FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Right now there is no reason to believe Arkansas football coach Sam Pittman is going anywhere at the end of this season.

Everything is pointing positive in Fayetteville. Pittman has a new hip, a returning quarterback, an improved offensive line led by an All-American, the vast majority of his staff returning and is in the midst of pulling together a fairly impressive recruiting class with numerous quality pieces for the future.

However, things happen. Key players get hurt, a ball bounces the wrong way, personal health takes a turn or there comes a point where the love just fades. It’s because of this athletics directors always keep a list of names handy for coaching candidates that is always on shuffle year-to-year and in some cases month-to-month.

Arkansas is special, yet difficult

Recruiting coaches to Arkansas is hard for administrators. The state is somewhat isolated from the talent it needs to recruit and the team also happens to play in the SEC, long proven to be a coach killer.

Not even Bret Bielema and his multiple Rose Bowls and Big Ten championship pedigree could survive the grind that is the SEC gauntlet. It takes someone quite unique to win at Arkansas.

The first thing fans need to do is to dump the usual names they always have to cycle through. Lane Kiffin isn’t leaving the comfort of Ole Miss to come to Fayetteville.

He’s king there, is in College Football Playoff contention, and seems quite content to see if he can become the guy who follows the guy who followed “The Guy” at Alabama. He also makes a lot more money than Arkansas can pay.

Also, despite how happy it made Arkansas fans to watch Jon Gruden unbox their gear on social media, he’s not coming to coach the Hogs. He may wear a red tie for 10 weeks straight just to mess with fans, but it’s not happening.

He has a well-paying low pressure gig right now and he is too hot for the Razorbacks considering everything surrounding his most recent firing.

Also, let’s officially hop off the Gus Bus. Sure, he is a much more viable commodity now that he is offensive coordinator down at Florida State, but that bridge has long since been burned from both ends.

So, with that established, let’s look at truly viable candidates.

The assistant coach route

With the money troubles Arkansas is having, hiring an assistant coach to the position is an option that has to be strongly considered. However, that means needing someone with SEC experience who has game planned against fellow conference members who can also recruit to Fayetteville at a high level.

That immediately makes this a list of one. Current Arkansas defensive coordinator Travis Williams has been a major reason the Razorbacks have turned their recruiting around of late.

Over the past few seasons, each time a player commits to the Hogs who normally would have no business landing here, Williams’ name pops up. When the Razorbacks go viral on social media, it’s Williams in the spotlight.

One instance is when he was all alone in the coaches office watching as linebacker Tavion Wallace shocked everyone by choosing Arkansas. Williams celebrated up and down the empty halls.

Then there was the time when he ended up all over national media, including the “Pat McAfee Show,” as he freestyle rapped alongside his players in the team meeting room. He’s a man players are drawn toward.

This past week he celebrated in his car with his daughter on social media when he found out Alabama 4-star high school linebacker JJ Bush is coming to the Hogs. Two years before that, it was 4-star Alabama high school linebacker Bradley Shaw around the same time he found out former 5-star linebacker Xavian Sorey was on his way to be a Razorback.

His energy is infectious and he knows how to sell Fayetteville and the Arkansas program even during the former NIL environment when the staff had everything working against it. Plus, there’s an aura about him that makes it easy to picture him being a better head coach than he is a coordinator.

The positive qualities of Houston Nutt are all there. People want to follow him and he gets people’s blood going to where they think they can run through anything.

If the decision becomes an assistant coach, the line starts and ends with Williams.

The head coach route

This is an oddly short list also. There aren’t a lot of head coaches with SEC experience who can recruit to Arkansas and be competitive who aren’t already out of the Razorbacks’ price range.

That list includes UTSA coach Jeff Traylor and that’s about it. However, his SEC experience didn’t go well, and it’s hard to tell how much interest there would be in evoking Chad Morris’ name back into the Razorback lexicon once again.

So, that leads to another Traylor-like coach who may lack the desired SEC experience, but at least comes with a love of the Razorbacks and SEC football — Joey McGuire.

The name may sound familiar to Arkansas fans. He was the head coach of Texas Tech who took on Arkansas without either of his coordinators or any of his star players this past winter.

He is a legit Texas high school football coaching legend who has built quite a name for himself coaching the Red Raiders. He took over Cedar Hill in the early 2000s, a high school football program that was rock bottom and had never won a playoff game, and built a national power, making it to four Texas state championship games.

In his first season as head coach at Texas Tech, he took down both the Texas Longhorns and Oklahoma Sooners, something that should heavily appeal to Arkansas fans. He then pulled back-to-back winning seasons, including an 8-5 finish last year, which showed enough progress to convince a prominent booster to pour money into the program to see what he can do.

What McGuire has done so far is convince the nation’s No. 1 portal class to come to Lubbock, Texas to play football. However, despite the wealthy benefactor, there are things Arkansas offers that could lure McGuire and his strong Texas recruiting ties to Arkansas.

First off, even though Pittman makes bottom of the barrel in the SEC for salary, it would be a 50% increase in pay for McGuire. Also, the man grew up in Texarkana as a true-bred Razorbacks fan.

The other factor is it is much easier to recruit Texas athletes, especially in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and East Texas, to Fayetteville than it is to Lubbock. The drive is far less taxing and it’s hard to meet someone from the area who didn’t fall in love with Northwest Arkansas upon arrival.

Neither of those things have ever been said from a North or East Texan after forcing themselves to drive to Lubbock.

Conclusion

So, that’s it. The list is sweet and concise.

That alone should help people understand to be careful what they wish for when it comes to the faction of the Hogs’ fan base who wants to see Pittman gone. There aren’t a lot of good options out there for Hunter Yurachek to consider who fall within the real of reality.

Best case scenario is Pittman retires with a team thriving on momentum and hands over the keys to Williams to keep the thing going. Otherwise, the Razorbacks may end up in another downward cycle that no one wants to experience again.