Because, whether you want to give him credit or not, Nutt was the skipper during the voyage from the Danny Ford national-irrelevance-era all the way to the stormy seas of McFadden-for-Heisman and Razorback-semi-relevance era. Yeah, he left the cupboard bare and divided a nation, er, state, and I do hold that against him. However, he’s a coach whose potential is limited based on his abilities and for better or worse, he’s a big-game-rah-rah guy and not a let’s-do-the-little-things-right-and-be-consistently-good type of coach. That resulted in some great highs over the decade, but of course some great lows as well. The end result for me was that I knew that no matter how high we seemed to get on a specific occassion, we’d never maintain it. So, those are his limitations and I think he did the best he could with those limitations and, most importantly, he raised our program up a notch or two. For those reasons, I say mostly positive.

because of all the endings. The bowl losses, the championship game losses, ending losing seasons with a loss, and the way Nutt left himself. In ten years, only two years that ended on a happy note! If Nutt had went somewhere outside of the SEC West, I think I could dwell more on the positives, and there were some. Those two seasons that ended in bowl wins were dare I say, “special,” and he had his share of regular season victories that were great for the program. I suppose if Petrino takes us to better heights, a more “let by-gones-be-by-gones” feeling might come over me in regard to Nutt. Maybe.

because I was so far removed from Razorback football (in the US Navy 24 years and still ticking) being deployed moslty thru the football seasons (basketball too for that matter). I just got to hear from my folks/relatives about the good games mostly, and how PASSIONATE Hog Football was, and how we came “THIS CLOSE” alot of games. I have to admit, when I did watch some games, they were come of the most exciting games I’ve ever seen, expecially during the Matt Jones era. It’s hard to say I felt any negativity toward Hog Football when Nutt was the coach, cause I just like Hog Football period. Yea, there was some chuckle-head play calls in alot of thoses games we lost, but I can remember my dad saying the same thing about Frank Broyles when I was a kid, sitting next to him with his hand-held AM radio next to his ear. Out

he did a lot of good, and a lot of bad. One the one hand, he was the director behind some very good football teams, that had some very exciting wins. For a long time, Nutt was a positive figure within Razorback football and made it an exciting time to be a fan. On the other had, there’s not a single season that didn’t have some sort of major dissappoinment. Whether it was bowl losses, losses in the SEC Championship, early losing streaks that put out of contention for an SEC title, ect. All the upsets in the world mean nothing if it you never become consistently relevant. If I had to choose, I would say “mostly negative”, just because we never became that team that was feared, despite all the talent we had.

But it was hard to do. I hate Nutt, plain and simple. But that is who I grew up with calling (poor) plays. And, I hate to say it, without the guy we probably wouldn’t be where we are today. So it was for the better he was our coach and for the better he’s drinking hot toddies at Ole Miss.

Sure, there was a lot of crazy stuff and frustration along the way (especially towards the end), but let’s not forget where the program was in 1998 when he took over: completely irrelevant.

Nutt deserves a lot of credit for making the Hogs a player in the SEC – occasionally, at least – and even though he never really capitalized on having the all-universe talents of McFadden & Jones on the team, he did more good than bad.

Of course, as a Razorback blogger I’m practically obligated to poke fun at the guy every now and then and have no qualms about doing so. The man is a comedy gold mine, no matter what your opinion on his coaching ability.

when your players walk into the locker room, only to find a note from former coach petrino. Say, shouldn’t you folks be over at Red Cup making disparaging remarks about HDN??

that may be so, but you are hardly the one to say anything, considering you’ve been posting there all week

we can make fun of Houston Nutt on BOTH sites. problem solved.

So long is Petrino is in play.