Why was Chad Morris so bad at Arkansas?

Was he really that good at SMU?

14-22 at SMU

Never should have gotten the job.

Tried to fundamentally change Arkansas football.

Arkansas is the Iowa / Wisconsin of the SEC. Get giant offensive lineman and run power 70% of the time. Have good not great seasons.

It just means more 6-6 and 7-5 in the SEC West than 9-3 and 10-2 in the B1G West

Morris is extremely overrated as an offensive mind

Once upon a time people thought he made Clemson football when they were winning 10 or 11 a year with Tajh Boyd and Freshman DeShaun Watson.

Then he left and their offense got better.

All Chad Morris will ever be is a Texas high school coach who's a good ole boy to other Texas high school coaches so he can recruit that State well.

Chad Morris is the 99 cent or less store version of Art Briles without the rape stuff.

His staff was pretty awful. OC was a GA at Clemson 5 years ago and Chavis should be in a retirement home. His OL coach was also a GA at Clemson 5 years ago. Teams with comparable recruiting like Ole Miss meanwhile have former P5 head coaches on both sides of the ball.

He wasn't a bad recruiter but he's way over his head as an SEC head coach. Could never pick the right QB to start and the playcalling left a lot to be desired. Seems like when there was a choice to be made he made the wrong one every time.

I don't know, but bad may not be a strong enough word to cover losing to North Texas, San Jose St., and Western Kentucky at home with alleged SEC talent.

I think everyone thought going 14-22 or whatever at SMU was pretty damn good, until he left, and SMU got a lot better

Talent is way down, they don't have a quality QB on their roster.

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Never should have gotten the job.

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Hindsight is 20/20, but it's not as if he took over a great SMU program. They were 1-11 the season before the got there. He gradually re-built the program.

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Tried to fundamentally change Arkansas football.

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Yes. From Bert's previous "fundamental change" in philosophy. Bert tried to bring Wisconsin style football to the SEC...which had much better athletes than the Big 10

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Arkansas is the Iowa / Wisconsin of the SEC. Get giant offensive lineman and run power 70% of the time. Have good not great seasons.

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Sure. If all you remember is the Bert led Arkansas program. Which had minimal success in its own right. Prior to Bert, Arkansas had some pretty prolific offenses under Petrino. Arkansas wasn't a "power run 70% of the time" team UNTIL Bert arrived.

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Morris is extremely overrated as an offensive mind

Once upon a time people thought he made Clemson football when they were winning 10 or 11 a year with Tajh Boyd and Freshman DeShaun Watson.

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Dabo was on the verge of being canned prior to hiring Morris. He finished 6-7 the year before. And it's not like Boyd was a superstar before Morris got there. In fact, he had reshirted and been the backup QB the two years before. Morris turned him into a prolific player (much the same way Brady has done with Burrow this season). And Dabo wasn't exactly setting the world on fire in recruiting prior to Morris's hire. I think most Clemson fans would tell you that without the hire of Morris, Dabo would have long been fired and Clemson wouldn't be where they are today. That move set the wheels in motion.

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All Chad Morris will ever be is a Texas high school coach who's a good ole boy to other Texas high school coaches so he can recruit that State well.

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That's pretty important for Arkansas. They can't compete on in-state talent alone. They MUST recruit Texas well.

Now why he failed so miserably I don't know. Perhaps the drastic change from Bert's style to his style was simply just too much and the losing because of it caused the program to quit on him. But at the time the hire made some logical sense for Arkansas

I completely disagree that AR needs to be a power run team. I would actually go the opposite way and say they would be better as a spread team recruiting kids from TX, LA, and possibly FL as well. They need roster turnover though and a better guy leading that charge than Morris. AR needs to keep their elite kids in-state as well and not allow them to go elsewhere, tall task.

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Sure. If all you remember is the Bert led Arkansas program. Which had minimal success in its own right. Prior to Bert, Arkansas had some pretty prolific offenses under Petrino. Arkansas wasn't a "power run 70% of the time" team UNTIL Bert arrived.

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Bielema had some very good offenses too. Most people don't realize that we were 2nd in the SEC in scoring in 2015 and scored 50+ in several conference games. Then the next year Austin Allen led the SEC in passing. Under Enos the offense wasn't 3 yards and a cloud of dust like people assume just because Alex Collins and Rawleigh Williams ran for 1,000+ yards.

I don't think style of offense is why he failed. Our defense eventually fell apart and his recruiting fell off because his position coaches hated working for him. Sam Pittman leaving for Georgia killed our OL.

Arkansas has the only OL worse than A&M's. And they have no talent in the pipeline to improve it. That was Morris biggest issue