Arkansas Business

This story is from the archives of ArkansasSports360.com.

Late in his career, Frank Broyles was so determined to remain in charge of the University of Arkansas athletic department, he began talking as if he took the Razorback fan base for fools. He would have rather kept Houston Nutt in the head coaching chair to maintain his own job, to the point that many of his utterances were pure nonsense.

It eventually backfired. Even booster and Trustee Jim Lindsey could no longer run interference for Broyles; Nutt was told he could keep coaching, just not here, and Broyles was given an emeritus’ office down the street from the complex that bears his name.

Jeff Long, Broyles’ successor, has been at the UA for not quite five years, or a tenth of the time Broyles worked there, but he’s already spinning stories to Hog Nation. At some point in his time in Fayetteville, Long will stop addressing the Razorback fan base as clueless, or he will lose its trust completely.

That would be a shame in light of his many accomplishments in these short, four-plus years. Financially he’s put Arkansas on the same footing with most of the SEC hierarchy, and Long is creating quite a sports complex that addresses the athletes’ needs both on and off the field.

However, I took a completely unscientific “Harris Poll” of some of the fans Monday after the Little Rock Touchdown Club meeting, and what I learned should give Long pause.

While they appreciated him taking time to travel to Little Rock on his dime to address the central Arkansas fans about everything from the coaching search to John L. Smith’s finances to the football uniforms to the future of Razorback games in Little Rock, everyone also agreed that he said nothing, and some thought he took them for brainless robot fans.

He gave answers fitting for Barack Obama or Mitt Romney, but not as an athletic director of the flagship university (i.e., top football program) of the state. And no one is voting on the UA athletic director — not yet, anyway.

Fans will begin voting next season, when they either buy in to the latest head football coaching hire and re-up on their annual pledges for the rights to buy premium season tickets, or rather decide to keep their disposable income and play the weekly ticket market instead.

Sometimes, to maintain trust, truth is demanded.

Let’s take the question from a club member who seemed a little agitated Monday late in the luncheon. He requested that Long give him a “yes” or “no” as to the future of playing two games a year at War Memorial Stadium.

Long referred to the existing contract that runs through 2016 and then joked that he was glad he didn’t have to deal with it for four years.

Maybe he didn’t notice the murmur of discontent from many in the room, not unlike when his football coach recently thought he was in Alabama.