New Guys on the Hill

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back.

Long’s first-year apex includes hiring Petrino and healing the divide between the UA and former Razorbacks’ basketball coach Nolan Richardson.

The Petrino hire has been and continues to be well received. But no single event of the Long regime has wielded the single-day impact of Richardson’s return. Arkansas’ winningest basketball coach — and the Razorbacks’ lone coach to win a national championship (1994) other than football coach Frank Broyles (1964) and, of course, track/cross country coach John McDonnell — Richardson’s 17-year Razorbacks tenure came to a fiery end in 2002. He was fired and then sued the UA. The retirements of athletics director Broyles and UA Chancellor John White created an administration change enabling Richardson, who has always remained in Fayetteville, and the UA to make peace.

The spring announcement by Chancellor David Gearhart that Long earmarked $1 million of the Razorbacks’ TV revenue to UA academics, so the UA would not raise tuition for the first time in 24 years, also was a public relations coup for the new AD.

However, Long’s first-year road has been far from pothole free.

The first bump: Omitting Broyles, the 50-year Razorbacks icon, as either the UA’s head football coach/athletics director or both, from the football media guide. Broyles has since been profiled in every Razorback media guide of every sport.

Long, an Ohio native, former Pittsburgh athletics director (and decidedly Yankee, following Broyles’ legendary Georgia accent and Southern charm) has been criticized for a depersonalized, money talks, corporate approach that is not necessarily conducive for an athletic program that is deeply dependent on emotionally-attached, grassroots, statewide pride.

Some events that used to be open to all fans, like the head football coach discussing the recruiting class on national signing day, were reserved this year for high-dollar donors.

Also, the Broyles Center, which in the past always opened its doors to fans, has become an increasingly closed shop under Long. Even its museum was closed on football game days, the occasions fans most want to relate the football past to their children and grandchildren. It further isolated alums, who were already noticing less access to a program, with increasingly few UA alums in key athletic department positions.

Long begins his second UA year with some feathers in his cap, but acres of fences to mend and relationships to establish and nurture.

The promise of Bobby Petrino’s outstanding University of Louisville past (41-9 for four years) and last year’s dramatic season-closing (a 31-30 upset of LSU in Little Rock) as a sign for the future, helped Petrino debut more popularly than most 5-7 seasons would allow any football coach … especially when parts of the 5 were 28-24 and 28-27 narrow escapes over non-conference breathers Western Illinois and Louisiana-Monroe.

It seems Petrino most benefited from not being Houston Nutt, his 10-year predecessor. Wildly popular in his 9-3 1998 debut, Nutt had become a lightning rod of fan divisiveness by his December 2007-forced march to Ole Miss.

A new Arkansas coach was going to unify simply by being new. He also got a free pass: fans knew losing so many seniors from 2007 and the loss of All-American running backs Darren McFadden and Felix Jones who went a year early to the NFL, would make 2008 a rebuilding year.

Petrino helped his cause with a no-nonsense, businesslike approach. Such an approach could cost him at schools wanting their coaches warmer and fuzzier. In some years past it would have cost him here, but following a coach whose decidedly emotional approach was under fire, Petrino, for now, mostly seems perceived as the man with a plan  and as sticking to it undeterred.

It’s an accurate perception. He knows exactly what he wants to do and the time he needs to do it. That factors into everything, including and maybe especially, the relatively scant time Petrino is accessible to media compared to his Arkansas predecessors from Frank Broyles through Houston Nutt.

Petrino doesn’t spend much time with media, but it’s generally quality time — even if always in a group setting and never one-on-one. His answers to reporters’ questions come directly to a cogent point. Then he moves on. No frills. The coach knows he must take time for media, fans and speaking engagements with Razorback Clubs, but he’s determined to budget that time so it doesn’t detract him coaching, evaluating his team and recruiting its future.

“There are times you wish you had more time in the meeting room,” Petrino said, “and more time watching video, but you just have to understand that’s one of the aspects of being a head coach.”

He’ll do the extras needed, but has zero tolerance for nonsense. From anyone. All his players know that, even the stars like preseason second-team All-SEC senior defensive tackle Malcolm Sheppard, who is by far the Razorbacks’ most heralded defensive player.

“You don’t want to cross Coach Petrino,” Sheppard said, “by any means.”

During this August preseason, starting linebackers Jerry Franklin, Arkansas’ leading tackler last year, and senior captain Wendel Davis both logged a Sunday practice not up to Petrino’s standards. That Monday both practiced second team. Both had to practice like demons before Petrino reinstated them first team.

“One thing we are going to do,” Petrino said of those listed first-team, “we are going to practice right, or we are going to practice with the second team.”

His best player, Michael Smith, the consensus Preseason first-team All-SEC running back on the national radar of the Doak Walker Preseason Watch List, understands that applies to him, too.

“I know when I get out there,” Smith said, “I have to make a play, so they don’t take more playing time from me.”

This full year of Arkansas knowing Bobby Petrino means business projects these Razorbacks getting down to business better than their 5-7 of 2008.

“We’re certainly ahead of where we were a year ago,” Petrino said, “as far as our players understanding our schemes, our offense and defense and how we’re going to work.”


This is part one of a three-part series.