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Bret Bielema (HC Illinois)

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Explaining Arkansas' Bret Bielema's fall from coaching grace - Sports Illustrated

On the night of Dec. 1, 2012, Bret Bielema could do no wrong. Out of nowhere, his 7-5 Wisconsin team -- which reached the Big Ten championship game only because two teams in its division (Ohio State and Penn State) were ineligible -- unleashed a season's worth of frustrations in a 70-31 rout of Nebraska. In doing so, Bielema's program captured its third straight Big Ten championship and Rose Bowl berth and became the conference's first team in more than 30 years to pull off a Pasadena three-peat.

Three days later, Bielema pulled an even bigger stunner. With nary a rumor to suggest it was coming, the Badgers coach of seven years bolted for Arkansas. While Bielema hardly seemed a natural fit in Fayetteville, pundits lauded Arkansas athletic director Jeff Long for what appeared to be a coup; he lured the Big Ten's reigning coaching darling to take over what most would consider a middle-of-the-pack SEC program.

Fourteen humbling months later, Bielema's reputation has taken a considerable hit. While some rebuilding was expected on the heels off Arkansas' 2012 season of limbo under interim coach John L. Smith, Bielema's '13 Razorbacks went 3-9 and endured their first winless conference campaign since 1942. On consecutive weeks in mid-October, they lost to South Carolina 52-7 and to Alabama 52-0.
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Bucky32 said:
he lured the Big Ten's reigning coaching darling to take over what most would consider a middle-of-the-pack SEC program.
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I've seen that auto-correct spelling function pull some pretty strange shit. But, how in the world it derived "Big Ten's reigning coaching darling" from "Pig Pen's Pit-Staining Douchey Gnarling" is beyond me. :confused:
 
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Buckeyeskickbuttocks said:
"coaching darling?"
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Exactly. It's funny how that and other prevailing conclusions such that Bert's hire was a "coup" for Arkansas rested on horribly lazy thinking. Anyone who paid attention to Big Ten football during Bert's tenure could've told you that his record was the product of fattening up on the trash of the conference, while constantly getting his shirt handed to him by the conference elite (I don't recall his record against other top teams, but I do remember he was 1-5 against OSU).
 
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TS10HTW said:
Not that I think anything negative of UW or Wisconsin in regards to intelligence, in fact quite the opposite.
But Bert was a bumbling fucking idiot when he was at UW. So really, nothing has changed.
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I agree. The fact that the UW fan base tolerated his sophomoric behavior doesn't speak well for them. That they're so quick to recognize it after he spurned them for Arkansas says even less.
 
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It is amazing to me how badly BB mishandles the media aspect of his job...he was never any great shakes, but he advanced light years by the time he left.

I know we're talking about going from Madison/B1G to Arky/SEC (a difference in scrutiny), but he still shouldn't be this bad.

Really a head-scratching situation.
 
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