Arkansas Business

This story is from the archives of ArkansasSports360.com.

Arkansas Athletic Director Jeff Long sounded unusually tired for 8:30 in the morning during a recent radio interview. In fact, the word “weary” was thrown about at some point during his chat, most of which revolved around the Razorbacks’ 2012 football schedule.

There was a point when Long hoped to have the Arkansas football schedule wrapped up and packaged by Christmas. It’s not happening and that seems — at least from the recent interview — to be taking its toll on the athletic department’s top administrator.

“It’s something we’ve been working on virtually every day for some time now,” Long said on Hog Sports Radio’s “The Show” with Dave Barr and Jordan Stuckey.

Adding Texas A&M and Missouri to the league has complicated things, of course. A&M's addition is especially difficult to navigate because the Aggies and Razorbacks are in the midst of a contract to play at Cowboys Stadium every year until 2018.

A&M would prefer to go home-and-home now that the two schools are SEC opponents. Arkansas likes its presence in the Dallas area too much to agree to pull the game from there.

"We've come out and been very clear that from a University of Arkansas perspective we'd like to remain in Dallas through the end of the contract, which is seven more years," Long said on Hog Sports Radio.

SEC officials aren’t involved in that battle between A&M and Arkansas. Commissioner Mike Slive and his administrators have more than enough going on with scheduling than to get in the middle of this one.

Whatever the schedule looks like in 2012 doesn’t mean that’s what it will look like in 2013 or beyond. Missouri might not always be in the East. Perhaps for next season somebody like Arkansas gets stuck going back to both LSU and Alabama.

Don't forget there is a nonconference game to fill now. And most schools already have contracts in place this late in the year. So even "cupcakes" have leverage when negotiating their price to come in and be an easy win. Arkansas and Coach Bobby Petrino would prefer an opponent the caliber of A&M as a nonconference game, but scheduling that is becoming increasingly difficult.

No wonder Long sounded exhausted, right?

Understandably, the situation has caused some stress for Long. Compounding the issue is that uncertainty often leads to speculation and — sometimes — information getting out before it’s supposed to reach the masses.

For example: recent scuttlebutt that Arkansas and LSU will be meeting in Fayetteville instead of Little Rock to end next season. Surely you’ve heard this is a possibility, right?