Back when SWC was wild, woolly
Gone but not forgotten, the Southwest Conference expired largely because of a centuries-old vice: greed. As in, thou shalt not covet.
Arkansas fans, though cheering the results, should have been wary when Razorback teams came to dominate the conference in many sports. Such had not happened in olden days, when an Arkansas team usually won big only through over-achieving or in a down cycle for other programs or, in an extreme example, the other team saw the Hogs as an easy mark.
SWC football in the 1980s, my formative years covering the sport after years watching, resembled a shootout at OK Corral with mostly Clanton brothers involved and few Earps as good guys. Too often, the SWC made the front page of major daily newspapers for the wrong reasons. Everyone, it seemed, was cheating.
SMU, basically a sleepy football program since the days of Doak Walker, became the poster child for rounding up players illegally. A former Texas governor emerged as a heavy in this ongoing drama, which propelled lesser-known school alums with deep pockets into the narrative. The Mustangs were socked with probation before the 1985 season, yet the shady stuff went on for another two years. Fat-cat SMU boosters shrugged it off, saying, “We had a payroll to meet.” It took the NCAA “death penalty” to tame the Ponies.
It was a time of craziness in the football-mad states of Arkansas and Texas.
TCU, enjoying an upsurge, turned itself into the NCAA at one point, yet still was hammered when sanctions were issued. Texas A&M, paying a king’s ransom to coach Jackie Sherrill, became a hot spot for NCAA investigators during a stretch the Aggies came to win championships.
The Texas Longhorns, thought above such chicanery, lost one prized recruit after another to other league schools and Oklahoma. Ill will toward then-sooner coach Barry Switzer virtually drove Texas legend Darrell Royal, an OU alum, out of coaching in 1976. Frank Broyles, a Georgia man recognizing inadequacy in dealing with Black athletes, though increasingly dependent on their services, left Arkansas after the ‘76 season with his program skidding one year after winning the Cotton Bowl.
Broyles, ever able to spot a trend, as athletic director led Arkansas out of the dying SWC after the 1991 football season. Nolan Richardson’s basketball Razorbacks, then ascendant, a national championship soon to come, took on SEC opponents starting in 1992, famously winning on their first trip to Kentucky’s fabled Rupp Arena,
South Carolina also joined the SEC in ‘92, a decision that rising Alabama media star Paul Finebaum mocked. Missouri and Texas A&M, from the former Big Eight Conference, came aboard in 2014. We are about to see a third round of SEC expansion when Oklahoma and Texas hitch on in 2025 (oh, if Darrell Royal were around to comment).
Alabama, struggling to replace Gene Stallings before Nick Saban restored order in Tuscaloosa, now dominates SEC football more than it ever did under Paul William Bryant. Illustrating the league’s general balance, Auburn. Georgia and LSU have won national titles since 2010 dawned. Some schools, if not able to beat Saban’s Crimson Tide on the field, are snapping up his assistant coaches for head jobs with Kirby Smart at Georgia winning it all last year and Jimbo Fisher likewise at Florida State before coming to Texas A&M.
Though SEC Media Days was relatively quiet, it is hardly a serene landscape five weeks
before the season. Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin, another former Saban aide and not one to hide his feelings on any matter, says the decision allowing athletes to profit on their name, image and likeness has opened another wild West show like that which capsized the SWC. “We basically now have legalized cheating,” he said.
Saban had strong words for Fisher on A&M’S windfall recruiting season, coming after Fisher in 2021 became the first former Saban aide to beat the master in battle. LSU broke the bank for Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly two years after Ed Orgeron coached the Tigers to a national championship, only to meet the fate of Les Miles and others in Baton Rouge. Tennessee thinks it has the right man in Josh Heupel, lured from Central Florida to replace a fired Saban assistant, while Auburn, its revolving door ever spinning, isn’t sure about Bryan Harsin, a second former Arkansas State coach (replacing Gus Malzahn)
on the Plains.
Arkansas, coming off a terrible decade in football of coaching turmoil and sometimes pure lunacy, could not be happier with Sam Pittman after two seasons of 13-12 following back-to-back 2-8 records.
If the 2022 Razorbacks skid to any degree, Arkansas fans have convenient fall-back positions in thriving men’s basketball and baseball programs. More and more, they are greeting former SWC brethren, talking about how things used to be, or not.