A Nutty report: Houston at the Touchdown Club
One of our sources reports in from Houston Nutt's appearance at the Little Rock Touchdown Club, held at Keith Jackson's P.A.R.K. on Geyer Springs:
No real surprises during his one-hour program. He went over the team position by position.
Wide receivers -- need to get better. need another Monk on the other side of the QB.
Kickers -- no one is standing out. He's worried.
Wants Felix Jones to return punts since he's so good at returning kicks. Peyton Hillis is the best at catching punts. Disappointed in returning quarterback Casey Dick this spring and said that Robert Johnson, last year's started for the first seven games, looked better, and mentioned that Johnson may have done better because the spotlight was off of him. Typical Alex Mortenson comments: good upstairs but lacks some tools. Will give Mitch Mustain a look.
He asked the cameramen to turn off the cameras twice.
A guy had asked about Kevin Thornton. He said we need to sit on this, but Thornton is going to transfer. Lack of foot speed.
The other one was when a guy asked why we weren't recruiting the Memphis area. He said while we were on probation, we were told to be careful in Memphis. If you see smoke, drive the other way. He said that UA was going to turn some folks in if needed, and predicted that we would get going in that area again.
Someone asked him if Texas series was being rekindled. Nutt said that's the third person to ask him that in the last 20 minutes. He didn't deny it. sounds like that's going to happen.
Comments
Nutt also mentioned that everyone was happy with where the program was until two years ago. He said that as much as fans want to go back to a bowl game, the coaches want to go back 9 times as much. Yee-haw! We might have a trip to Shreveport to look forward to this year.
Posted by: Tom Logan | April 25, 2006 03:23 PM
Why did he ask the cameras be turned off/ And what was said when they were off?
Surely Nutt can't expect to go "off the record" in front of a couple hundred people.
ED: Apparently the first off-the-record item is Kevin Thornton's status. The second may be about the eventual Texas game. Somebody tell Nutt it's already been on the Little Rocking blog.-jim
Posted by: Anon | April 25, 2006 03:24 PM
The second off the record comment was actually about Memphis recruiting and how he stayed away from Memphis for a couple of years because of the rumors that were swirling about it. That's also in the blog report though.
ED: You're right, somebody else confirmed that as well that he wanted the cameras off in commenting about recruiting in Memphis. Maybe he didn't want the people who really understand what a lousy job Arkansas has done recruiting Memphis and Western Tennessee to see the quote, more than the reason he's implying. To wit, Patrick Willis, from Western Tennessee, had ONE offer, from Ole Miss. He told the sportswriter who covered his team (a writer who worked here at the Times for a while) that he would love to be a Razorback. Danny Nutt made one drop-by of his high school, then they never heard from Arkansas again. Willis, as many may know, is a dynamo at middle linebacker for Ole Miss and will play in the NFL. He's the guy who made life miserable in Oxford for Darren McFadden last fall. Now, the argument is going to be, "well, nobody else outside of Ole Miss recruited the guy, not even Tennessee." Not the point, not when the kid professes to the sportswriter in his region that he'd like to play for Arkansas. There are several other examples in Western Tennessee similar to the Willis story. Houston Nutt prefers to make it appear that Memphis has been dirty: Does anyone really believe AFTER the Albert Means deal that there was going to be any dirty recruiting going on there? Anyway, what does Memphis have to do with all the ball-dropping east of there by the Hog recruiting?-Jim out (and sorry for the rant)
Posted by: Tom Logan | April 25, 2006 05:44 PM
Just another reason the taxpayers of this state should refuse to pay the hugh expense of collegate sports. Why is Nutt making over a million a year at a state tax supported college when a teacher at the med center makes less than a hundred thousand to teach kids how to save lives. Also, why is my tax money going to pay the defensive coach, Herring, over two hundred thousand bucks to cuss out childred !!!!!!!!!! Where are our priorities?
Posted by: Anonymous | April 26, 2006 03:09 PM
It was funny that Wally in his column today messed up on what the second off the record comment was. He was sitting right by Nutt. Amazing. Normally I just figure that Wally messes up because he actually doesn't watch the games. But probably it's just because he doesn't pay attention.
Posted by: Anonymous | April 26, 2006 04:20 PM
Don't worry anonymous, your tax dollars aren't going to pay for the coach's salaries. The vast majority of their salary comes from the privately funded Razorback Foundation.
Posted by: Tom Logan | April 27, 2006 09:57 AM