First choice, I’m guessing, was John Gruden, who likely said, “No thanks, I’ll stay in the studio.” And I suppose when we couldn’t get Saban or Meyer or Belichick; and the Rockne séance failed, we looked west to that well-known Mecca of the gridiron – Utah?????
So now Weber State hates us even more than they did back in 1978, when our Triplets beat their quintuplets by 21 in the first round of the West Regional. We have slithered on our shameless pork bellies into Ogden and turned their hometown boy and pride of the Wildcats into the overnight scourge of Mormonville. Perhaps Mitt can help them all forget.
The talking heads of sports have been quick to comment and judge, wondering why John L. Smith would turn down a secure and likely lifetime position at his alma mater for a 10-month gig in some place called the Ozarks. Not that puzzling really, it’s because Smith thinks he can be the head coach of a national championship team.
And, the grapevine reports, Smith hates motorcycles. So we got that going for us, which is nice.
To say the least, these have been trying times for Hog faithful. And to make it even worse, our former elite trophy coach is said to be humming “Rocky Top” while he changes his bandages every morning.
To find something remotely similar I looked back over half a century, to Bowden Wyatt, another high profile play-caller who also left Tuskville for the oranger pastures in east Tennessee. Some of you old timers probably remember and likely still hold a grudge over that one.
The year was 1955, two years before I was born into the fanatical football fold mom and dad had so lovingly created. The Hogs, picked by most to finish last in the old SWC (whose once proud teams are now scattered across the land), won the conference and a trip to the Cotton Bowl where they would lose to Georgia Tech. The people of the state showed Wyatt their appreciation by coming up with a $20,000 raise for him and his assistants (hmmm, 20 grand. That number seems strangely familiar).
After the legislature approved the raise, Wyatt was given the keys to a new Cadillac, which he promptly loaded up and drove to Knoxville where he had been hired as the new coach of the Vols.
Arkansas turned to Kansas where it found Wyatt’s replacement in Wichita coach Jack Mitchell. Mitchell drove to Fayetteville in a new car of his own, a Buick (Wichita apparently had a smaller budget).
A few days later after the smoke cleared the Arkansas House of Representatives adopted House Rule No. 6, which stated, “In recent years the original purposes of the University of Arkansas have been deemphasized in favor of certain manly arts directed to the glorification of brawn and subtle mayhem. Congratulations to the faculty for being able to conduct classes, confer degrees and maintain some semblance of academic purity in the face of competition for the aforementioned manly arts; and the faculty further be commended for its attempts to adhere to the original purposes for which the university was founded in the face of astounding disparity of salaries between academic and athletic staffs.” (Wyatt had been given a raise from $15,000 to $20,000.)
In the Jan. 31, 1955, issue of Sports Illustrated one read, “Arkansas was back in business, Bowden Wyatt forgotten, football coaches contracts properly evaluated; football itself put in its proper place, and the people of the state once again as perky, cocky and alert as the Arkansas symbol, the fast-moving, far-ranging razorback hog.”
If that doesn’t give you goose bumps, nothing will.