Reacting to Arkansas' hiring of coach Ryan Silverfield

[00:00:00] Speaker A: You're listening to the Whole Hog Sports Podcast. And now here's your host, Matt Jones. [00:00:05] Speaker B: Arkansas as a new football coach. Seems like about half the SEC does, too. We'll talk about it today on the podcast. First, a word from Kendall King. [00:00:11] Speaker C: Kendall King, we're proud of over four decades of design. We're continuing the legacy of great creative design by combining our brands of Kendall King, Soapbox and Shopcart. Together, these brands represent a new focus in marketing design with individual attention to specific areas. Through our design expertise, supported by a team of talented professionals, we showcase our best. We are Kendall King. We are Soapbox. We are Shopcart. We are Design. [00:00:37] Speaker B: I had a tough time going to bed Saturday night because I knew what was going to happen Sunday. I knew it was going to be just an absolutely crazy day. All of these teams wanted to get their head coaches in place before the national signing period that begins Wednesday. We knew that Arkansas was going to hire somebody Sunday. It was just a matter of who. And that was kind of the great mystery going into Sunday. Of course, they've hired Ryan Silverfield now as the head coach, the former head coach at Memphis. And I'll admit, Christina, I was, I think I was like a lot of people when this was announced, I was surprised. But then as I thought about it more, I thought, why should I be surprised? If you look at the reporting over the last two, three weeks, it has always been Ryan Silverfield is one of the top candidates for this job. Even Saturday night in the reporting about Alex Golis, by the way, it's been a long time. It feels like even longer since we've been on this podcast because we never even had a chance to talk about the whole Alex Gollish saga. We'll probably get into that here in a little bit. But even during the Alex Gollish reporting, there was always the reports. I think Ross Dellinger wrote this Saturday night. It said that if Goelish does not work out at Arkansas, expect them to go to one of the other coaches who are their top candidates, who are Cain Womack and Ryan Silverfield. And so as I just kind of took a step back and thought about this a little bit after that kind of initial shock, whenever we found out who the coach was yesterday, the thought occurred to me, why are we surprised? Why are we surprised? Everybody was hiring out of the same pool this year. The American Conference, the JMU coach is going to go to UCLA. Very few of these Power 4 jobs that are open, you know, I guess Virginia Tech and LSU would be the exception. To the rule were able to go get us and even Virginia Tech, James Franklin had been fired, but they were. None of them were able to go get that established Power 4 coach and get them to move to another Power 4 job. And so as I thought about this, again, it's just, why the surprise over Ryan Silverfield? I don't know if it's the lack of ties. I don't know if it's the way Memphis's season ended. I don't know if people maybe just got their hopes up about Golisch, which. I want to talk about him and Silverfield in that conference here in just a second. But the surprise, I guess, and again, I'm guilty of this, too, but maybe as I took a step back from it, the surprise that everybody had or seemed to have with this higher. I guess in retrospect, I kind of wonder why, because it should not have been as surprising as maybe it was. [00:03:23] Speaker A: I think it was the Golech thing. I think everyone was just expecting that. I don't think anyone was like, ryan Silverfield, that's a name I've never heard. Nobody that was paying attention was like, couldn't believe that he was even an option that had been out there. I feel like since the job opened almost that he was like somebody who could get a look. [00:03:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:41] Speaker A: And so I think we were talking. [00:03:42] Speaker B: About him when they played Memphis, like. Like when Memphis beat Arkansas and we knew that the writing was on the wall for Sam Pittman. Like some of the conversation was, did he just lose to his replacement? [00:03:53] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, definitely. So this was. I don't think it was necessarily a surprise. Like, oh, Ryan Silverfield came out of nowhere. Nobody thought he was in the running. I think it was more the surprise that it wasn't going to be Golish. And I remember texting you guys the night before on Saturday night and being like, I kind of am not going to be surprised if it's not goalish. And I'm not trying to do like. Well, I knew all along, but I just kind of got the feeling of like, you know, it seemed like he was going to be in the running at one of these schools that, you know, didn't get their top guy. So, you know, for Auburn, didn't get John Sumrall, who was their top guy for Florida, didn't get Lame Kiffin, who was their top guy, figured, you know, if either of those schools calls, why would he not go there over Arkansas? You know, obviously, without knowing the details of what they presented him and things like that at the Time we know a little bit now, you know, we know his Auburn contract details and things like that. But I kind of started to get the feeling, okay, if, if one or both of those other two schools comes to you, why would you not like you have, if you haven't signed anything, what's stopping you? Why would you. I don't know, maybe that's, that might be my like pessimism from having like watched Arkansas operate for a long time. But I was like, oh, Auburn and Florida are better jobs so why would you not take them over Arkansas? So I kind of started to get the feeling of like, okay, if that's what's happening, then yeah, he's not going to come here. [00:05:05] Speaker B: The reports were that golis got a five year offer for $7 million a year. That came from the South Florida on three site. Arkansas is paying Silverfield 6.7. Get your 6.7 jokes out. 6.7 million a year over five years. So very, very comparable to what was at least reported that Golich had been offered by Arkansas. Whether or not those reports are accurate, we may never know. Silverfield. They are. They're also, and I wonder if this is part of the total package. They're paying one and a half million to buy him out. So if you took those 300,000 and multiplied it by five, that's seven. It's like a $35 million investment which would have been the same that they were putting into Goelish. Goelish got a sixth year at Auburn, got a little bit more. I think he got seven point. Was it 7.4 million? I think is his annual average salary there? So if you're Arkansas and you get into a, like a bidding war for a coach, that's probably not going to go very well. And you know, so did that play a factor? I really don't know. I don't think we're ever going to know why they went with Ryan Silverfield over Alex Golish, why they went with Ryan Silverfield over Kane Womack over somebody else. Maybe it was that the other coach didn't want them. But you know, like, we're going to hear the reasons why they went with Ryan Silverfield. I don't know that we're ever going to really hear from that inner circle. And it was a very small group of people that were involved in this search process. Why Ryan Silverfield and not Alex Gollish. Why Ryan Silverfield and not Kane Womack. I don't know that we're ever going to get those details. We just know that Silverfield is their coach. And you know, as I thought about this, we got word probably a week and a half ago that Ed Fryer, who we think was part of this search process, he's a board of trustee member here in northwest Arkansas, that his plane had, or a plane that was associated to him, had been making stops in all of these towns where the candidates were. It stopped in Tuscaloosa, it stopped in Memphis, stopped in Tampa. Did all of this over the course of about 48 to 60 hours right around the time Arkansas played Texas down in Austin. And you know, you put two and two together. We know that Ed Fryer's plane was used during the 2019 search. We know that this very much fit the movie that Eurocheck searches have had in the past. So I guess for about 10 days now, I have felt like it was going to be silver filled Walmart or Goal. [00:07:43] Speaker A: Ish. I don't think that's new. [00:07:45] Speaker B: I mean, I think, I don't think it is either. But I wanted to make this point. I want to read you some resumes and you tell me which one sounds best. [00:07:53] Speaker A: Ooh, blind resume. [00:07:54] Speaker B: Blind resume. Which, I don't know how well this works in an audio element, but here we go. If you're driving down the road, try to, try to pay attention. First resume, you've got a winning percentage of 60.5% and your best record was 9 and 3 overall and 6 and 2 in your conference. Second resume, you've got a winning percentage of 57.9% and your best finish was 10 and 3 and 7 and 1 in your conference. And then the last resume, you've got a winning percentage of 66.7% and your best record was 11 and 2 overall and 6 and 2 in your conference. [00:08:38] Speaker A: I think I know which one Silverfield is. [00:08:40] Speaker B: He's the last one. He's the best resume. Those are Silverfield, in order. Golis, Womack and Silverfield. So Silverfield at Memphis, 50 and 25, 66.7%. They won their games. 11 and 2 finish in 2024 and they were ranked number 23 by the AP at the end of that season. Womack, his record at South Alabama from 21 to 23 was 22 and 16. His best finish was 10 and 3 overall, 7 and 1 in the Sun Belt and goal is 23 and 15 at South Florida. 9 and 3, 6 and 2 this year is his best finish. None of those coaches, by the way, ever won a conference championship. None. [00:09:17] Speaker A: Yeah, I just went and checked. You know, one of the big knocks on Silverfield has been, you know, Memphis is one of, if not the best resourced program in the group of six, five, whatever you want to call it, and he never made the American title game. USF is also one of the best funded G5, G6 programs and didn't make an American championship game under goal. Ish. It was a shorter time period. It was what, three seasons? So shorter time period, different kind of deal. Not exactly one to one comparison, but like, if that's the complaint, then I get that can apply to him too. [00:09:56] Speaker B: I guess where I'm going with this is that, you know, if, if you were to ask me, do you have a strong opinion about one of those options over the other? I don't think I do not. Not based on these resumes. So, you know, why did Silverfield get the job? Again, I don't know that we're ever going to know why he was picked over these others. But I think if you just look at their resume or his resume and you look at the resume of the others that they were seriously considering and you could probably even throw Eric Morris into this conversation because I think he was part of the process too at North Texas. He's going to Oklahoma State. I don't know that you can say any of these resumes is better than the others. Silverfield, it's got the best record, he's got the most longevity. He's got the best single season out of him. He doesn't have the assistant coaching credentials that say, like Golisch and Wommack have. Womack was a Broyles award finalist at Indiana in 2020. He might be 1 this year with Alabama. Golis was a Broyles award finalist in 22 at Tennessee. I think all three of those jobs are difficult jobs to win at. Like you can say Memphis is well resourced and that's all fine and well, but I think Memphis is still a very difficult job to win at. Even though they've had the sustained success over the years. I just think they've had three coaches who have kind of. They've had a little bit of a blueprint to follow and they haven't messed it up. [00:11:17] Speaker A: So what makes you think it's a difficult job then? If they've. If coaches Memphis. [00:11:20] Speaker B: Yeah, because it's not a power forward job. [00:11:23] Speaker A: Well, yeah, but then you can't compare it to. Neither is South Florida. [00:11:26] Speaker B: You can compare it, but I think you can compare Memphis to South Florida and South Alabama. [00:11:31] Speaker A: But Those aren't Power4jobs either. [00:11:33] Speaker B: I know that's what I'm saying. It's like where I'm going with this is I think all of these jobs are difficult places to win. [00:11:38] Speaker A: Okay. [00:11:39] Speaker B: And I think all three of these coaches, like, I think that they've all got capabilities because they won there, but that's where I was going with that. [00:11:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:11:46] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:11:47] Speaker A: I think, I mean, I think that makes sense. I think there are a lot of people who were going to be. And I think it's a little bit different. I think for Arkansas it became pretty clear once we kind of got these four names rattling around that yeah, it was going to probably be a Group of 5 coach with the exception of Kane Wommack, but his head coaching experience is a group of five is at a group five school. So I don't think anyone in the Arkansas camp necessarily is like, ah, they whiffed and they had to get a group of five guy. That's the Florida thing. That's why Florida's mad about summer. All is that they feel like they're just doing Billy Napier again. [00:12:20] Speaker B: Arkansas people think they're doing Chad Morris. [00:12:22] Speaker A: Again, which I don't know. I wasn't here when Chad Morris got hired. What is your read on that? How would you compare the Chad Morris resume? [00:12:28] Speaker B: Chad Morris, it was much worse than Silverfield. I think Morris's best year at SMU was 7 and 5 and that was the year he got hired. Like, and he had, I think he had a 2 and 10 season at SMU too. His, his overall record at SMU was a losing record. I think he had like a. I can't remember the exact number. Maybe like 14 and 22 at SMU before he got the job at Arkansas. And so he had never had just like great success at smu. Whereas you look at Silverfield and you know they, and I understand the American changes a lot. A couple of years ago when they lost Cincinnati and they lost UCF and they lost. Help me out here. Houston. And then SMU the next year left for the acc. So that conference looks a lot different and I think Memphis has benefited from that conference changing. But they won 11 games. They won 10 games. Morris never had a season like that. He never even came close. [00:13:24] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I think there's also. And this is kind of. It reminds me of the like, oh, they can't. Which I don't know how people weren't like seriously saying this, but it was kind of one of those things that was like, haha. Unless when you were talking about they can't hire Eric Morris because it's another Morris from North Texas. I feel the same way about the idea that like oh God, it's an offensive line guy. Come on, let's not like, let's be serious. An offensive line coach can be successful. Like we don't have to do the whole like they're just doing. No, this is not the same thing. Just because you have an offensive line background does not mean you're going to fail. Does not mean you don't know how to coach football. I mean an example I think of is like Brent Key is an offensive line guy. He's having a good time. [00:14:02] Speaker B: Cristobal. Wasn't Cristobal an offensive line coach? [00:14:04] Speaker A: Yeah. And so. Yeah, so we don't need to do that. Let's, let's be grown ups. [00:14:08] Speaker B: Morris at SMU by the way. 2 and 10, 5 and 7. 7 and 5. [00:14:12] Speaker A: Okay. [00:14:13] Speaker B: That was, those were his records. [00:14:14] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:15] Speaker B: So I think that Silverfield is a lot, I think his resume reads a lot better than Chad's resume read whenever he got the job. I think that whenever you're swimming in that pool of group of whatever candidates because we can't agree on 5 or 6. But like when you are trying to, to, to hire out of that pool, like there's a considerable amount of risk that goes into it because none of the, for, for the most part. And Lane Kiffin when he came from FAU was, was a very, he was an exception to this rule because he had gone to FAU basically into rehab. And so you, you pull him out. But like for the most part when you're pulling a coach out of that group of schools, like they don't, you don't know if they're going to win in the sec. You just don't because they've never been in that position to see. [00:15:05] Speaker A: It's similar to when you get transfers from there. [00:15:07] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:15:08] Speaker A: You just don't know. [00:15:09] Speaker B: You were, you're, you're taking a little bit of a gamble. You're taking a little bit of a risk. But I don't see how Silverfield and I think one of the, one of the big blowbacks if you will to this higher has been that it's a risk. Well, I mean Alex Goldis was going to be a risk. Anybody Womack was going to be a risk. John Summerall, if you could have gotten him to come here would have been a risk. [00:15:30] Speaker A: Risk. [00:15:31] Speaker B: What Honestly, Bob Chesney, we could go on down. [00:15:34] Speaker A: Lane Kiffin's a risk. [00:15:35] Speaker B: Good God, is he ever. [00:15:36] Speaker A: I mean, yeah, I want to get into that Coaches that win could be risks. That win at the SEC level. [00:15:41] Speaker B: I want to get into Kiffin a little bit later. One other thing is I looked at those three coaches and again, I'm using these three coaches just because I think that these were the three that were most in play and that's Womack, Golish and Silverfield. It kind of sounds like a law firm, but you know, you look at, you look at their record against Power Four teams, Womack was 1 and 2. His win was over Oklahoma State in 2023 at South Alabama. Golis was 1 and 4. His win was over Florida earlier this year. And we know how this year turned out for Florida. His other losses were to Miami this year and last, and he lost to Alabama in 2023 and 2024. Silverfield as the full time coach at Memphis was 5 and 2 against Power 4 teams. Now he also had a loss to Penn State in the Cotton bowl in 2019. That was whenever he had taken over for Mike Norvell after Norvell had gone to Florida State. But you look at this and he beat Mississippi State in 21, lost to Mississippi State in 22, beat Iowa State in a bowl game in 22, lost to Missouri in 23, beat Florida State last year. A bad Florida State team I know beat West Virginia in a bowl game last year and beat a bad Arkansas team this year over in Memphis. One other thing on his record is that he had a combined 3 and 8 record against UCF, SMU, Cincinnati and Houston before those teams left the American for Power 4 conferences. So those are Power 4 teams now. And so if you wanted to add that to his record, I guess it would be 8 and 11 against power four teams. But I don't really like to do that because they weren't power four teams at the time that they played them. [00:17:23] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, I think that makes sense. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I think I hesitate to do the thing when any new coach is hired to be like, this is a home run or this is going to work. [00:17:33] Speaker B: I like Tom's line. He says it's a great hire. We'll see if it works. [00:17:37] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. [00:17:37] Speaker B: That's the thing says it about every coach. [00:17:39] Speaker A: That's the thing. I, I don't know if this is going to work. It really might not. I, I think maybe my expectation is low because I think there's a lot more than just Ryan Silverfield at play. There's everything we've been talking about with the resources. We don't know what that looks like. Yet we haven't really heard what the commitment is, how different it's going to be. You know, we can see in salary what they've offered to pay him, you know, at the start is very different from what they paid Sam Pittman at the start of his tenure. So, you know, you can get a little bit of a hint from there, but we don't know what the roster construction is to. [00:18:09] Speaker B: Going. [00:18:09] Speaker A: Going to look like. We don't know what kind of success they're going to have in the transfer portal or who they're going to retain from this roster. There is so much more at play than just Ryan Silverfield's resume. And so I think I'm. My expectation is. Is somewhat low. I thought it was bold of him. I'm very interested. Something I really like doing and I'm very interested in doing is looking at the kind of messaging that people put out. So I'm very interested in kind of the, the PR strategy of, of anything, but especially a new coach. And I thought it was very bold of him to come out and say unprompted. Basically, this is not going to be the kind of thing where I say, give me three years before I can win. He's like, we're going to win right away. And I'm like, all right, nobody made you say that and you chose to put that out there. So we'll see. [00:18:54] Speaker B: He does have. He does have experience overhauling a roster. I mean, Memphis's roster this year, it was, I think, what. They had like 70 new players on their roster. It was an insane number. It was even more, I think, than what Arkansas had. Now, I know Memphis, they faded down the stretch. And I'll say this too, about Silverfield. I think that if Arkansas would have hired Silverfield a month ago, this would have been met a lot differently. When Memphis was 6 and 0, 8 and 1. And those teams they lost to, by the way, those are not bad teams, all three of those teams. Tulane is going to be potentially in the playoff. Navy tied Tulane and North Texas for the league champion or for the best record in the league. Navy's the odd man out in terms of who gets to play for the conference championship. And then East Carolina, I don't know people realize this. East Carol went 6 and 2 in that league. They tied South Florida for fourth in the American. So it was not a good finish for them. And I wonder if some of their finish had to do with number one. Just all of the outside talk about the playoff and you're the team now, and sometimes when that happens, you get teams best, best punches. Number two. There was a lot of talk around that time that Ryan Silverfield was favorite to become the head coach at Arkansas. And I wonder. And probably there was some talk about him going to other schools too. And I wonder how much that might have affected his. Because it's. It seems like there is a correlation between when the, the, the play started to drop off and whenever his name was the hottest. [00:20:18] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it makes sense. I, I think it's. They kind of had this last year though too, didn't they? They kind of. They were about to. They, they choked in a game, didn't they? They like. [00:20:28] Speaker B: I mean, they might have. [00:20:29] Speaker A: They lost real late and they, they had a chance at the playoff. Oh yeah. It was when they lost a utsa. It wasn't, it wasn't as late as it could have been. But. But yeah, I mean, I don't know. I think it's just. There's a lot more in the soup here and, and like you said, it's gonna be what does this look like at the SEC level? But that's going to be the question for Alex Goliage, it's gonna be the question for Eric Morris, it's gonna be the question for John Somerl. It is not a Silverfield specific problem. It has long been the question when you hire a guy, like I said, the same way as when you get a player up from there. And sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Is this one gonna work? I don't know. We'll see. I will say, you know, it's, it's only Monday, but it seems like he's, he's hitting the high school recruiting hard. He's hitting the in state recruiting hard, which I know people will love. [00:21:12] Speaker B: Big commits today. Danny Beal from Cross county and then they've got two from, from Bryant, Jacquary Smith and TJ Hodges, the running back who was previously committed to Missouri. Smith is a linebacker who was previously committed to ou. I think Beal was committed to Oklahoma State and I was down in Bryant about a week and a half ago watching them play a playoff game. And Smith, I mean, like Hodges is a good player too, but Smith especially, you watch him and there are certain times where there's like one player where it's like you can't block him. What are you going to do with this guy? And that's what it felt like watching him on the field that night. And at that point he was still committed to ou. And I remember thinking to myself, like, yeah, that looks like a, that looks like somebody could go and, and play on that OU defense. And then he decommits and now he ends up here at Arkansas. I think that's a big get for them. We'll see. Again, it's not any different than a coach. We'll see if it works out right. But I think it's got the potential to be a really nice get for Arkansas. I said this about Pittman a lot. I did not think that he prioritized in state recruiting the way he could have. And to their credit, or just to make the point clear, they did offer all three of these players. And I think that, you know, there's probably, maybe there's more resources that they were able to, you know, more money. Resources. Money that they were able to offer to them to come in. But I think more than anything, them decommitting from wherever they were and reconsidering Arkansas to the point that they committed today, I think is an indication they believe in the, you know, the vision that this coaching staff has shared with them. [00:22:54] Speaker A: Yeah, it seems like it. I mean, he really was talking pretty specifically about the recruiting aspect when he was kind of doing his radio tour this morning. [00:23:03] Speaker B: He put a video out. Yesterday. He sent a video to the Arkansas High School Football Coaches Association. I was just looking for that, and I do not. I think a lot of people look at that, and that's just a little 12, 14 second video. I don't think you can overstate how important that was to the coaches in the state of Arkansas that he sent that out. And like it or not, they, you know, they're not going to completely steer a player probably to one school or the other, but certainly they've got influence in recruiting. And I don't think you can overstate, not so much for this class, and certainly I don't know that that affected any of these players, but I don't think you can overstate how much that, that, how much meaning that has to the coaches in this state moving forward, and maybe it pays off down the road. [00:23:53] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I don't think it's nothing. It was something that people, you know, criticize Sam Pittman for a lot, and it's something that he's trying to correct. So, I mean, that's, that's not nothing. And I, I, you know, it'll depend a lot. You know, like he was saying on the radio a lot today was he wants to win now, and you're not always going to win now with high school players, but you still need them. You still need a good high school class. You need to be able to keep them beyond a year, but you really need to be able to kind of plug the holes that you're going to need to plug, keep the guys that you decide are. Are worth keeping on your roster. And that's going to be what comes next. And I, but I do think this high school recruiting class, I think sometimes I, in particular, because of my, like, I don't know, just pessimism about the portal and whatever, tend not to look too closely at recruiting classes, particularly at Arkansas, because of how a player does well and then leaves. But if they are going to be able to build the way that he seems to say he wants to build, this is not going to be a Portal overhaul every year type of thing. And so that's why this is important. [00:24:59] Speaker B: Like the, the teams that win, the. The teams that are winning the most, they are still getting built through high school recruiting. [00:25:05] Speaker A: He seems to know that it's like. [00:25:07] Speaker B: You'Ve got to have this foundation of high school recruiting or you're never going to, like, you're never going to be able to win. It's kind of like, I don't know, it's like being inside out or outside in. Like, I'd rather be built inside out instead of outside in. And I think that portal is outside in recruiting or outside in building. When you are totally reliant or mostly reliant on Portal players to fix your team. I think that whenever you have that base of high school players, and I don't think it matters if it's football or baseball or whatever the sport is, when you have that base and then you're able to supplement areas of need with players out of the portal who fit into a culture that is established by that base of high school players and that base of players who are going to stay with your program for multiple years, I think that is when your team is the most successful. [00:26:01] Speaker A: Successful, I think. And. And he seems to know that a lot of coaches say that a lot of coaches talk about wanting to build a culture and find guys that fit their culture and develop players. Whether or not he can actually do it, we'll see. [00:26:11] Speaker B: And he had 70 new players at Memphis this year. [00:26:13] Speaker A: But I wonder about this. It's different when you're dealing with a below power four because your best players are gonna go. [00:26:18] Speaker B: You can't afford to keep them. [00:26:19] Speaker A: Great guy. [00:26:19] Speaker B: They're gonna keep them. [00:26:20] Speaker A: Arkansas needs to get in a position eventually, over time where that is not what's happening. Because sometimes that's what's happening to them too. [00:26:26] Speaker B: I wonder if there's something like there's. There's this thought with Silverfield and maybe, you know, like, here's the deal with him. We're not going to go. We're not going to know in the next year if this hire works out. Like, if he has a good year, that doesn't mean anything. If he has a bad year, I don't know that that means anything. Like what we're going to grade this higher is going to be like a multi year snapshot of what this looks like. And so I've totally lost my train of thought where I was going with this. But, you know, I think the point that I was trying to make here, Christina, is just it's going to take time to build this. And so from a recruiting standpoint, I think you got to have that base of players. [00:27:08] Speaker A: Yeah, I think so too. And it seems like that's what they're trying to do. I think it also helps them a lot from the PR standpoint if they're able to get a decent recruiting class together here that they can scrape together in basically three days. That does. I think that would go a long way for kind of the first impression and kind of trying to, to recover the image that I think, you know, it seems like I'll just be very interested about the press conference. I'll be very interested how this first sort of run up to the first season goes because it seems like he's. He seems to have started on the back. The back foot with a lot of people and I think he has a lot of goodwill to build up. [00:27:40] Speaker B: The expectations are. They're low. [00:27:42] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:42] Speaker B: And I don't know, like, is Arkansas the best job? Absolutely not. Not even close. But. And I think that scares people away. But on the other hand, if you get the right person, like maybe not even the right person, but the person with like the right mentality, they're not scared of a challenge. [00:28:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:28:03] Speaker B: And I think that's, you know, and so if you're coming in here right now, the expectations are so they went 2 and 10 this year. They didn't win an SEC game. And people don't, you know, the kind of, the overwhelming or a very popular train of thought right now is that he's not going to do anything at Arkansas. So, like, the expectations are so low. He could come in here and go six and six next year. And do you know how much he would have exceeded expectations? Yeah, like, he would have tripled the win. Total from this year. And again, he would have exceeded the expectations that people had for him. Can they do that? They've got a really hard schedule next year. I don't know if they can. But you know, I'll never say never. This like college football has changed so much and in a lot of negative ways, but in like, I think one of the positive ways and a lot of the teams that are still in contention to be in the playoff are a shining example of this right now is that you can totally change the perception of your program in a really short amount of time if you've got the right person at the steering wheel. We'll see if Silverfield is that for Arkansas. But you know, we could be seeing a totally different tune about Arkansas in a year or two, whereas in the old days it would have been very difficult to have done that in such a short amount of time. [00:29:22] Speaker A: We could. Doesn't mean we will. [00:29:24] Speaker B: Doesn't mean we will. [00:29:25] Speaker A: And, and I was talking to people about this last night. There's the possibility that he rips off a great year one and then he gets the, the crazy extension and raise that. And then in two years that looks like the worst decision ever. And you're right back to where you started. [00:29:39] Speaker B: The whole knee jerk reaction by the athletics directors is crazy. I remember where I lost my train of thought a second ago. Where I was going with this is I wonder, you know, too, and I'm looking at this from a glass half full perspective. I understand that and I understand the people who are negative and down about this. But you know, sometimes when you are at your lowest, so to speak, like that's when you can find the best in yourself. And so I wonder. And it's when it motivates you. And so I wonder if there's any, you know, like there is the potential here, I think, where you've got a motivated fan base and team and you've got a motivated coach who this year certainly did not end the way that people thought it would for him. Maybe those things, two things come together. I think this is what's happened with Calipari to a certain extent at Arkansas is that he came here, it reinvigorated him. He was able to maybe do some things different that you know that like he just, he was able to do it different because he was at a new place and he had the fan base that was hungry for it. And you've got an Arkansas basketball program now that is at least in terms of building a roster, is able to compete with the best teams in the country. And I just wonder if maybe on a smaller scale you might get that with football because again, you've got a fan base that and a department that says, hey, you know, what we've been doing isn't working, so we got to do this a different way. What that new way is going to look like. I am very intrigued to get to Thursday in the press conference in Eurocheck and hear him outline this vision. But, you know, maybe there's that. I think that that possibility exists where you've got one side saying, hey, we did it this way and it didn't work, and you got this other side saying, hey, I did it this way and it didn't work quite. And so like, we come together and maybe we do it a new way and maybe it's beautiful for everybody involved. [00:31:35] Speaker A: Maybe. Maybe it is. [00:31:38] Speaker B: It's like Tom Fornelli says, great hire. We'll see if it works. [00:31:41] Speaker A: We will see. [00:31:42] Speaker B: We got a lot more to talk about when we come back. What a crazy day in the sec. The SEC landscape looks totally different now than it did this time a week ago. First, another word from Kendall King. [00:31:53] Speaker C: Kendall King, we're proud of over four decades of design. We're continuing the legacy of great creative design by combining our brands of Kendall King, Soapbox and Shopcart. Together, these brands represent a new focus in marketing design with individual attention to specific areas. Through our design expertise, supported by a team of talented professionals, we showcase our best. We are Kendall King. We are Soapbox. We are Shopcart. We are Design. [00:32:18] Speaker B: Hey, welcome back. Want to tell you about our friends at Bentonville Glass. They've been serving their community since 1971. They're committed, professional and versatile. If you're looking for a quality leader in northwest Arkansas or look for skilled craftsmanship, look no further than Bentonville Glass for all your glass market needs with the highest quality products and come by and see them now at 507 South Main in Bentonville or online at bentonvilleglass.com There was a football game over the weekend. I don't know that we're going to spend a whole lot of time discussing it, but it just felt like same song, ninth or 10th verse, get up at halftime, play a terrible second half. And I thought back to the comments that Steve Conley made at the sports club a week or two ago, you know, where he said that he thought that one of the problems with the team this year is that he just did not think the conditioning was good and he thought that's why they wore out in the second half of all these games. And certainly I think that, you know, I don't doubt him. I mean, this is a guy who owns a fitness center. He certainly knows what he's talking about. He's played in the NFL. He was an all SEC player here for the Razorbacks. So the strength coach. I think there was a report this morning that Silverfield's bringing his strength coach with him from Memphis. That's. Everybody loves their strength coach and I get that. And every strength coach. Nate Allen wrote a column two years ago where he said, every strength coach has had the best summer ever for 50 years, counting. But it's such an integral part to this. And I think, you know, again, Ben Satters, I don't think he's going to be back for Arkansas. You look at the. If there's anything you can look at from his tenure at Arkansas as their strength coach, it is two years of where this team just could not finish. Whether or not that's his fault, whether or not it's the coach's fault, combination of the two, that's probably most likely, but that is certainly something that we're watching. Who the strength coach was. But going back to last weekend's game against Missouri, just, gosh, kind of more of the same. And for as aggressive a demeanor and reputation as Petrino has, for him to punt it down 14 with about five minutes left at midfield, I mean, was that not just the total white flag? Yeah, and, you know, it just, it was. I think that it more than anything may have just shown, hey, he's done with this. He's tired of it. It's clearly worn him down. [00:34:52] Speaker A: The two quarterbacks thing, too, you can. [00:34:54] Speaker B: See it in the press conferences. It was just, I don't know, it stood out to me for, number one, as aggressive as he's been throughout his career. But number two, I mean, my God, he went for it on fourth down. It felt like just about every time the first four or five weeks of this interim period couldn't get him to kick a field goal to save his life. And it just, it seemed. It just felt very different on Saturday against Missouri. [00:35:18] Speaker A: Yeah, it did. It was interesting. You know, kind of asked him in the post game press conference, like, hey, have you talked to Hunter? And he was like, I'm not going to get into all that. And then somebody did think to ask, you know, would you be interested in staying, you know, if given the opportunity, would you stay on as offensive coordinator? You know, if who. If the next coach wants you to. And I Think he kind of declined to, to really respond to that too. I'll be interested what he does next. I mean, like, where he goes from here. [00:35:43] Speaker B: It's going to be hard. Like, I think if he's going to be a head coach, he'd be a head coach at a group of whatever school. Charlotte showed interest in him last year. It's going to be really, it's going to be hard to sell him based on the way it ended at Louisville, where I think he lost what, his last eight games there and then certainly it's a different situation here at Arkansas where you step in as an interim coach. But I mean, that's a lot of losses that have stacked up on him early in his or here late in his career. [00:36:15] Speaker A: But people love to look at like yardage numbers. Their offense, you know, their offense was good all across the board, numbers wise, aside from the turnover issues and scoring touchdowns. [00:36:25] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, they scored a lot of touchdowns this year, but they didn't like the, the number of touchdowns relative to the opportunities that they had, I didn't think was real impressive from this team. And you take away those first two games where they played two teams that were clearly much better than them, and I'm not saying it was bad offense, I'm not saying that, but it just, it did not feel like it was as efficient as it could have been. [00:36:51] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:36:52] Speaker B: And the play that they had in the second half, hero of the. Really for, for the entire season. I mean, the Memphis game, they were terrible on offense in the second half. And, and we could say that about a number of other games throughout the season. Missouri, certainly, they didn't score any points the other day. Just, just, just not. There's just, there's something lacking there. [00:37:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:37:14] Speaker B: And I thought he was going to, I thought he had a great opportunity to get this head coaching job. I really did. And I was, I said it on here six weeks ago. I thought that you could feel something in that stadium against Texas A and M. And. But when they, when they didn't beat A and M. Okay, A and M is a great team. When they couldn't beat Auburn at Mississippi State, I think that totally changed the tune. And I think at that point he probably, if you could have gotten him off to the side and asked him, you know, he probably could feel it at that point that there was no way he was going to get the job. [00:37:47] Speaker A: I think it became clear at a certain point that that that was not going to be the case. But I mean, yeah, I think I'll Be very interested where he goes next and what happens there. [00:37:57] Speaker B: We'll talk more basketball on the show tomorrow. But Arkansas lost to Duke on Thanksgiving. I'm sure you saw, everybody seemed like they saw. I we still have not gotten the TV ratings for this game. I think that. And it's because of the holiday. But I think when we get the ratings, and it might come later today, it might come tomorrow, I think we are going to find out that this is the most watched regular season basketball game, Christina, in probably 25 to 30 years. And it was due a lot to that lead in that it had. I mean, you got the Cowboys and the Chiefs. The expectation going into that game was that because you've got these two brands, Dallas is a huge brand and Kansas City obviously has become one, that it was going to be the most watched Thanksgiving Day game ever. Ever. Two, three years ago, the record was 42 million people on average watched the Giants game against Cowboys in that same window. And so when you're talking about there's going to be more than that, I mean, what are we talking, 45, 50 million people? Well, not everybody's going to get up and change the channel the minute the game ends. And so you're going to get a huge bump from that NFL audience. But then the game, the Arkansas Duke game, turned out to be a really interesting, intriguing game. And I'm fascinated to see what the ratings are going to look like for this. Caliperi knows what he's doing in terms of getting eyeballs on his team. Thanksgiving Day is becoming this, it's kind of becoming this day for college basketball where you put some marquee matchups on TV and you try to pair it up with an NFL game on either end. Kind of like what they used to do with the super bowl when Arkansas and Kentucky played in the super bowl or played on Super Bowl Sunday many years ago. So I'm fascinated to see what these ratings are because again, they are going to be unlike, I think, anything that we've seen for college basketball for a non NCAA tournament game in a long, long time. [00:39:57] Speaker A: Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see. I remember when we, they played, what was it, Illinois last year on Thanksgiving and we kind of looked at that game was terrible. [00:40:04] Speaker B: Yeah, it was not an entertaining game. [00:40:06] Speaker A: So I think. Yeah. And I also think you get into the kind of thing where, okay, the game comes on, nobody gets up and switches TV right away. You look up, oh, Duke's playing. That's cool. Yeah, Duke's good. Duke's good. I'LL watch Duke. [00:40:17] Speaker B: Here's. Has that guy missed a shot yet? [00:40:19] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. [00:40:20] Speaker B: So I think Boozer, he was phenomenal. [00:40:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:40:22] Speaker B: Holy cow. And he looked totally. He looked so much. Trevin Brazil is not a small guy. Like, he's 6 foot 10. But he looked rail thin up against Boozer. [00:40:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:40:36] Speaker B: And you're thinking, it's like that guy's only 18, 19 years old. What could he look like in four, five, six years? And I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if we're talking about he's the number one, number two pick in the draft this next year. Just so much to build on there with him. He totally owned that game. They had no. They had. They had no answer for him. And I thought the Duke game played out a little bit like I thought it would in that if they were struggling to rebound, defensive rebound, keep teams off the offensive glass against Winthrop and UCA and those type of teams, what was it going to be like when they faced a team that had the athleticism and the size and the strength of a team like Duke, and that was the difference in the game. Duke had 25 offensive or 25 second chance points. And, you know, you lose the game by, what was it, six, seven, eight points. So it's. That's a big deal when you can't keep a team off the glass. And I think that's going to be the most concerning thing with Arkansas as the season goes on. I think Louisville is a little bit different of a matchup this week. I don't think that they're as big and athletic as Duke is. I think they're a good team, really good team. They haven't lost yet, but. And the game's going to be at Bud Walton. But I think this is going to be the problem with Arkansas when they play good teams this year, like Houston's coming up or Texas Tech. How do you keep them off the offensive glass? Because they just. They don't seem like they have a way to do it. And they're post players. You know, they bring in Pringle and they bring in Ewan to rebound, and they cannot get them playing well. At the same time, it seems like, you know, you. And the other night, that was, you know, it was just a short stretch, but he did give him a stretch there where he had some really good play. But then you got Nick Pringle sitting on the sideline with foul trouble. There have been a lot of games this year where it's been the other way around. Pringles giving you good play. But Ewan can't stay out of foul trouble. If they can figure out how to get those two to play simultaneously well and maybe figure out a way to get them on the floor at the same time. I think maybe that cuts down on this problem. But. But it is a problem for this team right now. [00:42:46] Speaker A: Hopefully Wednesday we see the. The kind of crowd we've been waiting to see. At least I would expect you will. I mean, it's early. It's at 6, which is always a little bit of a tough ask, right? But I would expect it fills in and. And we should finally get the. The Bud Walton arena we've been wanting to see. Which. Which should be fun. [00:43:01] Speaker B: I looked this weekend. I don't know if maybe it's just too early to buy tickets for the game. I could not find any Arkansas, Louisville games on SeatGeek or tickets on SeatGeek. There were a lot of parking passes, but I could not find any tickets on that website, which I thought was kind of interesting. So I think, you know, to your point, I think it's going to be a big crowd there. Silverfield is supposed to be there on Wednesday night, by the way. They're going to bring him out on the floor. Let's see how that goes. I tend to think it's going to be one of those things where you're probably going to hear some boobirds, but I tend to think that it will be much more positive than negative. [00:43:39] Speaker A: I was talking to some friends about this last night. If Hunter, your check is wise, he will not be on that floor. [00:43:46] Speaker B: And I think he will. I think there will be. [00:43:48] Speaker A: I think so, too, but I don't know. [00:43:50] Speaker B: No, I think he knows that. [00:43:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:43:52] Speaker B: No, I don't. I don't think he'll walk out there. I was at the. I was at the airport yesterday whenever Silverfield arrived, and there's been a lot of. There's been a lot of criticism. I'm not gonna say it's unwarranted, and I'm just gonna say it's been a lot of criticism about how Arkansas's handled the whole announcement. You know, sometimes, number one, let me say this, like, the only time. I've been doing this for a long time, I've been out at Drake Field when coaches have arrived several times. The only time that I have ever seen them make a big production of a coach arriving was when Caliperi was hired. That is the only time it is. So, like, if your whole perspective of a coach arriving at Drake Field is the pep band and Calipari doing the walk between everybody and high fiving them and all this stuff like that is totally different. What used and what they did that day was they actually, they landed the jet, they parked it directly behind the terminal and he walked through the terminal out to the doors. That's not usually how this works. Usually what they do is there's a, there's a U of a hangar over next to the Dollar General and the, the plane will, will go over and basically park next to the hangar. Ladder door will open, ladder will lower and the coach steps off and you're, I don't know, 200 yards or so away from the plane. By the way, I'm very happy that my iPhone was able to get as quality of a video yesterday as it did being that far away. But you know, they, they go over there, they go into the hangar and then there's usually a car or two that's parked in the hangar. Coach will get in that car, they'll back out and that's pretty much how this goes. Chad Morris it was a little bit different. They had the car parked outside and so we got the video of him walking out the door and saying go Hogs. But usually that's how this works. And so I don't know. I think some of the airport criticism yesterday was, was unsubstantiated. There was not a lot of people out there. It was me and a photographer from our company and there were a handful of people there from the university media, which is a hogs plus creative. I can't really honestly the whole apparatus, there's a lot that goes into it. And so they had a number of people out there too. In terms of the press conference being four days away, I don't know how I feel about this. I know a lot of the teams are introducing their coaches today. I know Auburn introduced Alex Golis today. But you know, jure check being on the playoff committee, that plays a role into it or it plays a factor into this. And I know a lot of people are upset about him being on the playoff committee in the first place and certainly being the chair and the additional hours and just responsibility that takes. I'm not saying that there are people that are of consequence like you know, trustees or chancellor or anything like that. I don't, I don't think he would have been able to take that position without the blessing of people who were his supervisors. But I know there's a lot of fans who think that it's just a bad look, that that's what he's spending his time on when he got a football team that's not playing well, you're looking for a coach, etc. So he's got the, the playoff committee responsibilities Monday and Tuesday of this week. I think you could probably have done a press conference this morning and he could have flown down to Dallas and gotten there in time. It would have been a very tight window. I think it would have been doable. The weather outside was not real great today either. Wednesday and, and then. [00:47:38] Speaker A: Yeah. Why not Wednesday to Silverfield? [00:47:39] Speaker B: Well, Wednesday is the first day of signing. Day of the signing period. [00:47:43] Speaker A: Yeah, of course. [00:47:43] Speaker B: And so I think that that was, I think that's the other thing. I think your checks role with the playoff committee is a. Is a factor in this. But I think the bigger factor is the fact that you've got this coats who. And I know all the coaches are trying to do this too. But you, you're 2 and 10. Auburn wasn't 2 and 10 this year. You know, Florida and they were close. But they did finish the year well. You're 2 and 10. You're trying to build a staff. You're trying to get as good of a high school recruiting class in. And so I think that that's kind of where they've wanted him to spend his focus or put his focus here, especially this first day, first 24 hours on the ground here in Fayetteville. And so, you know, again, Mondays out of late Mondays out of the question with your checking Dallas, all of Tuesdays out of the question. And then Wednesday is the signing day. And the other thing that they're able to do, I think there's going to be a lot of Central Arkansas media that will be up here for the Louisville game on Wednesday. They can just stay the night and then they'll have that press conference on Thursday. I do think that they're still, you know, some of, some of that is considered. It's like, hey, can we make this a two for one trip for those folks? So I think that that's why that they've waited a long time. Again, you don't get the fanfare that you get for Alex Golis or for Lane Kiffin going to LSU or leaving Ole Miss. But I think that's why they've. They've done it this way. And I will say one other thing. One of the reasons I think they don't publicize the airport thing is for the people who don't like the hire. [00:49:11] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:49:12] Speaker B: You got 25 people over there picketing outside the Jones Center Yesterday with bags on their head. Well, what happens if they get word that, hey, Ryan Silverfield's about to land five miles away in 20 minutes? [00:49:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:49:25] Speaker B: Well, I'd say they probably load up their cars and they'd go. Some of them. Some of them. [00:49:29] Speaker A: I think it's like a. [00:49:31] Speaker B: Remember when Gene Chiswick arrived at Auburn? Do you remember this? He was 5 and 19 at Iowa State. And so Auburn hired a coach. They had fired Tommy Tuberville, who'd been very good for them. They fired him and they hired Chiswick, and he'd been 5 and 19 at Iowa State. And they had somebody at the airport, they flew him in late at night, and somebody at the airport yelled, we want a winner, not a loser. And that's like. That's the sound bite that you get of Gene Chisik getting off the airplane. And I think that, you know, there was probably something, too. It's not just with Silverfield. Again, they didn't publicize Morris. They didn't publicize Eric Musselman whenever he flew in. [00:50:11] Speaker A: If I were a coach. [00:50:11] Speaker B: But I think that's part of the reason why I don't want people to. [00:50:14] Speaker A: Know where me and my family are, ever. I would not. That's like a security thing. No, thanks. [00:50:20] Speaker B: So I think that's one of the reasons why. Or you could have, like, the Oxford airport yesterday, that scene. Holy cow. Can I say something about Kiffin? I know there are a lot of people who are upset that Arkansas did not hire him in 2019, and maybe it would have been great for a couple, three years. He would have left Arkansas in the exact same. [00:50:42] Speaker A: Oh, my God. [00:50:42] Speaker B: And they dodged a bullet with him. So I think they dodged a bullet with him there. I think they dodged a bullet with him in 2007 because he was. He was in the run. He wanted the Arkansas job in 2007. And I think that's one of the reasons that he ultimately got let go by the Raiders the next year is that Al Davis was still mad about the fact that he had inquired about the Arkansas job after Houston Nut left and Petrino ended up getting the job. So this is a pattern with him. I mean, think about everywhere that he's left. There's only one school where he's left. And it wasn't a total. Just cluster. I mean, he leaves the Raiders, he leaves Tennessee after a year. There's. There's a whole documentary about what happened there. I guess it's part of the Lane Kiffin documentary. There's a whole large part of that documentary. About that. Gets fired on the tarmac at USC Classic. And then at Alabama, he's not allowed to coach in the national championship game because he can't juggle the, the FAU and Alabama responsibilities, which ironically is what he was wanting to do at Ole Miss. He wanted to take the LSU job, but he wanted to keep coaching Ole Miss throughout the playoff. He comes off as spoiled, entitled, petulant. I don't know what all words I can use to describe him, but he, and if you're lsu, he probably can do this to you at some point too. It's just with some people, they're never happy. I think that he felt like he was better than Ole Miss. And I read something and I wish I could find it. I wish I could cite whoever wrote this because they did a great job. I read something this weekend. They said that they think that this 11 and one season this year by Ole Miss inconvenienced him. Yeah, this was the year. This was the year he was going to get out. He was going to get out of this job that was beneath him. And now all of a sudden he's left with this dilemma of do I leave a team that could legitimately challenge for a national championship in order to go take a job that I think is on par with me? [00:52:57] Speaker A: Yeah. Which is so funny. It's, oh no, I won too much crap. You know, what a great problem to have. No, I mean it's, it's been a fascinating saga. That was the one thing about yesterday was I felt like I was, you know, we were so busy with our jobs that I, the things that affect us directly that I, I felt like I was having to play catch up on all of the Kiffin saga, but boy, was there a lot to catch up on. Yeah, what a crazy. That's going to go down as one of the all time, just wild. Just several, I mean, weeks, period in college football. So it was fascinating. I, I'm glad we didn't have to deal with it. I mean, I guess in an indirect way it was funny. I was thinking about this. I said on the show last week, like, oh, I'm so glad the Lane Kiffin decision doesn't affect Arkansas's higher at all. And then it did. It did not. But in an indirect, in a roundabout way, in a very, you know, it was a domino sort of thing. [00:53:48] Speaker B: But if you're upset about Silverfield at Arkansas, what do you think Ole Miss feels like? [00:53:52] Speaker A: Oh my God. I know. I haven't actually seen any of the reaction. [00:53:55] Speaker B: Not only did they elevate Pete Gold. Like I expected Golding to be their. [00:53:59] Speaker A: Interim coach for the play, but they said, skip that. [00:54:02] Speaker B: Here we go, the permanent. This is exactly the same thing they did with Matt Luke after he took over for Hugh Freeze. [00:54:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:54:10] Speaker B: And you would think, and I know it was a different AD at that time, but you would think that a, you know, a university would say, hey, let's maybe not do this. You know, let's like let Golding come in. He can lead the team during the playoff and maybe over the course of the next two weeks we see that he's the best person for the job. But like, let's go run a search. [00:54:28] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:54:29] Speaker B: Why that's going to look forward. [00:54:30] Speaker A: I mean, I guess it's the timing crunch is why you don't try. [00:54:32] Speaker B: I mean like that's a like, like. [00:54:36] Speaker A: Ole Miss not looking. How are you not preparing more for this outcome? And maybe they were and they just couldn't figure anything out, but maybe they. [00:54:43] Speaker B: Think he's the best option. And that's the thing is, you know that there's, there's an assumptive quality to this that says that Ole Miss is better than Pete Golding. Maybe they're not. Maybe they're not. Maybe Pete Golding is. He's going to be their equivalent of a Dan Lanning who's never had any head coaching experience. And now all of a sudden, Ryan Day, there's a good example. Ryan Day steps in and takes over for Urban Meyer. It doesn't seem like Ohio State's really skipped a beat. Maybe they're able to do that with him. It just seems awfully risky. [00:55:14] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I agree. That's another one great hire. We'll see how it goes. I wanted to tell you that's not really great hire. [00:55:19] Speaker B: I wanted to say this real quick. Giffen's statement yesterday. I was hoping to complete a historic six season run. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He said my request to do so was denied by Keith Carter despite the team also asking him to allow me to keep coaching them so they could better maintain their high level of performance. There's some narcissism that's baked into that statement, by the way. Some of the Ole Miss reporters say that that's not true, that the players said good. [00:55:46] Speaker A: I had heard that too. Players were not happy about any of this. [00:55:48] Speaker B: The top response to this is a guy. An account says John tweets sports. He says that it basically reads like this. I made the difficult decision to leave my wife, who's been very loyal to me, for a woman she despises. I was hoping to keep living in our house through Christmas and acting like nothing was wrong. My request was denied by my wife, despite the kids wanting me to stay through Christmas. That's pretty good. [00:56:11] Speaker A: Pretty funny. It's very funny. I mean. Yeah, this has been crazy. It's so funny. It's like both sides are just trying to put up more of a middle finger than the other. Like, isn't that. There was like a Vine or like a video or something of that a few years ago, like. Of like two guys just, like, flipping each other off very aggressively. And it makes me think of that. It's like, who can be. Who can, like, win the argument? Who gets the last word? Who gets the last dig? [00:56:35] Speaker B: We mentioned Florida's got John Summerall. Auburn's got Alex Goelish. Kentucky, they're in the market for a new head coach. Mark Stoops, fired officially this morning. So that's six jobs or six programs out of 16 in the SEC that are going to have a new head coach next year. It's pretty. We knew it was going to be, as of now, six programs. We knew it was going to be a kind of a crazy year. And it's. It's playing out that way. [00:57:02] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, it's. It's lived up to what we thought was going to happen, that's for sure. [00:57:07] Speaker B: LSU certainly wins this, this hiring cycle in the sec. After that, I think it's kind of. Who's next? [00:57:16] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:57:16] Speaker B: Is it Arkansas? I mean, could be, maybe not. Is it Auburn? Could be, maybe not. I think. I think Arkansas, Auburn and Florida have basically made the same hire. It's just a matter of who is going to perform the best at those schools. And I think that Silverfield will get a longer leash. In fact, I know he will. A longer leash at Arkansas than either of those coaches will get in their. In their new jobs. [00:57:39] Speaker A: That's for sure. That is for sure. [00:57:40] Speaker B: I would even say for Pete Golding. Pete Golding will be on a short lease at Ole Miss. [00:57:43] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, that's. That's very true. And that's something. You know, there's definitely something to be said for that. If Arkansas goes through an AD change in the next few years, that could change. You know, a new AD always changes things if they're. If you're not there. Higher. And that's not me trying to drop any hints about Hunter, your checks. Future. I'm just saying, like, he's been. [00:57:59] Speaker B: I think his future. I think his future depends on two things. Number one, does he want to stay with the, with the, the unpopularity that's there? And then number two is, does the football coach have a good first year? Like, again, I don't think the first year is going to really matter for the football coach in terms of whether or not he works out. I do think it matters for the ad. If it goes terribly the first year, then I think the heat really is ratcheted up. I think if the football coach can have a good first year and Hunter wants to stay in Fayetteville and basketball continues to win at a high level, I think that a lot of this criticism is tempered down. [00:58:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:58:36] Speaker B: This time next year, we'll see. All right. Well, we appreciate you being with us. We've got a lot of coverage on this coaching search and coaching change, and we're going to continue to have a lot. I mean, this is going to be, this is one of those stories that just keeps giving, by the way. I mean, this is like, I would say it's like Christmas, but, well, anyway, it's like there's, it's, you've got a lot of personnel that is going to be changing over, people leaving Arkansas, people coming in. This is one of those stories that's going to take several weeks to really unpack. Ryan Silverfield, the new head coach at Arkansas, we're going to have covered for [email protected], hope to see you there at our website or tomorrow here on our podcast. Have a great day, everybody.