Cowboys' Jones, Razorbacks' Yurachek Have More in Common After New Hire

Former Arkansas player followed route previously gone down by current athletics director

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones speaks to the media about his new coaching hire at a press conference at the Star. / Tim Heitman-Imagn Images

FRISCO, Texas — Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and Arkansas athletics director Hunter Yurachek have never had a shortage of things to talk about, but their ability to discuss from common ground increased dramatically over the past few weeks.

When Yurachek last had to replace his football coach following a long search, it was hard to find anyone who truly wanted the job. In the end, he settled on a lifelong journeyman assistant coach in Sam Pittman who was popular with the players.

It was a hire that raised eyebrows across the sports world as Yurachek attempted to convince everyone the man no one else wanted to give an opportunity to cash in on decades of experience for a shot as a head coach was who will bring back long lost glory. In a few words, it was a risk, but what other choice did Yurachek have?

Fast forward a half decade and Jones found himself in the same situation. He needed to find someone willing to take a job that few who know what they are doing were willing to consider.

In the end, after his own prolonged search with few suitors, Jones had to opt for a 25-year assistant the football world had long decided would never be anything more than that. As a result, Jones spent over an hour behind the microphone Monday dancing around how he came to decide on Brian Schottenheimer as the new Dallas Cowboys head coach.

As Jones said, repeatedly, it was a risk. Then again, after years of developing a reputation for being difficult to work with as a general manager, roster mismanagement and firing a Super Bowl winning coach who went 12-5 three consecutive seasons, risks were pretty much all that were available this time around.

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It's a risk Jones appeared to lay at the feet of former Arkansas head coach Frank Broyles. He listed several coaches, including former Oklahoma coach Barry Switzer and former Tennessee coach Johnny Majors as a group of several assistants who were gone within three years to begin successful head coaching careers after the famed 1964 Razorbacks football season.

Late in the press conference, Jones shared a story about dreams that was intended to paint the picture of why it's great Schottenheimer is getting this opportunity and why there's a chance he might be the right guy for the moment despite the risk. However, he may as well have been speaking about Pittman.

"My lifelong dream was to get involved in sports and pro ball," Jones said. "Had I not had that dream — I was 46 when I bought the Cowboys — had I not been sitting there for 25 years every moment thinking about 'My God,' I'd watch that Lamar Hunt and he'd be up there with the Chiefs. While I was doing that, the same mind would come home from college and go out in the back yard with a stick and a ping pong ball and play a complete World Series by myself hitting the ball over the fence. So that dreaming, if you haven't dreamed about it, and if you haven't gotten ready to go, when that damn train comes by, you'll be grabbing air after that caboose. You had to have thought and pictured or you'll miss that damn train. You will."

Whether fans will agree, Pittman's success as a head coach has exceeded what those on the outside thought was the ceiling, especially with how the game continuously changed on a man supposedly steeped in old school. Whether that becomes another item in common between Jones and Yurachek remains to be seen.

There are certainly plenty of naysayers speaking doubt about Jone's lifelong assistant coach hire. Now, like Pittman did in his first two seasons by shocking so many by abruptly digging Arkansas out of the SEC cellar, Schottenheimer gets his chance to do the same with the Cowboys, although that equivalent bar is a little higher.

There's a bit of a difference between following McCarthy as opposed to Chad Morris. It's just the risk he has to take.

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