This will take a few minutes but you might be interested in reading these gems about the drama at Arkasas. Hog Drama
Dick was obviously a sub-par Qb. Mustain was 7-0 and couldn't keep his job? Arkansas did manage to win the SEC West and outgained Wisconsin 400 yds. to 200 yds. but still the Hogs could have used better Qb play to avert losses in their last three games. They were still a tough out for LSU and for UF at the end of season in spite of Dick's poor play and the disharmony on the bench. What should Broyles do at this point?
This falls on Houston Nutt and and nobody else. He's the one who hired the HS Coach he didn't want as OCoord just to get Mustain. He should have had the courage of his convictions and not hired Malzhan just to sign Mustain. In the end it all blew up in his face when the OCoord didn't like not being the OCoord like he was promised and Mustain ended up in an offense that he never wanted to be in the first place. I'll give Mustain some of the blame, he had terrific opportunities at other schools where the systems was known and his fit was obvious. He and his parents should have smelled a rat when a Div1 school suddenly hired a High School Coach to run their offense. Not saying that his HS coach isn't any good and can't run a college offense, but they were naive in expecting that Houston Nutt would suddenly change the way he did things successfully and do it with a inexperienced (in college football) High School Coordinator at a high level Div 1 school. They outsmarted themselves when it came to recruiting. He was offered the Notre Dame spot that eventually went to Zach Frasier, he should have taken it. He would have redshirted last year behind Brady Quinn and would be in line to start this next year.
IMO, Terry's analysis is directly on point in the sense that all parties share the responsibility for dragging themselves and the football program into this mess. Truly a shame for all, but as they say, C'est la vie.
I've done a complete flip flop in my opinion, the biggest thing I keep in mind is that Mustain is only 18/19 years old, he loved Arkansas and really wanted to go there. Nutt is a high paid adult who if even 25% of this is true will soon be gone. He made a big mistake hiring a high school coach as the offensive coordinator but an even bigger mistake not living up to his word and backing the coordinator with the rest of the coaches. I'm glad this isn't my favorite team.
LOL .... and Frank Broyles has osme responsibility for the mess. The irony of the entire thing is, annually, the Broyles Award goes to the top assistant coach in college football
"He made a big mistake hiring a high school coach as the offensive coordinator but an even bigger mistake not living up to his word and backing the coordinator with the rest of the coaches." Absolutely....I agree. Now Broyles may have to get more involved than he wanted to. I suspect that anything less than a 7-4 season will get Nutt fired now.
The chickens really are coming home to roost at Arkansas, but hiring HS coaches to get their players is an old trick. Colorado won an NC by grabbing every single quality player in this area when they hired Pomona HS's head coach years ago. I also witnessed UCLA hire Bonita HS's Larry Zeno in an attempt to get Allen Carter and Ray Anderson back in the early '70s and Pat Haden/JK McKay played for a different head coach every year they were at Bishop Amat, as each coach won a title, defected up the ladder and tried to drag them along. In their case it didn't matter, because they wound up at USC with McKay's father... Oh well. At least the Hogs got something out of this mess, even if it was only for one year. At least they're not hiring these clowns as their HEAD COACH...
BTW- I stand by my statement that the 2005 Arkansas team that we saw play here at the Coliseum was thee, single, worst college football team ever to play in Los Angeles. They quit on the field. In fact, they quit almost as soon as they got off the bus. They openly ignored their coaches, faked injuries to avoid going onto the field, and clowned around between plays in a game where they were being embarrassed. It was chaos and in a town where Larry Smith was once fired on the return bus ride for losing to Fresno State, the locals still can't believe what they saw. The entire affair reflected poorly on the University of Arkansas and any attempt to explain it or apologize for it just sounds silly after a tape of the game is reviewed. The very fact that Nutt still has his job after that one event is incredible. He's no kind of football coach that we're familiar with...
" faked injuries to avoid going onto the field" Oooohh....you're asking for trouble with that one..... :wink: