Ten reasons why Arkansas should hire Mike Shula

With the firing of head coach Bobby Petrino this week, The Arkansas Razorbacks football program is now in the market for a new head coach.

Jeff Long must hire Mike Shula, and do it yesterday.

The man has been down this path before. He knows how to step in after spring training and take over a team. Not only that, he’s followed in the steps of a philanderer who embarrassed himself and his employer. He’s been there, done that and got the T-shirt. Aside from that no-brainer, Here are ten other reasons why the only logical, sane and obvious choice for the job is former Alabama head coach Mike Shula.

10. Pay no attention to his deer-in-the-headlights performance at his introductory press conference in 2003. The man does coach speak like no other and will articulately explain how Arkansas is “almost there.”

9. Joe Kines is just what the Arkansas defense needs to step up to the next level. Ya just gotta stop that little inside trout.

8. Bob Connelly—aka “Bucket Step Bob”—can come in and immediately show the offensive line how to move their feet and get the hell out of the way. No one bullrushes anymore, right?

7. He’s a players’ coach. He only suspends them when they’ve been really, really bad and gives out ice cream cones after they serve suspensions against lollipop opponents.

6. Dude, have you seen his wife? Jessica Dorrell is small time compared to Shari Shula. He’ll keep his britches on.

5. Knile Davis. Jumbo package. Can’t miss. They’ll have a lot of success with that formation. Trust me on this.

4. He is the son of legendary Dolphins coach Don Shula. No further qualifications needed.

3. He will take the Razorbacks to glorious places. Like Hawai’i. And, Shreveport.

2. Arkansas won’t have to worry about beating Auburn or LSU. It will lose with class, but get its signature wins against Florida.

1. Only Mike Shula and Gerry DiNardo can pave the way for Nick Saban to take over. And Gerry DiNardo ain’t walking through that door.

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In five years, Saban makes the Bama nation forget the previous ten

In January 1997, outgoing Alabama head coach Gene Stallings handed the reins of the Crimson Tide football program to untested but then-popular assistant Mike Dubose. While the program was under NCAA sanctions for impermissible benefits, impermissible agent contact and lack of institutional control, most felt Alabama would suffer a season or two of retooling and be right back in the thick of the yearly title chase.

Over the next ten years, Alabama had three 10-win seasons: 1999, 2002, and 2005. They earned one SEC Championship (1999). In addition to Dubose, the program saw a parade of four head coaches with Dennis Franchione, Mike Price and Mike Shula all taking turns trying to get the Bama train back on the tracks. Franchione fled to Texas A&M after the 2002 season. Mike Price replaced him but never coached a down after a weekend gone awry in a northwest Florida strip club. Mike Shula dove in and came up for air once in four seasons with a 10-win campaign in 2005. The painful, 10-year span between 1997 and 2007 included three losing seasons in which Alabama failed to win five games. They went 4-7 in 1997, 3-8 in 2000 and 4-9 in 2003. The most disgusting exclamation points to disappointing seasons came by watching Auburn fans finally learn how to count. One… Two… Three… SIX!

Many reasonable observers concluded that Alabama’s glory days were over and that it was just another middling member of an increasingly competitive Southeastern Conference.

Indeed, when Shula was dismissed after the 2006 season and Alabama was in the midst of a nearly two-month coaching search, some self-appointed experts tried to convince the Bama Nation that the best they could hope for was stealing a coach from a mid-major team or hiring another untested but popular assistant. There’s no sense in naming names and quoting quotes. Those people know who they are and they know what they wrote and what they said. Water under the bridge, and all, but a lot of these knuckleheads were secretly satisfied that the conference’s alpha wolf looked old, beaten and ready to be finished off.

Athletic Director Mal Moore proved a skeptical nation wrong when he introduced Nick Saban at his first press conference as Alabama Head Football Coach five years and one day ago. When Nick Saban stepped off that airplane; when he walked through that door and stood at that podium, everything changed.

Apologies for rehashing that painful decade preceding that day in January 2007. It had to be done because in the five years since that turning point, Saban has made most Alabama fans forget that time spent wandering in the darkness. In five years, Alabama has had four 10-win seasons. They’ve had two undefeated regular seasons. Two BCS Bowl appearances. Two SEC Championship Game appearances. One more SEC Championship, one National Championship and the opportunity to play for its second in two years. Numerous players named as finalists for and receiving individual awards, including the school’s first ever Heisman Trophy winner in Mark Ingram and a trip to New York as a finalist for Trent Richardson.

The lifeblood of college football success is recruiting, and Saban has that heartbeat steadier and more powerful than ever before. Regardless of which of the last top-drawer prospects Alabama lands on National Signing Day next month, many recruiting analysts are speculating that this may be the best class in program history, topping even the 2008 class Saban hauled in after only one full year on the recruiting trail.

Win or lose in the BCS Championship Game Monday night, there isn’t one reasonable observer who couldn’t conclude that the Alabama football program is exactly where it wants to be. National and conference rivals’ snickering and whispering stopped in January 2007. Sometime during the 2008 season, the surprise turned to concern as Alabama reeled off 12 wins in a row. It turned to abject terror in 2009 and except for a small handful of other “big boys” in the league and around the nation the sense is that it is they whose glory days are gone; that they are the ones who have been passed by. They’d really like to cling to that decade of darkness, but…

The Bama Nation has forgotten it.

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Mike Shula in line to replace Florida’s Charlie Weis? Don’t laugh…

Former Alabama head coach Mike Shula is being mentioned as a possible candidate for the Florida Gators offensive coordinator position. Yesterday, right after Charlie Weis surprised everyone and took the Kansas Jayhawks open head coaching job, Florida coach Will Muschamp said he’d waste no time and get someone who understood the schemes of the SEC.

Robbie Andreu of Gatorsports.com says he may have found his man.

Before you start laughing, consider that Shula’s acumen as an offensive coach and quarterbacks mentor is well known in NFL circles. Even in some of the darkest days of Alabama’s journey through the sanctions wilderness, Shula was still able to recruit fairly well and develop decent quarterbacks. Two of Alabama’s most pedestrian signal callers—John Parker Wilson and Greg McElroy—both went on to have undefeated regular seasons (after Shula was dismissed). Both are currently on NFL rosters. Also, Shula had Alabama right in the midst of a pitched recruiting battle for Tim Tebow. Had Shula not been the coach at Alabama, that battle wouldn’t have been as close as it was, and from every legitimate indication, it was very, very close.

By the way, look which rookie quarterback is setting the NFL on fire each week. That’s Cam Newton of the Carolina Panthers, where Shula is currently serving as the QB’s coach.

On the flip side, you’re always taking a risk when you hire a former head coach as an assistant, especially if you are a younger head coach and you’re hiring a guy known for stubbornness and a big ego. Of all the traits Mike Shula inherited from Don Shula, those last two were probably what sealed his fate.

As evidence of Shula’s creativeness and stubbornness, I provide exhibit A, the Jumbo Package. The play was designed by Shula for use in short yardage and goal line situations and used three backs behind the QB, two blocking backs and a ball carrier. Initially, the play enjoyed success, especially against defenses that hadn’t seen it or were simply not physical enough to handle the additional blocking back. But as always, SEC defenses adjusted to it and instead of trying different plays out of the formation or abandoning it altogether, Shula stubbornly called the play over and over again, until it became a sad joke.

Something else that might scare the Gators off of him—team discipline, conditioning and coaching staff cohesion were constant sources of distraction during Shula’s tenure. Some of that stemmed from being forced to take risks on some recruits. Some of it stemmed from youth and inexperience running a big-time program. But while Shula’s coaching skills are probably as good as any skill-player developer out there, his ability to assert discipline and stay in control is still very much an issue.

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