I know there was once a coaches tree that showed all the head coaches who had worked for Frank Broyles in one fashion or another. I haven’t seen that tree in awhile. I noticed in Ed Orgeron’s bio that he was an assistant strength coach at Arkansas during Ken Hatfield’s time as head coach, but I’m not sure how that would fit on the Broyles’ tree, if at all. Does Coach Bielema have a place on that tree having worked for Hayden Fry at Iowa, since Fry was an Asst Coach under Broyles? Whether direct or indirect, lots of limbs on the Arkansas tree.
The trees interlock. It’s amazing that it’s so intertwined in college football. How do you want to link them? You can find links that go between a lot of trees. Bear Bryant and Frank Broyles once traded GAs every year. For instance, both Bobby Roper and Louis Campbell worked at Alabama after finishing their degree at Arkansas. That’s how Jackie Sherrill (Alabama) got involved at Arkansas with Frank Broyles. So the coaching trees of those two giants (Bryant and Broyles) are intertwined.
Dave Wannstedt never worked at Arkansas, but he worked for Jimmy Johnson for many years. He adopted almost all of Jimmy’s thought on defense and they came from his time at Arkansas under Jim Mackenzie and Wilson Matthews. They are definitely part of the Broyles tree as far as the way they coached. Greg Schiano worked for Wannstedt. Robb Smith learned from Greg. And, they have some of the same ideas as Jimmy Johnson as far as how to utilize the weakside tackle scheme, preferring quickness and tackles (like Loyd Phillips and Jim Williams) who can really run.
Hayden Fry worked at Arkansas just one year, in 1961 when his assignment was to design and call plays for Lance Alworth. Bret Bielema asked me if Hayden played his tight ends as stand-up players and a little flexed at Arkansas. He definitely did at North Texas. Not sure he did at SMU and I know Arkansas tight ends were in-line blockers at Arkansas during that year Fry coached at Arkansas.
Bielema also wondered if Alworth played wingback or was split at Arkansas. No, Alworth played tailback. It was not until the pros that he played wide. Fry did call plays, but it was within the strict guidelines as put down by Broyles. He was still heavily involved in play calling (on both sides of the ball) as a CEO type head coach.