Arkansas Business

This story is from the archives of ArkansasSports360.com.

JACKSONVILLE, Ala. — Former Arkansas coach Jack Crowe and ex-Razorbacks athletic director Frank Broyles have history — a fiery past that was hottest when the two redheads clashed a couple of decades ago.

The confrontation proved to be Crowe’s downfall as a major college coach.

Now the 65-year-old Crowe is returning to Arkansas. He will lead his Football Championship Subdivision Jacksonville State Gamecocks into Razorback Stadium for the season opener against No. 10 Arkansas on Saturday, four days shy of the 20th anniversary of the toughest weekend of Crowe’s coaching career. An embarrassing opening loss by Crowe’s Razorbacks to The Citadel on Sept. 5, 1992, was followed by a heated confrontation with Broyles the next day.

“It ended with me saying, ‘Frank, I’m going home to have lunch. If you want me to be your football coach, call me,’ ” Crowe recalled. “And he didn’t call me.”

Their relationship survived the encounter. A framed photograph hanging in Crowe’s Jacksonville State office pays homage to it.

“To a fine coach who has paid the price of success,” it reads, and is signed by Broyles, who sent Crowe the photograph after the Razorbacks won the Southeastern Conference Western Division in 2006.

Crowe said they have visited several times since then, but have never talked about the 1992 blowup following the freakish ending to game that left an SEC team on the short end of a 10-3 score against The Citadel.

“It was about as fruitcake a game as you could ever ... They never crossed our 50,” said Crowe, who went 9-15 with the Razorbacks. “It was the first game after they changed the NCAA rule that you could pick up a fumble and advance it. They picked up a fumble and ran it in for a touchdown. Only touchdown they got.”

It was enough. The next morning, Crowe arrived at work like usual and was summoned into Broyles’ office by an assistant athletic director.

It got ugly, the two caught in the heat of emotion.

“He was just shaken,” Crowe said. “I wish I had found a way maybe to call him that night [after the game]. Maybe if I could have found a way to just talk to him. I should have called him. I shouldn’t have let him have to go with so much uncertainty for so long. He was shaken. He was a great communicator and a very inspiring person. He was always on his game. Then he wasn’t on his game. He was mad but it was out of emotion.”

When it was over, the call never came. Broyles introduced defensive coordinator Joe Kines as interim coach the following morning.