Gus Malzahn & Arkansan head coaches who have won major conference titles
FootballSEC centric & beyond December 7, 2013 [email protected] 11
This afternoon Fort Smith native Gus Malzahn’s Auburn Tigers will play the Missouri Tigers in the SEC Championship Game. If Malzahn pulls out a win that looks much less improbable than the one seared across the nation’s memory last Saturday, he will become the fifth Arkansan to have won an SEC title and at least the ninth to have won a major conference title as head coach. [UPDATE: Auburn won 59-42] Below is a list of native Arkansans (i.e. spent a majority of childhood in the state) who have already pulled this off. Not surprisingly, some are part of college football’s pantheon of coaches:
1. Bear Bryant
Hometown: Fordyce
School: Kentucky/Texas A&M/Alabama
Conference Titles Won: 15
(14 in SEC: 1950, 1961, 1964–1966, 1971–1975, 1977–1979, 1981; 1 in SWC: 1956)
National Titles Won: 6
(1961, 1964–1965, 1973, 1978–1979)
2. Barry Switzer
Hometown: Crossett
School: Oklahoma
Conference Titles Won: 12
(All in Big Eight: (1973–1980, 1984–1987)
National Titles Won: 3
(1974–1975, 1985)
3. Ken Hatfield
Hometown: Helena
School: Arkansas/Clemson/Rice
Conference Titles Won: 4
(3 SWC: 1988–1989, 1994; 1 ACC: 1991)
4. Fred Akers
Hometown: Blytheville
School: Texas
Conference Titles Won: 2
(SWC: 1977, 1983)
5. Tommy Tuberville
Hometown: Camden
School: Auburn
Conference Titles Won: 1
(SEC: 2004)
6. Charlie Strong
Hometown: Batesville
School: Louisville
Conference Titles Won: 1
(Big East: 2012)
7. Charlie McClendon
Hometown: Lewisville
School: LSU
Conference Titles Won: 1
(SEC: 1970)
8. Clarence Spears
Hometown: DeWitt*
School: Minnesota
Conference Titles Won: 1
(Big Ten: 1927)
*I admit it: I simply don’t know how long Spears lived in Arkansas before his family moved to Illinois, where he graduated high school. But I sure like to think he stuck around for longer than a Douglas MacArthur–minute.
N.B. For this list, I only focused on coaches who had spent the majority of their childhood in Arkansas. That’s why you don’t like Frank Broyles or Butch Davis, guys who came to Arkansas after high school. Malzahn, for instance, was born in Texas but grew up in Fort Smith. If I missed someone, please let me know.
Also, I’m defining “major conference” as a current automatic qualifying conferences as well as the now-defunct Big East, Big Eight and Southwest conferences. Akers won a WAC title with Wyoming, but I didn’t include that in the list above because the notion of Wyoming being a major conference school is just plain wack.