Fans Know Exactly Which Athletics Director They Want

Arkansas Razorbacks could live dream if only Yurachek could be replaced with this guy
Arkansas Razorbacks athletics director Hunter Yurachek prior to the game against Arkansas-Pine Bluff at War Memorial Stadium.
Arkansas Razorbacks athletics director Hunter Yurachek prior to the game against Arkansas-Pine Bluff at War Memorial Stadium. / Nelson Chenault-Imagn Images

FAYETTEILLE, Ark. — The brains of Arkansas fans can't help but be scrambled. After all, they were dealing with the work of what they claim is the worst athletics director ever, Hunter Yurachek, in the morning with the college football transfer portal, and then soaked in the handiwork of what so many proclaimed one of the greatest athletics directors ever in the evening as the basketball team Hogged the national spotlight from Madison Square Garden against Michigan.

If only the Razorbacks athletics department could get that AD who pried Hall of Fame coach John Calipari away from Kentucky and then helped broker an NIL arrangement that landed the Hogs one of the best perceived rosters money can buy. The one whose baseball coach recently announced another stellar recruiting class for what has been one of the most successful stretches in terms of wins in the history of the sport.

If only the football program were overseen by the man who took a risk on a ridiculously young Jordyn Wieber, an Olympic gold medalist who left Los Angeles to build a national gymnastics power in Fayetteville that outgrew Barnhill Arena and landed the nation's No. 2 recruiting class. That guy during whose tenure soccer, golf, softball and track and field dominated the SEC and much of the nation, and who plucked a little known coach out of Nevada to lead Razorbacks basketball to two Elite 8s and a Sweet 16.

If only the man who built the Arkansas athletics department into possibly the most successful overall athletics program in the SEC over the past several years would take over being the AD of the football program and deliver exactly what fans want. The magic that would happen.

First off, current coach Sam Pittman would be fired without any repercussions to recruitng and the financial bottom line as he would surely convince everyone on staff to step aside without needing their buyout money while also convincing all players to stay. Then he'd load up the private jet, make the short flight to Dallas and come back with SMU coach Rhett Lashlee with nothing more than a reminder that he once lived in Arkansas needed.

Sure, he'd be walking away from his spot in the playoffs, a recently signed contract and booster backing that raised $159 million in a little more than a week last year to make sure SMU had what it needed to make a run, but the athletics director Arkansas deserves would make short work of those minor considerations.

Lashlee would come to Arkansas with an unlimited NIL budget to recruit guys like former Alabama superstar receiver Ryan Williams. Of course, that giant pile of money would come without Hogs fans having to contribute a single dime.

So long as Razorbacks fans buy tickets and sometimes use them, all will be fine. With a roster loaded with 50 key players whose NIL deals range from $300,000 to $3 million despite the fact they would have done it for free out of love for the Hogs and Lashlee, yet appreciating the gesture, Arkansas will slice through the SEC far easier than the Mustangs zipped through the ACC.

If only the Hogs had that same AD who helped build all those other sports into a dominant force. Life as a Razorbacks fan would be so much better.

Instead, Arkansas is stuck with a man who understands there is enough money to be great at all the sports except football or be fairly solid at football and bad at pretty much everything else. How unfortunate the fan base doesn't have that other athletics director who can make every possible dream come true with no price to pay in any way for that success.

HOGS FEED:

• Hogs' offers, potential visitors after Day 1 of portal

• Hogs in trouble? Ultimate roster rebuild underway for Pittman

• Razorbacks guard going home, hopes to shine in Garden

• Looking at players jumping on portal | Locked on Razorbacks

• Red Raiders have major missing piece ahead of Liberty Bowl


Published |Modified
Kent Smith
KENT SMITH

Kent Smith has been in the world of media and film for nearly 30 years. From Nolan Richardson's final seasons, former Razorback quarterback Clint Stoerner trying to throw to anyone and anything in the blazing heat of Cowboys training camp in Wichita Falls, the first high school and college games after 9/11, to Troy Aikman's retirement and Alex Rodriguez's signing of his quarter billion dollar contract, Smith has been there to report on some of the region's biggest moments.