Michigan Monday: Feels Bad For John L.

It's Monday after a bye week and things sort of went in Michigan's favor over the weekend.   Michigan State lost to OSU but Nebraska did comeback and beat Wisconsin at home.   It would have been nice to had both teams lose but it didn't hapen. 

The other good thing that happened this weekend was that Purdue gave up 41 points to Marshall.  Hopefully, that is a good sign for the Wolverine offense that has been struggling of late and does seem to struggle in West Lafayette. 

The bye week got me thinking about the poor start the Wolverines have gotten off to this year and the struggles they have had.   Then I started to think about Arkansas interim head coach, John L. Smith.   Michigan fans were introduced to John L. Smith in 2003 when Michigan State needed a head coach and they pulled John out of Louisville.  At the time, it was pretty much considered a desperate hire because the Spartans needed a coach and they were running out of decent candidates.   John lasted at MSU for three years and was gone in 2006. 

John was out of coaching for a couple of years and did a bit of broadcasting until he accepted the special teams coach at Arkansas for Bobby Petrino who had just left the Atlanta Falcons in mid-season to join the Razorbacks.  John was at Arkansas until the end of last year when he accepted the head coaching job at his alma mater Weber State.  So while John was preparing for his first year at Weber State, the phone rings because Arkansas had just fired Bobby for another one of his famous indiscretions.  So John jumps ship again (without coaching a game) and goes back to coach Arkansas under a one year contract worth about $800K a year. 

John inherits a good team and one that is ranked #10 in both pre-season polls.  This is setting up very nice for him and if he can put a good year together he could be the leading candidate for the full time job.  That is when everything started to go down hill.

To start off September John L.'s squad wins easily against Jacksonville State 49-24.   Then the next week Louisiana-Monroe comes to town and upsets Arkansas 34-31.  Not only do they lose the game but they lose their NFL prospect QB to a concussion with the #1 ranked Alabama Crimson Tide coming to town.  As you know, that game doesn't end well and they get beat 52-0 at home.  

Pretty bad, right?  Well, the bad news was just getting started.  The Monday after the Bama game, John L. Smith has one of his famous press conferences where he tells everyone to just "SMILE".  The reason he said that was later that day he filed for bankruptcy becuase he owes over $25M.  That is not a miss print, he is $25M in debt due to a bad real estate deal.    To make that Monday (9/17) the worst day in his life, his brother Bart dies on the same day.

So how has John L. and his team rebounded since then?  Not very well, they lost to Rutgers 2 weeks ago and just got beat 58-10 on Saturday to Texas AM.   That is a 4 game losing streak and they go to Auburn on Saturday.  I have to imagine, John L. is happy that today is October 1 and he can put the worst month of his life behind him.