Search will intensify as BCS dust settles

On a daily basis, on some talk-radio show, there is speculation about who will be the next Arkansas Razorbacks head football coach.

Most callers and talkshow hosts seem to have accepted John L. Smith as the interim head coach. But just as an interim.

It seems the fans believe that, short of a Bowl Championship Series game, he’s one and done as a head coach.

Crazy talk has Bobby Petrino returning after a one-year hiatus. That isn’t happening. What he was terminated for is still in his personnel file.

The two most popular names seem to be TCU’S Gary Patterson and Boise State’s Chris Petersen.

Patterson isn’t moving. He has a great situation and TCU has moved to the Big 12, which is a current BCS conference.

Petersen and Boise State are going to the Big East for football, which is a BCS conference, but in all likelihood won’t be when the four-team playoff is approved and all the parameters are set.

Arkansas Athletic Director Jeff Long knows that.

That’s not to say Petersen is Long’s focus or that Petersen is leaving the school he took to two BCS bowls. It’s just that if he stays at Boise, he might never be in a BCS game again.

Long knew realignment, playoffs and BCS berths were changing, and when all is said and done, the pool of coaching talent will be much deeper in the coming months than it was last month.

There are a number of coaches, like Petersen, who want to win the national championship but could end up on the outside looking in.

Every coach in the Big East should be interested in the Arkansas job. Or any job that opens in one of the truly major conferences, which consist of the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and ACC.

At least it includes the ACC for now. Like the Big East, it is much more March Madness than January Jubilation.

If Florida State jumps to the Big 12, watch a bunch of schools suddenly get interested in football’s finest foundation, the SEC.

There is a lot to be settled in the world of college football in the next two seasons.

Every conference but the SEC should want the Final Four to be conference champions. If that happened last year, a playoff would have had Nos. 1, 3, 5 and 10.

Those don’t add up to undisputed champion unless No. 1 wins.

If it had been the highest-ranked teams, No. 1 LSU would have played No. 4 Stanford and No. 2 Alabama would have played No. 3 Oklahoma State.

That’s what butters the popcorn.

That’s why the public has been clamoring for a playoff.

Anyway, when that is settled it will be a compromise of ranked teams in certain conferences.

It would most likely mean no Big East, which finished last season with two top 25 teams, No. 17 West Virginia and No. 25 Cincinnati. And West Virginia is headed to the Big 12.

Long will be looking for a coach while all of the twists and turns of conference affiliations and a playoff are being worked out.

And if Smith makes it to a BCS bowl, he’s already on campus.

Long won’t wait until the end of the season to begin his coaching search.

In fact, he’s already weighing things. That’s they way Long is. He is a guy who filters information.

This might be the longest coaching search in modern football history, but the more the sands shift in college football, the deeper the pools of coaching talent.

Long has known that since the day he terminated the last coach.