John L. Smith: Lack of Loyalty? Don't Blame Coaches, Blame the System

Arkansas got its man, for now. John L. Smith is returning to the Razorbacks for one year to lead the Hogs into the 2012 season. Jeff Long did a great job finding someone who knows the program and can handle the day-to-day rigors of being a head coach. All is as well as one could hope in Fayetteville, Ark. given the massive scope of the situation.

However, all is not well at Weber State, the school Smith left to take the one-year gig with Arkansas. The folks in Ogden, Utah are without a coach, and now they are in the precarious position the Hogs were in just a day ago. Except Weber State doesn't have the multimillion-dollar budget, facilities or benefit of playing in the SEC to attempt to entice a head coach. The Wildcats just got the proverbial short end of the college football stick.

Absolutely, that stinks. They got screwed to the floor, put in a bad spot, because someone came along with more money and a shot at the big time.

The timing and circumstances are odd, but this is not new to college football. Cincinnati got stiffed by Notre Dame when Brian Kelly left. Cincinnati stiffed Central Michigan when it originally took Brian Kelly, and before that Central Michigan pilfered Grand Valley State's longtime head coach.

Was Kelly ever leaving to be a one-year fix? No, but he took a shot at more success, more money and a better job.

As Weber State's athletic director Jerry Bovee put it quite simply, "I mean, it's disappointing. I understand there's a business side of this. Ultimately, he had an opportunity to do what's best for him."

This is the business of college football. I'll be the first to admit that the business stinks sometimes. It stinks for the kids who just signed to play for John L. Smith. It sucks for Weber State, which thought it had its guy for the next few years. It sucks for the team that just went through spring practice.

ESPN's Gene Wojciechowski penned a great piece on the credibility issue as far as coaches are concerned. He's not wrong in his assessment of the lack of accountability that surfaces when coaches job-hop to grab opportunity as it presents itself. But it is their profession—it is their livelihood. While their players and the school are important, that selfishness that folks speak of when someone grabs more money or more prestige is part of the tough business decisions coaches have to make.

In other words, while I don't like it, I'm not mad at them. John L. Smith thinks he has a shot at the big time again, something he has not had since 2006. He has to take it. Odds are no BCS gig is dialing him up from Weber State, and he isn't getting any younger at 63.

The issue that we all should have with this fluidity is not the coaches themselves. Rather, the issue should be in the wholly bizarre relationship between a coach's fluidity and a player's ability to switch teams. Coaches can come, coaches can go. They can position themselves for comfort, for success and for opportunity.

Players have no such freedom. Players looking to leave get told where they can and cannot go to school. A look at the Danny O'Brien fiasco speaks to the self-serving and vindictive nature of the same coaches who leave for greener pastures without restriction.

Keeping players from transferring to conference foes and even future scheduled opponents makes some sense, but coaches go beyond that—using their power to strong-arm players from returning home to their families or playing for a team that they have interest in. Yes, the coaches corrected these gross practices after much public bashing, but the point remains that they sought to block these transfers to begin with.

In addition to the coaches and institutions working to make the student-athlete transfer as difficult as they can, we have the NCAA doing its part. The NCAA continues to force kids to make a tough choice: Either sit out for a season or transfer down to play immediately. That's just not right. The NCAA is making kids decide between losing a season on the field and going down to a less visible level to play.

Before people lose their minds and scream about free agency—stop, don't bother. Transferring sucks. No one wants to transfer. It is a pain. Transferring is a legitimate last resort for players in a program.

Whether they are homesick, miss their girlfriend, don't like being at the school, hate their coach or have any of a myriad of other reasons, transferring is the final frontier. It is not an easy decision that a young man arrives at. Transferring isn't the first choice the bulk of players make. Transferring is a decision you arrive at once you don't have any other options.

"

Signed w/ a FBS college football team in 2009?68% chance you had a change in head coach, 86% for another Off C & 88% for another Def C.

— Warren K. Zola (@StudAthAdvocate) March 20, 2012"

When you see numbers like this you really have to scratch your head. The numbers aren't particularly surprising on their own. Coaches, both head and assistant, are hired to be fired in college football's current climate. Coaches leave to be happy, to chase a dream. Surely, players should be afforded the same opportunity.

Mark Emmert, speaking with a panel of AP reporters, sees the issue in his discussion of Wisconsin's Bo Ryan and his treatment of Jarrod Uthoff. The NCAA is looking into the one-year sit-out; in the wake of Tennessee, Maryland and Wisconsin's transfer restrictions, it would be well served to look into standardizing these rules as well. It is, after all, supposed to be the advocate for the players.

It is unwise to expect coaches to turn down opportunity, to say no to a major career opportunity. That is not what success-hungry people do. The biggest issue here is not what John L. Smith did; rather, it's the inability of players to achieve that same happiness. If an Arkansas player elected to transfer after the Bobby Petrino scandal, he's staring at sitting a year or heading to an FCS school. That's the part in the fluidity issue of college football that needs to be corrected.