Arkansas Business

This story is from the archives of ArkansasSports360.com.

After two consecutive Cotton Bowl trips, Arkansas wasn’t forecast to be a Top 10 team in 1990, but the Razorbacks weren’t supposed to tumble quite so embarrassingly the way they did when Jack Crowe was suddenly tapped at the last moment to replace the successful and departing Ken Hatfield.

The Southwest Conference media that season still saw the Razorbacks as a viable contender, particularly with several offensive stars returning, and predicted the Hogs would finish third in the SWC.

What we saw, however, was a sudden fall from grace after six years of winning under Hatfield that is mirrored by much of what is happening at Arkansas these days in the post-Bobby Petrino departure. Let's be clear, Hatfield and Petrino are as different as night and day, but both were completely in charge of their programs, and the players knew it.

In January 1990, about two weeks before the national signing day, then-Arkansas athletic director Frank Broyles knew he was losing his head coach to Clemson and hit the panic button. He pulled one of Hatfield's assistants, Jack Crowe, off the plane bound for Clemson. He asked another assistant, defensive coach Dick Bumpas, to stay too, but Bumpas said "No thanks." Broyles, though he had a lot more time to work with than current athletic director Jeff Long found himself with last April, didn’t make any calls to find out if an established head coach would step in on the fly.

Ironically, Broyles could have hired Danny Ford three years before he did; Ford had been fired by the Clemson president days earlier, opening the door for Hatfield to move from Fayetteville and away from his meddling athletic director. Hatfield also was well aware that recruiting had waned the past three years. The changes at Clemson proved to be bad timing for an Arkansas program and set it back at least five years.

To make matters worse, Broyles went about selling Crowe’s promotion as perfect for the team, and the media, including the late great Orville Henry, on whose word every fan doted, bought it. (And yes, with that experience, you would have thought I would have learned my lesson as well.) Henry compared Crowe’s offensive genius to that of Broyles, and even noted their similar red hair and ruddy complexions.

No one bothered to mention, until well after the hire, that Crowe had flopped early in his career as a head coach at what was then called Livingson University in Alabama. But Hatfield had summoned Crowe as offensive coordinator in 1989, and Crowe famously brought some imagination to Hatfield’s option game with a record-setting Cotton Bowl season in 1989.

With quarterback Quinn Grovey returning in 1990, and top receiving target Derek Russell also available, the Hogs should keep rolling, right? Only in the offseason would we see star fullbacks Barry Foster and JuJu Harshawn leave the squad, however.

And, where Broyles was always bringing aboard great assistants, Crowe struggled in assembling a solid staff. His new defensive coordinator, Joe Pate, a great recruiter, was overmatched in scheming for an SWC that was evolving into a wide-open, pass-happy league paced by Houston's Run-and-Shoot.

Still, nothing seemed amiss until Week 2 when struggling Ole Miss, out-gained 3-to-1 in total yardage, upset Arkansas at the finish in Little Rock. You could feel the balloon pop that afternoon. Arkansas then unimpressively dispatched lowly Colorado State.

Then came SEVEN straight embarrassments against SWC competition, starting with the night TCU blocked two punts for scores and ran wild through the confused defense for a 54-26 win in Little Rock.

Each week, the plan on Arkansas’ side looked great for a few series. Then a big play would change the momentum and the flood would ensue. The Hogs even led eventual SWC champ Texas 20-17 at one point, only to see the Horns run off 32 points in a row, 29 in the fourth quarter.