RE: Wild Speculation: Bret Bielema gets fired and ends up at Illinois or Purdue
He'll get through this season at 6-6 or so in my opinion. He'll get fired the next season when he goes 6-6 or worse again.
Who picks him up will depend entirely on who is looking. My guess is he is forced to take a few years off in a G5 conference before somebody picks him back up.
RE: Wild Speculation: Bret Bielema gets fired and ends up at Illinois or Purdue
I don't think the guy will ever recruit the talent needed to go toe-to-toe and push Bama and LSU around but it is certainly to his advatange that TAMU and new designated rival Mizzou are invested in a spread attack and OM and Miss St are unlikely to able to recruit the sort of defense that will hold up to day long pounding. Auburn vs. Arkansas (after this season) will be sort of the bubble game. Non-conference they are unlikely to face teams that will be able to win out a physical battle.
Given another season he's probably got Arkansas safely into 7 to 9 win territory with an occasional 10 win. Probably isn't going to collect divisional title rings but have Arkansas relevant again.
Arkansas is more than capable of a fan revolt that forces him out if this year is a disaster but if he can just get to 5 and not get 52-0'd by Bama for a third time, he'll get the time to do his thing.
(This post was last modified: 08-15-2014 10:39 AM by arkstfan.)
RE: Wild Speculation: Bret Bielema gets fired and ends up at Illinois or Purdue
I have the feeling that he will turn around Arkansas, get them to a decent bowl and then start shopping his services again to one of the elite schools.
Only I cant see him going to Nebraska. After Pellini, Neb might be looking for more of the quiet type.
I just can't see Illinois or Purdue offering the type of Money needed to lure him back to midwest. Penn State might have the money, but is not looking for controversy. I could see maybe Michigan tolerating him if Brady does not work out. Bo kinda had an old school personality. Bret could fit in there.
RE: Wild Speculation: Bret Bielema gets fired and ends up at Illinois or Purdue
While Illinois or Purdue would possibly be options for him if were eventually to get fired both of those schools would have the same problem that partially lead to his decision to leave Wisconsin:
Quote:One of Bielema’s favorite aspects of the Wisconsin job was that the Badgers were the only major program in the state. If he ever left, he wanted a similar situation. Yet Wisconsin had its drawbacks. There was the makeshift recruiting base; there was the matter of inhabiting a collective shadow cast by Ohio State, Michigan, and the Packers. And then there was money.
As of the money, Bielema also bolted because Wisconsin, even with B1G Network money, couldn't or wouldn't pay enough to keep the assistant coaches from bolting on a regular basis:
Quote:Bielema made plenty — $2.6 million, to be exact — but his assistants’ salaries trailed behind those at similar programs. So every winter, Bielema endured the same phone calls, the same shrugged-shoulder meetings. Another coach called, Bielema’s assistants would tell him. And those coaches offered paychecks that Bielema couldn’t match.
Typically, they also offered promotions. Position coaches became coordinators. Coordinators became head coaches. Some jumped to the NFL. “You want your assistants to move up,” Bielema says. “But you want it to be a hard decision. You want them to only be willing to leave if they’re walking into a dream situation. You don’t want money to ever be a factor.” In his last three years in Madison, Bielema lost 12 assistants. Every winter, he spun it to the media as a positive. But every spring, he wondered how his new staff would jell.
If he were to get canned he would of course have less of a negotiating position to insist on another B1G school paying staff salaries commensurate with what he is getting at Arkansas but I given that issue was crucial in his decision to leave the B1G for the SEC I think it would weigh heavily on him when deciding what his next move would be. However, I think that it will be a moot point because he is on the right track in revitalizing the Hogs from the Petrino motorcycle/John L. Smith "Get Your Piss Hot"year of infamy.
(This post was last modified: 08-15-2014 12:37 PM by CarlSmithCenter.)
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Wild Speculation: Bret Bielema gets fired and ends up at Illinois or Purdue
