GARY SMITH: It seems like only yesterday Arkansas was hiring a football coach

So, we're here again, huh?

There is a tendency at my age for time to compress to the degree that things which occurred many years ago often seem to have happened just weeks in the past. For instance, it seems like just a couple of seasons ago that the University of Arkansas was hiring a new football coach.

Oh, wait...never mind.

All right, so I come not to bury Chad (getting blown out by a Conference USA team at home on Senior Day probably did that nicely) and not to praise him (going to find few takers on that these days, until it's the coaching version of "nice personality": "he seems like a fine man.").

But I do think that one of the advantages of age is that it allows you to see certain trends coming. And if past is prologue, the new coaching search is going to follow a predictable pattern for which we should all prepare.

Stage 1 -- The "Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead," phase. Like the Munchkins in Munchkin Land, fans will rejoice that the man they hold personally responsible for less than stellar football, recent flooding, the death of a beloved family pet, whatever else didn't go well in the state, is no longer in a position to afflict them so. The fact that you can only blame him for the first one of those tends to get lost in the general euphoria.

Stage 2 -- The "Unrealistic Expectations" phase. The coaching world is our collective oyster and we have convinced ourselves that our combination of location, history, facilities and fan base make our job the shiniest apple in the basket for any and all available (and some unavailable, if contracts mean anything and apparently they don't) football coach. Surely by now Nick Saban is bored with living in Alabama. It's awfully cold in New England so I bet we could pry Bill Belichick away.

Stage 3 -- The "It's Easy to Spend Someone Else's Money" phase -- This is the point where we've set our sights on someone and have decided to all that needs to happen is that supporters of a university in a relatively less-than-affluent Southern state "open the checkbook" and make someone an offer so outlandish that he can't possibly say no. Plus the buyout of his previous contract (see: contracts apparently don't matter). Plus the new coaching staff. Plus the private helicopter pad (OK, probably not that).

This belief in our Saudi Kingdom-like resources comes without apparent appreciation for the fact that, pending current litigation, in a few months we'll be paying three people to be the head football coach at the University of Arkansas. Four, since I think we may somehow still be writing checks to Houston Nutt.

Stage 4 -- The "Left at the Altar" phase. One of the sad realities of coaching searches is that it seldom happens in a vacuum, and more than one school will, in fact, be looking for a head football coach. Which means that we'll be bidding against those schools. And, we'll also be bidding against schools who would like to keep their current head coach. The only way this works is if the biddee manages to convince all the bidders he's on the market until someone breaks the bank and he isn't.

And this is the point at which we realize that there's always someone who is willing to build a bigger helicopter pad. With, maybe, radiant heating...

Stage 5 -- The "Who?" phase. One of the things coaching searches expose (other than the totally unrealistic desire of some people for heated helicopter pads) is that most of us don't really know that much about college football coaches. Which is fine. Most of us can't explain our 401(k) and that's, like, important.

Is the head coach at Middle Albany State Tech just the right guy to lead us to national prominence? Since most of us probably don't even know who that person is (particularly since it's a fictitious college and he doesn't exist), who knows? But we saw some highlights on ESPN and it looks like his teams always have 11 players on the field, so...

Stage 6 -- The "Left Lane, Hammer Down, Hold On To The Rope Clear Eyes Full Hearts 54, 40 or Fight" phase. Every time you get a new coach, you get a new slogan. It's a package deal. That and the helicopter pad.

In more time than it should take and less time than we'll remember, we'll soon have a new coach in Fayetteville. And the fan base will rejoice, forgetting of course that the Guy this Guy replaced was the Guy when we fired the last Guy who replaced another Guy.

So yes, here we are again. My how time flies.

Commentary on 11/15/2019

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