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Soap opera plays out in Arkansas

DESTIN, Fla. — As a boy, Houston Nutt sold Cokes inside Little Rock's War Memorial Stadium and pictured himself one day throwing touchdown passes for the Arkansas Razorbacks.

The highly recruited passer went on to live that dream, signing with Arkansas out of high school and playing quarterback for the Razorbacks as a freshman. Then Lou Holtz came along as coach and installed the option offense. Nutt reluctantly wound up transferring to Oklahoma State, but in his heart he knew he'd always be a Razorback.

Four months shy of his 50th birthday, that part hasn't changed.

"That is why this hurts so much," Nutt said.

The past six months, Nutt's dream job — Arkansas head football coach — has taken several nightmarish twists. It is a bizarre story that, depending on your perspective, is either about out-of-control boosters or taxpayers using all of the tools at their disposal to demand accountability from public officials.

The story has all the elements of a juicy novel:

In short, Nutt said, there are people in Arkansas who, despite last season's 10-4 record, don't want him to be their coach anymore. And they're using the Internet and open records laws to try to get that done.

"I've heard from coaches all over the country and this one has them concerned," Nutt said. "Because if it can happen to me, it can happen to them."

When Nutt arrived this week for the SEC spring meetings, the Hogs saga was splashed across the top of USA Today's sports front page. ESPN.com dispatched a reporter to Fayetteville. On Monday, there will be a hearing in Washington (Ark.) County circuit court to determine if the lawsuit against White will move forward.

The story "just won't go away," Nutt said. "People keep churning it up."

White, who was on the faculty at Georgia Tech before becoming chancellor at Arkansas, has a tough time hiding his feelings about what has transpired the past six months.

"The truth is we've got some people out there with not enough to do in their lives," White said.

Regardless of which side of the argument people come down on, this much is clear: the off-the-field developments have divided the Razorbacks fan base.

"I don't know who's on the Internet 24 hours a day and I don't know who sends out this stuff to everybody," Nutt said. "You just feel there is a small group — pretty organized, pretty relentless — that is coming after you."

Two issues sparked this firestorm: Mustain's benching and subsequent transfer, combined with a critical e-mail sent to Mustain by Teresa Prewett, an Arkansas fan with close ties to the Nutt family.

Nutt doesn't pretend to have handled the Mustain situation perfectly. And it didn't help that offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn, Mustain's school coach at Springdale (Ark.) High, abruptly left for Tulsa after just one season on Nutt's staff. Some Arkansas fans felt Nutt misled — or outright lied — to both about the commitment he was willing to make to the passing game.

Nutt's 2006 offense was built around star running back Darren McFadden, who finished No. 2 in the Heisman Trophy voting.

"We've had players leave before and we've had coaches leave before," Nutt said. "But in 27 years of coaching, I've never seen anything like [the reaction to Mustain's departure]. I've never heard of someone hauling your chancellor into court because he didn't like the way the football coach was doing his job."

And to think, Arkansas came within two touchdowns of winning its first SEC championship last fall. "What would those people have done if we had only won seven or eight games?" White wondered.

Nutt is convinced the minority, while vocal, won't run him out of Fayetteville. But it may not help his cause that he'll soon have a new boss: longtime athletics director Frank Broyles will retire Dec. 31.

"Coach Broyles tells me that season ticket renewals are up 20 percent and everywhere we go for Razorback clubs the fire marshal tells us we can't put another seat in the room," Nutt said. "Everywhere I go, I am feeling overwhelming support. I only hear the negative stuff when [a reporter] brings it up."

But Nutt is under pressure to provide full disclosure about his knowledge of Prewett's critical e-mail. A lawsuit, filed by fan John Terry against White and university system President B. Alan Sugg, claims the two did not properly investigate the matter to determine whether Nutt had a role in its distribution.

Arkansas officials hope the issue will be resolved Monday when the judge rules the suit is frivolous. The university also plans to ask the judge to force Terry to pay their legal fees.

White, who's had enough off the off-the-field headaches, hopes the end is near.

"I'm originally from Arkansas and I came back from Georgia Tech because I wanted to be here," the chancellor said. "But frankly, I'm embarrassed for our state."

HOG WILD

It's been one headache after another for Houston Nutt and Arkansas since the Razorbacks' 10-4 season ended:

Tony Barnhart writes for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.