Fans take Auburn date seriously
Arkansas fans are treating the Razorbacks’ game Saturday with Auburn like the fate of the free world depended upon the outcome. Rest assured that it doesn’t, but you can’t help but feel the tension on both sides.
For the sake of Chad Morris, the former Arkansas head coach, it’s good that it will be played in Jordan-Hare Stadium on the Auburn campus. One can only imagine what type of reception Morris would get if he stepped on to Reynolds Razorback Stadium or War Memorial Stadium in his present capacity as offensive playcaller for the Auburn Tigers.
Houston Nutt could tell Morris what to expect. A Fayetteville crowd booed Nutt unmercifully when he brought his first Ole Miss team to the Ozarks in 2008. Once the popular choice to replace the fired Danny Ford as Razorback head coach, Nutt gradually fell out of favor with the awakened masses. By the end of his 10th season, 2007, Nutt became such a lightning rod of controversy that Arkansas fans openly began cheering for the opposing team. They had gone through that in basketball with Nolan Richardson, a polarizing figure before and after the Razorbacks won the NCAA championship in 1994. HDN, however, was thought to be one of us.
The Nutt years at Arkansas defy analysis, that of a native son who played for the Razorbacks (two sports, in fact) and became estranged from the people who campaigned for his hiring. Nutt resigned two days after the Razorbacks beat No. 1 LSU on the road (read that sentence again carefully). Fans shrugged it off, upset only that the athletic director, Jeff Long, paid Nutt handsomely to leave and did not prohibit other Southeastern Conference schools from making contact.
An Arkansas team that would finish 5-7 under Bobby Petrino lost 23-21 to Ole Miss in 2008. A story made the rounds that Petrino and Nutt talked it over at midfield after the game. Nutt apparently cited Arkansas’ spirited effort in coming up short, whereupon Petrino replied, “You should know, they’re your players.”
It’s conveniently forgotten that a week after the Ole Miss game, Arkansas beat Tulsa 30-23. That was noteworthy mainly because calling plays for Tulsa was the visored Gus Malzahn, whose one year on Nutt’s staff proved rocky. In effect, Nutt cut off the lineline that Frank Broyles, his boss, had forced upon him amid booster unrest.
Malzahn brought along most of his stars from the 2005 Springdale High team he coached to a state championship but none of them stayed long. Mitch Mustain, the top-rated high school passer in the nation as a senior, never lost an Arkansas game he started — you can look it up — but was yanked from a road victory over South Carolina and left town soon after. Nutt, said many, hired Malzahn under false pretenses, which made the UA head coach no friends among Malzahn’s strong base in his native state.
Malzahn traded the Tulsa job for one as offensive coordinator at Auburn. (Irony of ironies, Auburn once went after Petrino, a former Tigers aide, as coach when it had Tommy Tuberville under contract. Tuberville, an Arkansas native, coached Ole Miss when the Razorbacks made a run after him in wake of Ford’s firing. Against the urging of UA’s strongest media supporter, the job went to Nutt after a full-court press from the fans. We are making none of this up.)
Cam Newton took Auburn, coached by Gene Chizik, to the national championship and won the Heisman Trophy in 2010. Chizik could not come up with a replacement for Newton and stayed two more years on the Plains. Malzahn, his offensive overseer, was the obvious successor as head coach, and Arkansas folks grimaced when Auburn rode the Gus Bus to the 2013 BCS championship game.
Just say that Malzahn and Bret Bielema, Arkansas’ head coach for five years starting in
2013, are unlikely to vacation together. Bielema weighed in against the hurry-up offense, a staple in Malzahn’s program, calling his own power running attack “normal American football.” Auburn later caught flak for not sharing a game film properly and supposedly faking an injury in a game against Arkansas.
Someone wrote that “even without actually having shared a bed, Bielema has time again heaved a divorcee’s disgust at Malzahn and Auburn” while both were in the SEC. Bielema savored a four-overtime victory in the series at Fayetteville in 2015, but Auburn had the last word the following year in a 56-3 blaster at Jordan-Hare Stadium.
Saved from serious alumni pressure with two wins over Alabama’s Nick Saban, Malzahn saw his name come up for Arkansas openings after the 2017 and 2019 seasons. Auburn, its inferiority complex regarding Alabama notwithstanding, is the plum job that Arkansas probably never will be. So, Malzahn stays at Auburn while some in his home state gently weep.
“I think if ( Arkansas) would’ve hired Malzahn, (local tensions) would’ve been fine by now,” radio talk-show host Bo Mattingly said years ago. “We’ve come full circle as a state since Gus left, but when he came up as a name for the job, there were all those leftover feelings. Do you like Gus? Did you get over Gus? The state is still divided over him.”
Feelings seem to run one way about Morris, whom Malzahn added to his staff after the former’s 22-game Arkansas adventure. Before it all went wrong at UA, Morris was considered an up-and-comer, credited by some for saving Dabo Swinney’s job at Clemson (recruiting Deshaun Watson at quarterback didn’t hurt) and reviving SMU in a brief stay as the Mustangs’ head coach. Unable to land Malzahn or its second choice (Mike Norvell, now struggling at Florida State) after letting Bielema go, Arkansas seemed content with Morris.
That feeling subsided in an early game against North Texas, which scored a cheap touchdown when an Arkansas player declined to tackle a Mean Green punt returner. It went downhill from there. Arkansas had not finished 2-10 in its football history; it did so twice in seasons Morris started, winning neither in the SEC or against a power-5 team.
If he is a career assistant on whom Arkansas guessed wrong, Morris is not the first. Notre Dame did so with Gerry Faust and Charlie Weis, if not with Frank Leahy’s successor, Terry Brennan. Arkansas, for all its perceived strengths, cannot carry a weak coach in any sport. It has thrown a life preserver to Sam Pittman, heretofore a career assistant but one with Arkansas ties and a positive attitude.
Arkansas, at 1-1, has reached a Matterhorn of sorts with an SEC victory, its first in 21 games. Now comes Auburn, with the same record, both losing to Georgia. To no surprise, the Tigers are a double-digit favorite. Arkansas probably has to play better than against Mississippi State to keep it close.
Whether it means as much to Razorback players as to the fans remains to be seen. But on this side of the line, it couldn’t be more personal.