The End of the Houston Nutt Era

Must be nice to be Houston Nutt these days, don't you think? He gets 3.5 million dollars to leave Arkansas after ten years, and then signs a four year/7.4 million dollar deal to become the head coach at Mississippi less than twenty-four hours later. Pretty sweet loot if you can get it. But Nutt didn't even come close to offering the straight story at his "goodbye" press conference on Monday. And it doesn't look like the truth will be surfacing any time soon.

Did Houston actually choose to resign? Was his skin not quite as thick as we all thought it was? Perhaps the constant abuse he and his family took over the last couple of years was the driving force behind his decision. Or maybe it wasn't. Maybe the writing really was on the wall, and Arkansas' athletic hierarchy of Chancellor White, Jeff Long and Frank Broyles realized it was time to turn the page. So many questions with so many answers that Razorback fans will likely never get.

Speculation for a duller day, I guess. For now, we've got a coaching search in full effect at the U of A, and a list of candidates that is pretty thick, some more realistic than others. Want some names? For starters: Tommy Tuberville, Butch Davis, Chris Petersen, Mike Leach, Brent Venables and Bo Pelini are all in the conversation. Names like Jimmy Johnson and Gus Malzahn are a lot farther fetched, for obvious reasons. And then there's the bigger lot of names that most of us aren't even aware of yet. With a search committee aiding in the process, don't expect it to take all that long either. If I had to guess, I'd say a new coach is hired by the end of the month.

Meanwhile, Nutt is already in Oxford, Mississippi, doing his best Rebel performance to secure what was supposed to be a pretty decent recruiting class for the recently-canned Ed Orgeron. And who came blame him for making the move within the SEC, and striking while the iron was still hot? No one. And that proverbial iron doesn't get any hotter for a coach than in the aftermath of a triple overtime road upset of LSU, the #1 team in the country.

So Nutt goes his way and Arkansas heads out in a new direction all its own. Ten years is a long run for any coach these days, let alone in the SEC, and regardless of whether or not you liked Houston Nutt the coach or Houston Nutt the person, it was finally time. Change can be a really good thing---it frequently is---but only sometimes is it absolutely necessary. This was definitely one of those times.

-JAB