Altman was a great hire for us. Ah, when you think of what might have been! The best thing, if they had to fire Nolan, would have been to hand the reins directly to Mike Anderson from the beginning. The program would have been maintained at a high level. A few years later, if Altman had stuck with the job, then the Pelphrey disaster could have been avoided. At that point we probably could have pretty quickly been restored to national prominence, although Altman seemed to think there were already too many problems here, so bolted. Our program had declined in the late Nolan years. Heath was fair, not too great. His last teams had a lot of talent but consistently underperformed. Then in the Pelphrey years the program completely lost its way. It is only now that we’re crawling back into the sunlight. If only those years of disarray before Anderson’s return could have been avoided. Just goes to show how a bad hire or two can derail a great program. Look at Missouri. A couple of bad hires and it’s straight to the SEC basement. It will take them years to recover in all probability. But Missouri’s loss was our gain. Fortunately we got a proven coach in Mike Anderson, a real Razorback, who was willing to come in and patiently rebuild the program, and patiently endure years of, by and large, unfair criticism.
I’m afraid if we had handed MA the reins after NR departed there would have been way to many distractions for him to have been successful at that time. I think MA arrived at just the right time in his career and for the Arkansas fan base to be more than thankful to have him back home. I know he has had his critics as I have been one myself at times, but as of right now he has more than proven he’s getting the job done, but as it is in this job it’s always about what have you done lately. It’s a very difficult monster to keep fed !! WPS
Altman didn’t bolt until after meeting with the egotistical John White who resented Frank Broyles selecting the next head coach. Therefore, White sabotaged the hire. Considering the extensive harm White did to the Razorback athletics programs, he was the worst hire ever at the UofA.