Imagine the reaction you would have received if you told a college basketball fan in 2019 that John Calipari would be the head coach at Arkansas within five years. They simply would not believe you.
Well, it happened.
SMU’s decision to hire Andy Enfield away from USC sparked a seismic shift in the landscape of college hoops. Everything that has happened over the last month can ultimately be linked back to the Mustangs’ move to the ACC, which created an insane butterfly effect.
Calipari is the head coach in Fayetteville. Mark Pope, who has never won an NCAA Tournament game, is now his successor at Kentucky. WILD!
To see Calipari wearing Razorback red is a truly jarring sight. It’s actually kind of disturbing.
It gets even worse.
Hogs+ posted a behind-the-scenes video from his introductory press conference. Watching Coach Cal learn how to ‘Call the Hogs’ is a cursed image that you will need at least an hour from which to recover.
A man who spent 15 years at Kentucky saying the Razorbacks’ (in)famous “Woo Pig Sooie” is hard to fully comprehend. How did we get to this point? What did we do to deserve this?
Calipari tried his best to get a hang of the hog call. It didn’t quite click.
The behavior, which is only a thing at Arkansas, is unnatural and uncomfortable for someone who did not grow up a fan or have time to acclimate. Calipari had/is neither of those things. Thus, he did not Call the Hogs after his introductory press conference.
The DISRESPECT for the Calling of the Hogs is SHOCKING. pic.twitter.com/SUevFCIBYM
— Nick Roush (@RoushKSR) April 10, 2024
That actually managed to ruffle some feathers. Some Razorbacks fans (a minority, to be fair) were upset that their new head coach did not force it.
As we now see from the BTS footage, he simply was not ready. It wasn’t perfect. Plus, all of the forced rah rah stuff is probably beneath a coach of his status.
Nonetheless, to see John Calipari try to Call the Hogs for the first time was uncomfortable. It’s going to be even weirder when he does it in front of fans — fans that actively hated him for 15 years.