Smiling Should be Reserved for Winning Teams
For the first time in my life, I am jealous of Alabama fans. I am even jealous of LSU fans.
The LSU Tigers are led by the mad hatter, Les Miles. The guy eats grass, and there is an entire website devoted to the things he says that make you scratch your head. But when his team loses, he doesn’t joke with the media, and he certainly doesn’t yell at them to smile.
If you really want to feel inferior, go to coachsaban.net. You will be greeted by hype music specially made for Alabama football and multiple reminders that the Crimson Tide is currently the best there is in college football. Nick Saban, the head coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide, is arguably the best college football coach of this era.
Saban is not a guy that is loved by the media and he probably could not care less if the media smiled or not. He just doesn’t seem to be very personable. But in the state of Alabama, he is beloved. Why? He wins. He doesn’t just win games—he wins national titles.
LSU has Miles and Alabama has Saban. These two teams are the class of college football right now. Razorback fans expect their team to compete with these two powerhouses, but as we saw last Saturday, it is not going to happen with Smith, or a coach like Smith, at the helm.
In the Southeastern Conference, football is a rough and hard-nosed business. The most successful coaches have been the toughest. Smith just doesn’t come off as a tough guy. After the game Saturday, he looked and spoke as though someone had just taken him out behind the woodshed.
Then he shows up to his weekly press conference Monday and instructs the media to smile.
“I’ve never felt so much negativity coming at me in a long, long time,” Smith said during his radio show Wednesday night. Well, do you know what would lessen the negativity? Winning. And until the Razorbacks start winning again, I don’t see any reason why any member of the team, player or coach, should be smiling.
They should keep their heads up and take pride in their hard work, but smiling should be reserved as a reaction to something good. In college football, winning is good, and the Hogs are not winning.
Smith was supposed to bring stability to a team that desperately needed it. Instead, the team is in a downward spiral. Before the season, the Razorbacks received national media attention as a team that could be a dark horse for the national title. Then Smith started talking.
Now, the national media keeps tabs on the Hogs just so they will know if the cooky head coach says something entertaining.
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Morgan
