Why Malzahn to Arkansas makes sense

Hollywood scriptwriters gulping Benzedrine and coffee on double shifts couldn’t concoct something much wilder than a story making the rounds in our state.

For the time being it may involve looking through a glass darkly, but if the rumor mill is accurate, Gus Malzahn may be the next head football coach at Arkansas.

This would involve the current Auburn head coach filling a vacancy that doesn’t exist. Except that Bret Bielema’s chances of coaching a sixth season at Arkansas are roughly akin to President Donald Trump inviting North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un to Camp David for the holiday weekend.

That the current Razorback coach, 29-33 in five seasons at the school, is on thin ice hardly qualifies as breaking news. One joke making the rounds is that Arkansas can observe Bret Bielema Day next week (11-29) or shortly after Christmas (1228) depending on his Southeastern Conference record after Friday’s game with Missouri.

Despite the firing of Jeff Long, who hired him and championed his cause when he came under fire, Bielema is putting up a brave front. At his press conference Monday, Bielema talked about hitting the road recruiting after the Missouri game, in which Arkansas is a double-digit home underdog. That’s better, I guess, than admitting that he’s playing out the string or defending that curious fourth-and-two pass from the Arkansas 44 in the fourth quarter of a tie game against Mississippi State.

Meanwhile, the Malzahn-to-Arkansas talk intensifies even as the presumptive new Razorback coach prepares for the Iron Bowl, a season definer for any Auburn team.

If you’re new to Southern college football, nothing surpasses the Iron Bowl, which Alabama and Auburn play once a year and fans on both sides talk about until they tee it up again.

For the longest, Alabama refused to play the game anywhere but in Birmingham, the state’s largest city. Alabama finally consented to play at Auburn in 1989, though the Crimson Tide had enough clout to compel Auburn to move the

1991 game from its Jordan-Hare Stadium to Birmingham’s Legion Field. With the schools learning to co-exist peacefully, the Iron Bowl has been at Auburn in odd-numbered years since 1993 and at Tuscaloosa, on the Alabama campus, in even-numbered years since

2000.

Saturday’s game is at Jordan-Hare Stadium and for the Southeastern Conference Western Division title, Alabama entering 11-0 and Auburn 9-2. Alabama, ranked No. 1 in the College Football Playoffs standings, is a slight road favorite over No. 6 Auburn with the winner to play East Division winner Georgia the following Saturday in Atlanta in the SEC championship game.

Auburn allowed Clemson

11 sacks in its season opener and blew a 20-0 lead at LSU a few weeks later. But a win over Alabama on top of a 40-17 beatdown of then-No. 1 Georgia would give Malzahn more leverage at Auburn since the

2013 Tigers reached the BCS championship game.

Would Malzahn, at 52, ask Auburn for a megabucks contract (he reportedly earns $4.7 million this year) or jump at a chance to return to his native Arkansas?

A loss to Alabama would give Malzahn a 1-4 record against the Crimson Tide’s Nick Saban, who has the SEC in the same hammerlock that Bear Bryant once enjoyed in Tuscaloosa. No Auburn coach with a losing record against Alabama can expect job security at the Loveliest Village on the Plain. Tommy Tuberville even had Auburn boosters yapping

at his heels while beating Alabama six years in a row.

Though native sons Ken Hatfield and Houston Nutt endured criticism from fans, an Arkansas coach works under considerably reduced pressure than most SEC counterparts. How else can Bielema’s longevity at Arkansas be explained?

Malzahn, like Mike Anderson in basketball, would get a longer honeymoon than most new Razorback coaches. Besides rebuilding a football program at its lowest ebb since World War II, Malzahn would mend fences with high school coaches who run the Spread offense, one of Bielema’s most serious failings at UA. The fans who have left the program, many of them, would return to the fold with a string of victories — beating Texas A&M for the first time since 2011 would be a good start.

If Malzahn has ever seen himself as the program’s savior, he may get a chance to act on his inner impulses and trade “War Eagle” for northwest Arkansas’ War Eagle craft scene. He might not even have to huddle.