Arkansas Hires Chad Morris, Proving There's Value in Starting at the Bottom
By Kyle Koster
Arkansas will announce Chad Morris as its next head coach later today, per an ESPN report. The Razorbacks replace the big personality of Bret Bielema with a man who has largely gone about his business quietly and moved up the desirability scale.
The Morris hire, along with Willie Taggart’s ascension to the Oregon and the Floirda State jobs, is a testament to staring on the bottom rung.
Morris is coming from SMU, where he inherited a 1-11 team. He’s posted 2-10, 5-7, and 7-5 seasons. There’s been steady, demonstrable improvement. Taggart’s first job was at Western Kentucky. He inherited an 0-12 team and went 2-10, then 7-5 in back-to-back years. Then he turned a South Florida program around, reaching a high-water mark of 10-2 in 2016. At Oregon he inherited a 4-8 disaster and posted a 7-5 record.
There are many paths up the ladder and to the big-time. One is raising a phoenix from the ashes. It’s not easy and it’s certainly not for everyone. But Morris and Taggart are proof that there’s a benefit to building something with spartan resources.