Betting Odds To Be The Next Arkansas Football Head Coach

The hiring of Chad Morris at Arkansas never seemed like a good idea and after just four wins in his first 18 games at Fayetteville, Morris has been canned. This now creates one of the first major vacancies before the end of the 2019 regular season and there are already some names being thrown around to who Arkansas will hire next. Let’s take a look at the Arkansas Football head coach betting odds as they suggest that Mike Norvell is the name at the top of the list.

MIKE NORVELL
ODDS: +200

The frontrunner for the job is Mike Norvell of Memphis. The key point here is that the job is Norvell’s if he wants it because right now, it’s unclear if he – or anyone – would actually want to come to Fayetteville right now. In terms of Norvell himself, he will have other jobs to choose from and options like Florida State or USC could be far more appealing. Urban Meyer, the former coach at Florida and Ohio State, might want the USC job, but if Meyer is denied by USC, then what? Norvell could be in the market for USC.

Remember that Norvell was an offensive coordinator at Arizona State before he jumped to Memphis, so he knows the recruiting terrain in the Pac-12 and the challenges of recruiting the Western United States. If Norvell does want to go to Arkansas, though, the Hogs will gladly take him.

LANE KIFFIN
ODDS: +400

The Lane Kiffin story could take another turn here. Maybe we’ll see him back in the SEC?

Kiffin did not succeed at higher-profile programs, chiefly USC and Tennessee, but Arkansas is not as high-profile as USC. It could be the mid-level program where Kiffin can coach in the Power Five conferences but not have the huge expectations, another place he previously coached without achieving much. Kiffin, who has coached the past few seasons at Florida Atlantic in Conference USA, has spent some times in college football’s equivalent of the minor leagues. But he’s mostly done well there both in recruiting and record-wise. He’s 23-13 there so far and has been to a bowl game.

If Arkansas athletic director Hunter Yurachek thinks Kiffin has paid his dues, Kiffin could genuinely become Arkansas’ next coach.

SONNY DYKES
ODDS: +600

The revival of SMU football by Dykes has changed his career. SMU has lost only one game this season and the Mustangs are doing it with a quarterback who transferred from the University of Texas, Shane Buechele. Arkansas, which is a fierce rival of Texas even though the two schools no longer share the same conference, could look at Dykes’ work and think that is the man the program needs for the 2020s. Dykes is the son of former Texas Tech coach Spike Dykes, who coached in the old Southwest Conference against Arkansas for many years. Dykes knows what being head coach of Arkansas would mean, and what the challenges would be.

At +600, he’s probably the best bet here. The Hogs could do a lot worse than this.

HUGH FREEZE
ODDS: +800

The idea of Hugh Freeze coming to Fayetteville is a longshot, partly because Freeze has been ill recently – he coached the season opener for the Liberty Flames from a hospital bed – and partly because of his scandal-ridden tenure at Ole Miss. Yet, other coaches get into trouble and then receive second chances from Power Five programs. Hugh Freeze beat Nick Saban and Alabama multiple times when he coached at Mississippi, so Arkansas could gamble with Freeze. They don’t have a lot to lose as their program is an embarrassment right now.

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