The House of Blue

When Arkansas and Auburn have more than one or two bad seasons consecutively, they don't have to worry about people not coming to the games because they fire the coach. I completely disagree with a coach not coming here because the fans don't show up to a game. If they do any kind of research into the program they will see that we have been one of the better fanbases in the country for showing up and supporting our team. Since we expanded the stadium we seem to always be in the top 25-30 for attendance. We aren't getting much higher than that because it's not possible with the limited amount of seats we have versus other schools. Any potential coach should be able to see that the fans here are simply tired of being one of the worst football programs in the country in the last 50 years. I don't care if there are only 200 people in attendance on Saturday. If we were to go out and somehow get a name coach we would sell out season tickets for next year probably within a couple of days of them going on sale. If we just made a decent hire we would average 60K fans a game next year which puts us right there in the top 25 in attendance.

In reality, it makes no difference when Barnhart fires Joker. What matters is that he has likely decided to fire him. What does that mean? Barnhart is already in contact with agents and he already has a list prepared.

As somebody close to the situation told me in late september. If/When Barnhart makes the decision, he (barnhart) will already have made contact with agents and will have a good idea of who will be on his short list.

Mitch, being the effective leader he is learned from the guy morris and Tubby smith situations.

When mitch went to Guy with a less than stellar contract extention (he was right to not pay him millions) it turns out Guy already had an offer from Baylor. Mitch was caught off guard and was forced to hire Brooks after a longer than normal search. The probation brought on by CM newton and Larry Ivy didn't help.

Virtually the same thing happened with the Tubby smith situation. Few people know that Mitch went to Tubby with an extension, but it was contingent upon Tubby replacing everybody but hobbs on his staff. Tubby wanted to hire Saul, who didn't have a college degree (a requirement to be an assistant at UK). Mitch held his ground and tubby said, "I've got an offer from minny, see ya". Mitch was again caught off guard. BCG was applauded as a good hire at the time but it also took more time than most would have thought.

What did mitch learn? It showed in his decision to fire BCG.

Very few people know that an agreement in principle had been struck between Mitch and Cal's agent the night before Lee Todd and Mitch fired BCG. First contact was made within 24 hours of our loss to ND. Mitch had made the decision to fire BCG before the NIT. The wheels started turning after the sec tournament. Mitch made his list, got in contact with key people HIMSELF and then made the decision along with Lee Todd to pursue Calipari before BCG had ever been fired.

Based on what i was told in September the football search will be handled in a similar fashion. IMO Mitch will have already made contact and have a very short list before he ever announces Joker is fired. As I stated earlier. It matters very little if Joker is fired today or the day after the tennessee game. Mitch is already working assuming he's made the decision to replace joker.

Say what you will about Tubby but he was a very good in-game coach. Everyone tries to talk about his negative qualities, and he had a few (recruiting the last 2-3 years, style of play under Rondo) but he had a lot of great qualities also. If you go back and see him with good to great talent he usually outcoached everyone he played. He had a great record against Pitino at UL also. JMHO.

This bothers me also but on a different level. Why is it that pratically no one is talking about removing Mitch which is where the problems start in the football program and have leaked over into the basketball program in the recent past. The only good hire IMO that Mitch has made is coach Cal. In football he hired Brooks who had a losing record and turned right around and hired Joker and just look at what he has done. Mitch hired BCG and that was a disaster. So I guess Mitch will be looking for a new football coach soon do you really want him hiring the new guy after the last 2 football coaches weve had? I dont!