Although no hires have been made official, here are the coaches and staffers who appear to be headed to Arkansas from SMU:
Joe Craddock, Offensive Coordinator
Justin Stepp, Receivers Coach
Dustin Fry, Offensive Line
Mark Smith, Recruiting Coordinator who might also end up in an on-field role
Randy Ross, Director of Operations
We believe there is a good chance Jeff Traylor, the current SMU interim coach, could end up at Arkansas as running backs coach, and I would not rule out a spot for Barry Lunney Jr. on the new staff, either in an on-field or support staff position. I would be surprised if any other Bielema assistants are retained.
Ben Herbert and the rest of his strength staff were let go earlier today.
Others who we have heard have been let go are the entire video staff and most of the recruiting department. Mark Taurisani, the director of football operations, also been let go.
This is no surprise. When a new coach comes in he brings his own people.
I bet Kiero and some of the others can apply for the new jobs. If a former player has the skills to work for the new S&C boss, having prior connections to the program has got to be a plus. Didn’t Kiero basically do the same thing when CBB was the new head guy?
I think you’ll start reading official announcements about some of the ones I mentioned above within the next few days. I think it could be after the bowl games until the full staff is in place.
While in the Army, when you had a change of command, one of the indicators of how well disciplined the new commander is was how quickly his picture was put up on the chain of command board. Also, any other changes were quickly made evident as well–such as on-line listings. I’ve looked at the official sites for both SMU and Arkansas coaching staffs. The Arkansas one has only changed the head coach. Even the support staff doesn’t show the changes mentioned on this thread. Granted, a new guy has lots of other things on his mind, but it is indicative of the lack of discipline on the support staff that the changes haven’t been made. Unless of course, the people responsible for the website updating have been let go.
The way it works is that the new coaches must go through a process that generally takes a couple of days. They must go through background checks and checks with the NCAA. I think you will see some of these fall into place in the next day or two. I do not think it indicates a lack of discipline or any other issue. It’s just takes a few days. No one in the communication office has lost his job or is doing it poorly.
I figured that for the hires, but if someone was “let go”, I would think that would be kind of final. We’ll see how long it takes the staff to remove Herbert & his guys from the list of support staff.
hope there’s a place for Bobby Allen on the staff or a position over at the Razorback Foundation.having been on staff in some capacity the last 20 years or so would seem to be a valuable asset to have.
Generally, the new coach cleans house and brings an entire new staff in. But, Bobby Allen was brought in by HDN and survived Petrino and Bielema, although the latter in a high school liaison role vs coach. I wouldn’t be surprised if he survives again, but that role may be filled by Barry Lunney. He had Arkansas as his recruiting assignment plus already had good relationships with high school coaches in Arkansas given his dad and his high school background. New group needs some relationship history at the high school level in Arkansas as they have none.
Bobby would be an asset for many reasons. There are some things that need to be shared with these new coaches. There are certain things that can be extremely helpful.