Walkerton wrote:Some things that aren't talked about in Nutt's tenure at Arkansas, he suffered NCAA sanctions that cost him 23 recruits over a 5 year period because of rules broken before he arrived.
In his 3rd year many fans had already turned on him because of poor recruiting classes but recruits were not coming because of the NCAA investigation and the rumors of a possible death penalty. To make things even worse the media followed the fans lead and turned on him too.
He really had a tough road here but I think he did a great job dealing with it all and he never used the NCAA deal as an excuse.
Frank Broyles is a legend in Arkansas and many of his assistants went on to be great coaches (Joe Gibbs, Hayden Fry, Johnny Majors, Barry Switzer, Jackie Sherrill, Jimmie Johnson, and Barry Switzer are just some) Frank Broyles said on more than one occasion that he believed Houston Nutt was the best to ever coach at Arkansas.
He does things the right way and his players graduation rates are phenomenal.
If the fans and media in Oxford give him a chance and stay behind him I believe you guys will be rewarded.
The NCAA cloud was always blown out of proportion, just as you doing it now. Arkansas was never threatened with the death penalty. The recruiting classes were never that good because Nutt was never that good of a recruiter.
Arkansas puts out at most 6-7 real solid D-I prospects a year, an late in Nutts tenure, well after the "disastrous" NCAA investigation, he wasn't able to keep very many of these top in state recruits at home. Namely: Cedric Houston (Tenn), Bartley Webb (Notre Dame), Lee Ziemba(Auburn), Kodi Burns (Auburn), Broderick Green(USC) among others. Lets not forget that Damian Williams and Ben Cleveland had passed on the Hogs and were Florida commits and that Mitch Mustain had committed and de-committed. Nutt had to hire their HS Coach to get the kids to even consider Fayetteville. This last year, Joe Adams was USC bound until Nutt left. The top in state QB Tyler Wilson was headed out of state because he didn't even get an offer from Nutt. Hell, Nutt could of had Ryan Mallet on board, but Nutt insisted that Mallet play TE at the Razorback camp (Mallet was the #2 HS QB behind Jimmy Clausen).
No doubt about it, Nutt is a pathetic recruiter. If a recruit doesn't grow up wanting to be a Reb, then you guys are just SOL, unless the kid has grade issues and other teams fall off of him (this is the reasoning behind OM's #47 ranked recruiting class by Rivals).
Don't let go of the rope guys, your just a couple of plays away from undefeated. Your coach is special!
