Arkansas Football: 3 best potential replacements for Bret Bielema

With Jeff Long out as athletic director of Arkansas, the Razorbacks will likely hire a new football coach for 2018. Here are my three best fits for the job based on the Las Vegas odds.

Bret Bielema seems all but done as the head coach of Arkansas football. The Razorbacks AD, Jeff Long, was fired as a move in a new direction. That new direction has yet to be seen but Las Vegas has already started putting odds out there of who it might be.

The top three replacements, in terms of odds, are Mike Leach, Mike Norvell, and Gus Malzahn. From the top three on the odds, only Leach hasn’t coached or played in the state before. But the fifth name on the list piques my interest more than Leach, who I don’t think is a fit at Arkansas. That’s Les Miles– and he also doesn’t have an Arkansas connection.

Arkansas is a good but not great coaching position. Sure, it’s in the SEC and pays well, 17th overall in the NCAA per the USA Today’s latest coaching salaries report. But even though they’re in the south, and Little Rock, Ark., has been known for playing good high school football, they actually put out fewer blue-chippers than the state of Washington and definitely fewer than Alabama and Tennessee.

Since the start of the BCS era, Arkansas has had only three double-digit win seasons even though they’ve had established coaches like Houston Nutt, Bobby Petrino, Bret Bielema and John L. Smith. The position seems more like a place good coaches go to stay good rather than a place great coaches go or a place good coaches go to step up and become great.

Leach isn’t a good fit at Arkansas at all. He’s from California, grew up in Wyoming, and is a BYU grad. Coach Leach was the head football coach at Texas Tech but does his personality really translate to recruiting in the SEC and in Arkansas? At Arkansas he’ll have to recruit out of state talent and Washington puts out more blue-chippers than Arkansas. Leach can stay put at Wazzu which is ranked 21st in the S&P+ versus Arkansas which is 99th right now.

The increase in pay is quite a bit but I can see Leach enjoying Pullman and what he’s built there. He also has to position himself under an administration that will understand him and I can’t see that being Jerry Jones.

Here are my best three fits from the Las Vegas odds and the fit that won’t work is the highest on the odds list.