreaming of running through the 'A' on game days in Fayetteville. Never mind that, even caught in Alabama’s shadow, Auburn has a better chance of winning a national championship than Arkansas in any given year. Especially now with the Razorbacks at a 60-year low in prestige nationally.

Nutt, a Little Rock native and former Razorback player and head coach, always comes up in these discussions. It’s been said that no college head coach has been linked with more openings for jobs that he was never seriously considered than our Houston Dale. But I dare you to find another coach who changed jobs after beating the nation’s No. 1-ranked team, as did Nutt (leaving Arkansas for Ole Miss) after the LSU game in 2007.

Barry Lunney Jr., a Fort Smith native and former Razorback player, possibly can remove the interim title from his job description with a fortnight sweep of LSU and Missouri. Beating LSU, ranked No. 1 as when Nutt’s 2007 team won at Baton Rouge in triple overtime, is unlikely, though Lunney, promoted from tight-ends coach after Morris’ in-season firing, says all he wants from his team is its best showing of the year Saturday night in Death Valley. If not against LSU, a Thanksgiving Friday win over Missouri in Little Rock would represent one more victory over a Southeastern Conference team than poor Morris managed in 14 games.

Thanksgiving weekend proved pivotal in Bobby Petrino’s time at Arkansas. The 2008 Razorbacks, his first team, stunned LSU at War Memorial Stadium on Casey Dick’s touchdown pass to London Crawford. No fan base ever celebrated a 5-7 season more.

LSU won the 2009 game in Baton Rouge, which I attended, when the Tigers could not miss a field goal and the Razorbacks, especially in overtime, could not make one.

The 2010 Razorback victory in Little Rock is memorable for Ryan Mallett’s touchdown pass to Cobi Hamilton late in the first half when two Tiger defenders collided at midfield. (Sitting to my right in a press box enclosure for the visiting team’s coaches was LSU defensive coordinator John Chavis, who looked like the sky was falling. Chavis has had that same blank expression often in 24 games as Arkansas’ DC.)

The 2011 Arkansas-LSU game is remembered more for its build-up than any game action. LSU was No. 1 and Arkansas No. 3 in the Bowl Championship Series poll on that afternoon in Death Valley. The Tigers, who had beaten Alabama, looked worthy of their national ranking while Petrino’s Razorbacks, as in an early-season thumping of Alabama, played well only on one side of the ball.

The denouement to that story from an Arkansas perspective is grim and revealing. Included is a Petrino-coached Cotton Bowl win over Kansas State but also an April Fool'sl Day cycle ride by the coach with a female companion to whom he was not married. That finished the Petrino chapter at Arkansas, one that, it was written here later, the head coach teased the fans of championships to come but never quite crossed Jordan into the promised land.

Is Petrino, out of work since an enforced exit in his second go-round at Louisville, a viable candidate to replace Morris at Arkansas? The Little Rock Touchdown Club, although a small sample of the fan base, gave Petrino a standing ovation earlier this fall when Bobby, making his first Arkansas visit in seven years, apologized for how it ended in 2012. That’s as close as Bobby ever came to being a people person at Arkansas, and the mere mention of his name in connection with a possible UA return makes many cringe.

One gets a skeptical reaction also when Hugh Freeze’s name comes up. Freeze, now at Liberty University, left Ole Miss in disgrace but not before orchestrating back-to-back victories over Alabama for the first time in program history. Freeze won a Sun Belt Conference title in his only season at Arkansas State, from which he went to Ole Miss to replace a fired Nutt. Other than Malzahn and Dabo Swinney (who’s not leaving Clemson for Arkansas), find someone else with better recent success against Alabama’s Nick Saban.

So, does Arkansas make a second run at Mike Norvell, who might get Memphis to 11-1 in his third season? Norvell was second choice behind Malzahn, who got a pay raise from Auburn after beating Alabama, when Arkansas fired Bret Bielema in 2017. Norvell, who played at Central Arkansas, might parlay his success at Memphis into a Power 5 job, but Arkansas isn’t such a plum opening these days.

Someone at church mentioned Willie Fritz, laboring in security late in his fourth season at Tulane (22-25 record) but, at 59, primed to make a big move. He coached Sam Houston State to 40-15 in four years and Georgia Southern to 17-7 in two years before jumping to Tulane. Those numbers may not be sexy to some but, counting 97-47 in 13 years at Central Missouri, Fritz has a better college record as a head coach than Chad Morris at SMU.

If you’re swinging for the fences and see Urban Meyer or Bob Stoops on an Arkansas sideline, I hope you’re not disappointed.

Mike Leach is a more realistic flavor of the month, especially for building potent attacks at two programs (Texas Tech and Washington State) after installing his “Air Raid Offense” for Hal Mumme at Kentucky and Stoops at Oklahoma. Leach, however, is not one to suffer in silence, whether over officiating or player performance, and might be too hot to handle for Arkansas.

Butch Davis is a UA graduate who’s made a lot of stops but never quite got around to being the Razorbacks’ head coach. His age (Davis turned 68 Sunday) might work against him, although North Carolina, where Butch coached four seasons, brought back Mack Brown, three months older, last year. (Butch Jones, formerly at Tennessee, is another possibility.)

I’m surprised Lou Holtz’s name hasn’t surfaced, even if Lou is 82. One might consider son Skip, at 55, now at Louisiana Tech, who hasn’t worked anywhere with the facilities or inherent advantages of the University of Arkansas.

Unless UA athletics director Hunter Yurachek pulls a name out of a hat soon, the Razorbacks’ football opening may be grist for the mill before church next week. Our pulpit minister went into a routine Sunday about someone saying, “I’m an Arkansas coach. Give me more money.”

Shaking his hand after services, I politely reminded this young man, a South Carolina native and Clemson supporter, not to work on my side of the street.