Coach Zach Smith Spilled An Embarrassing Story About Bret Bielema On His Podcast That Will Not Make Arkansas Fans Happy
On the latest episode of Zach Smith’s podcast, the former Ohio State wide receivers coach singled out former Wisconsin and Arkansas head coach Bret Bielema for being “delusional,” claiming Bielema did something at Arkansas that he’d never seen another coach do.
It’s January 2015 and Ohio State is locked in a recruiting battle for current Buckeye wideout K.J. Hill with his home state Arkansas Razorbacks, a school Hill had previously committed to before reopening his recruitment. Bielema, the head coach of Arkansas at the time, allegedly called Ohio State days before Hill was set to visit Columbus.
“K.J. Hill is coming [to Ohio State] on an official visit,” Smith said on the podcast. “It’s the Monday before his official visit starts that Friday. Chris Ash comes into my office and says, ‘Hey, listen to this. This is bizarre.’ He has a voicemail from Bret Bielema saying, ‘Hey Chris, this is Bret. Just wanted to let you know that K.J. is going to cancel his official this weekend. I just wanted to apologize but he’s not going to come.’
Now THIS is what I’m here for, Zach Smith. This is your niche. I do not want to hear about your arguments with your wife. I do not want to hear about your kids. But if you’re going to have a podcast called “Menace 2 Society”, then I do want to hear you dish some dirt on other big names in college football. And while this story doesn’t have the sex appeal of his Tom Herman bombshells, it still is very interesting. WTF was Bret Bielema thinking?? Kids cancel their official visits all the time, but for the head coach of the other school recruiting a kid to make this phone call? Shake my head, Bret.
For those of you unaware of the KJ Hill story, he was the #1 overall prospect coming out of Arkansas in 2015. He was committed to Bielema and Arkansas, but then something happened and he became a Buckeye. And now he’s going to rewrite the receiving record books at Ohio State his senior year. Well, apparently this is how it all went down…
“People in Arkansas wonder how they lost K.J. Hill. That’s why,” Smith said. “Along with everything else that went on. We got K.J. and his dad on the phone. They were irate, pissed at Arkansas. So he came on his visit and basically he was done with Arkansas. That would have been like Urban calling Nick Saban and saying, ‘Hey, Zeke Elliott is not going to come on his visit this weekend.’”
Crazy story. Bielema tried to take KJs recruitment into his own hands. That is NOT how us elite level athletes operate, Bret. We make our own decisions. And I know we need to consider the source here, with Zach Smith’s ridiculous history, but KJ went to Twitter to confirm the story.
This has to hurt for Razorback fans. After a 29-34 stint at Arkansas including an 0-8 season in the SEC, his dumbass was already costing them games. But to find out that his dumbass was literally costing them the #1 recruit in the state……ouch.