South Bound & Down
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Why Arkansas football bet on Chad Morris

By Richard Gnann

CLEMSON, SC - OCTOBER 11: Arkansas football head coach and then Offensive Coordinator Chad Morris of the Clemson Tigers looks on during warm ups prior to the game against the Louisville Cardinals at Memorial Stadium on October 11, 2014 in Clemson, South Carolina. (Photo by Tyler Smith/Getty Images)
CLEMSON, SC - OCTOBER 11: Arkansas football head coach and then Offensive Coordinator Chad Morris of the Clemson Tigers looks on during warm ups prior to the game against the Louisville Cardinals at Memorial Stadium on October 11, 2014 in Clemson, South Carolina. (Photo by Tyler Smith/Getty Images) /
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Arkansas football head coach Chad Morris
FORT WORTH, TX – SEPTEMBER 19: New Arkansas football head coach Chad Morris the SMU Mustangs Matt Davis /

The plan

“I’ve got the blueprint of what it takes to win a national championship.” – Chad Morris

Morris intends to sign every Arkansas high school player good enough to play in the SEC. Unfortunately, that’s not very many. Morris believes the number is five to ten each year.

To lock down the Arkansas home turf, all Arkansas assistants will split recruiting responsibilities for the 468 high schools in Arkansas.

One of a kind state and university

In comparison to Arkansas’s 468 high schools, there are 956 high schools  in Georgia, 1,106 high schools in Alabama,  and a whopping 2,344 high schools in Florida. There are even 568 high schools in Mississippi. As the only Power Five School in a state with only 468 high schools, Arkansas coaches can smother the in-state high school coaches with attention.

"“We’ll see every high school in this great state,” Morris said. “[My assistants] are about far more than just walking in and putting a card down and saying, ‘Who do you got?’ Because you may not have anybody and you may not have a player that comes out of your school and hadn’t came out in eight to 10 years. That doesn’t matter, because you will one day.”"

Will Arkansas high school coaches respond to the attention? They already have.

Said Greenwood High’s Rick Jones, the 2012 national high school coach of the year, at the Morris press conference. “I’m fired up to have Chad here.”

And from Fayetteville High School’s Billy Dawson, who has four state championships to his credit, “It’s nice for us to see one of our high school guys make it to where he’s at now.”

Morris and his staff can build relationships with in-state coaches, players and their families like no other Southeastern school can. Will such a large bet of time and money pay off in a state so talent poor? (Only nine Arkansas high school 2018 seniors rank in the top 1000 nationally, with four in the top 500 and none higher than 250.) That is the gamble Morris is making. Considering Arkansas’ demographic disadvantage, it may be less a gamble than a statistical necessity.

Back to Texas hold ’em

The second leg of Morris’s strategy is to go all in on the historical Arkansas’s recruiting base – Texas.

“I think as you build this roster and you build it over time, you look at the prior history of this storied program,” Morris said. “When they were as successful as they’ve been, the roster had a great blend of Texas players mixed with Arkansas players.”

The third leg of the recruiting strategy is to recruit Louisiana and Oklahoma.

Can Morris execute this plan?

Recently fired Arkansas football head coach Bret Bielema had the same plan as Morris, but failed, signing just 15 Texas recruits in consecutive five-of-a-kind recruiting classes. Morris believes he has the secret sauce Bielema’s recipe lacked.

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