To this day, Bret Bielema is still seen by many as a Big Ten coach trying to make it in the SEC. His tenure at Arkansas may very well come to an end largely due to his experience of having to adjust to the SEC landscape on the job and failing to adequately understand what was necessary to truly compete in the league when he took over the Arkansas job.

Having been hired away from Wisconsin, Bielema did not previously have any SEC experience. According to Tommy Tuberville, Bielema nearly had a chance to learn the SEC ropes at Auburn years ago but his big break in the Big Ten came and an opportunity was missed.

During his Wednesday appearance on Sports Talk with Bo, hosted by Bo Mattingly, Tuberville discussed the time he tried to hire Bielema to be his defensive coordinator at Auburn.

“Well, it’s like any profession, you don’t want to stay at one place too long,” Tuberville said on the program. “You want to move. In our business, the more people you know, the better chance you have at being successful and moving up in the business.

“Bret and I talked about him coming to Auburn as a defensive coordinator, he was the defensive coordinator at Wisconsin. Around that time, he became the interim head coach, he was going to be the next guy, (head) coach-in-waiting, so that kinda fell thru.”

Tuberville went into more detail, explaining that one of his assistants spoke glowingly of Bielema as a recruiter, something that the former Auburn coach coveted in his assistants.

“Bret’s a good football coach, he gets along well with his kids,” Tuberville continued. “I’ve watched him recruit. Eddie Gran, who is now the offensive coordinator at Kentucky, he was the one selling him to me — I didn’t know Bret that well. He said, ‘Coach, I beat my head against the wall going against him every day in recruiting in South Florida.’ Eddie knows that I like to hire recruiters, it’s a bonus if you’re a really good coach. I was excited about him but he didn’t come, I think that was when Will Muschamp left me for Texas. That kinda fell thru.”

It’s interesting to think how Bielema’s career might have changed had he taken the coordinator position at Auburn. Would the experience of being in the SEC have helped him before he became a head coach? Is it possible he would have succeeded Tuberville to become Auburn’s head coach?

We’ll never know the answers to those questions but it certainly makes for an interesting case of what if for Bielema as his fifth season in Fayetteville is quickly turning into a nightmare with the Razorbacks.