Saturday night in Indianapolis, Bret Bielema hoisted the Stagg Championship Trophy, his Badgers having just throttled Nebraska 70-31 to win their third-consecutive Big Ten title and claim their third-straight Rose Bowl appearance.
Less than 72 hours later, word broke that Wisconsin’s head coach had agreed to take the same position at Arkansas. It’s uncertain when Bielema actually accepted the position—some reports say Bielema informed athletic director Barry Alvarez a couple weeks ago that he would bolt from Madison at season’s end—but it certainly came as a complete shocker to everyone but the Badgers’ last two head coaches.
To be blunt, I can’t believe he left. Granted, I’m a huge Wisconsin fan, but I don’t understand why Bielema would leave a Badger program that’s on its way to elite status, to take over an Arkansas team that will fight to be the third-most relevant program in the Southeastern Conference’s West Division.
While the Razorbacks just capped a 4-8 season, Wisconsin’s football program was headed in the opposite direction. No Big Ten team had reached three straight Rose Bowls since 1979. The athletic department has undergone construction for its state-of-the-art Athletic Village student-athlete training facility, and part of the near-$80-million project includes renovations to Camp Randall.
All three of those are phenomenal recruiting pitches, which leads me to believe the sky was the limit for Bielema in Madison.
On the flip side, I certainly understand the SEC is the cream-of-the-crop conference in college football—for the guys in Bielema’s field, it has to be damn intriguing to be a head coach in that conference. However, Arkansas simply isn’t one of the conference’s premiere teams.
An SEC team has won the Bowl Championship Series national championship game each of the past six seasons, but the Razorbacks have played in just one BCS bowl over that time span. No, they didn’t play in a national title game. And no, they didn’t win their lone appearance.
Beyond the perplexity of taking a job at a middle-of-the-pack program, it’s well documented Bielema hates the SEC. When one of Wisconsin’s verbally committed prospects flipped his allegiance to Ohio State—who had recently hired former Florida head coach Urban Meyer—Bielema criticized Meyer’s recruiting tactics, knocking the SEC in the process. As recently as this summer, Bielema said the Big Ten didn’t want to be anything like the SEC “in any way, shape or form.”
Some reports said Tennessee also reached out to Bielema about filling its coaching vacancy. If he truly wanted to coach in the SEC, I’d argue the gig in Knoxville, Tenn., would be more appealing than the one in Fayetteville, Ark., despite the fact Tennessee might not shell out quite as much money as Arkansas athletic director Jeff Long.
Bielema reportedly signed a six-year contract with the Razorbacks that will pay him $3.2 million annually. Given he was making $2.5 million per season in Madison, I’d have a hard time believing Alvarez would refuse to negotiate a new contract if Bielema used Arkansas’ offer as leverage.
If Bielema doesn’t like the SEC, yet agreed to man the sidelines at Arkansas despite an underwhelming contractual difference, my way-too-early conclusion is that Fayetteville is simply a stepping stone.
While I don’t think Arkansas is any more prominent of a program than Wisconsin, perhaps Bielema thinks he needs to prove himself in SEC country. Perhaps he thinks a successful tenure with the Razorbacks would land him an offer from a more prestigious college football team. Maybe the guy has NFL aspirations.
Whatever Bielema’s reasoning is for bolting, I highly doubt Arkansas is his dream job.
What do you think about Bielema’s departure? How do you think he handled the situation? Let Vince know at sports@dailycardinal.com
