By Michael GallagherShareNewsweek is a Trust Project memberUp until the weekend, the Arkansas Razorbacks believed that Alex Golesh would be their head coach.
It was reported last week that Arkansas offered the job to Golesh, formerly the head coach at South Florida. But after he made it to the weekend without signing a contract, reports emerged that it appeared Golesh wouldn’t be heading to Arkansas after all.
Golesh himself even confirmed the reports of him accepting the Arkansas job were unfounded on Saturday.
“Distractions take away from the main focus of what we’re trying to do, which is win football games,” Golesh said. “I apologized. These guys, I feel, have my back and I have their backs. I apologized and it was nothing that I put out there. It wasn’t true.
“I told them that I didn’t put it out and it wasn’t true. It wasn’t true, and same thing I said, I ask for some time after this game to process everything that’s going on. These guys obviously, by the way they played, did that.”
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By Sunday, Golesh was named the new head coach at Auburn, leaving Arkansas to scramble in finding a backup plan, leading to Memphis’ Ryan Silverfield ultimately getting the job.
Though the 45-year-old Silverfield has had a solid run in Memphis — he compiled a 50-25 record with two seasons of 10 or more wins and four bowl wins — some Arkansas fans apparently were less than thrilled with his hiring.
Reports started surfacing on social media not long after the news Silverfield had been hired that fans were planning to stage a protest to express their displeasure with Sam Pittman’s replacement.
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“If anybody has interest, we are going to be organizing a protest against the Silverfield hire. I want to clarify that this is a peaceful protest, and we do not warrant any violence. We will be starting at 12:00 outside of the Jones center,” a message read on the 247Sports’ Hawgs Sports message board.
A few photos also surfaced from the protest, with one fan holding up a sign urging the school to fire athletic director Hunter Yurachek.
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Silverfield will take over for Sam Pittman, who was fired at the end of September after a 2-3 start. He had a 32-34 record in five-plus seasons with Arkansas.
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