Too many stories at once add up to something being cooked in the Broyles Athletic Complex in Fayetteville and delivered to anyone who will take a forkful.

Today, we have Tony Barnhart of the Atlanta Journal Constitution chiming in from the Southeastern Conference meetings in Destin, Fla., about the tumultuous time Houston Nutt has had these past several months.

Tuesday, it was Dallas-based ESPN college football columnist Ivan Maisel, with help from Louisville-based Pat Forde, waxing on endlessly about the “Springdale vs. Nutt” saga. It tells us that much of the story is coming from Nutt and his backers. They have shown in other reports from the past several weeks to believe their problems stem solely from Springdale: players who came and left; a high school offensive genius turned college coordinator who came and left; a player’s mother of whom it's regularly being said by Nutt insiders that she too intrusive with the program and how her son was treated, even while she denied any role; other Springdale parents who cornered Athletic Director Frank Broyles last winter to discuss their concerns; and even a new member of the UA Board of Trustees, John Tyson of Springdale and Tyson Foods Inc., whose first statement after being named to the board was promising to make the necessary changes in both athletics and academics to improve the UA’s standing.

From that evidence alone, obviously it has to be Springdale vs. Nutt, and that is what the UA administration would have everyone believe, if they'll bite. The veteran Hog football coach, in his recent lawyer-arranged sitdown with Hog fan Thomas McAfee, the Searcy man who obtained Nutt’s UA phone records through the state Freedom of Information Act and let friends circulate them, asked McAfee if Mustain or his family was behind his request.

From this view, we see it as Springdale paranoia run amuck in the Broyles Complex.

Of late, we've had Nutt’s and Broyles’ visits to country clubs and local fish fries, to playing in benefit golf tournaments, to Nutt’s radio visits with morning personalities Tommy Smith and David Bazzel (all while Democrat-Gazette sports editor Wally Hall sits quietly on their show, nonconfrontational with Nutt after ripping him in print) as more evidence that the UA sports administration is back to pushing tickets while reshaping the head coach’s image. It's now regularly promoted from the UA that Razorback Club meetings are enjoying record attendance while 2007 ticket sale are up (even though donations admittedly are slightly down).

Stories about Arkansas athletics in the national media don’t show up for no reason, especially during this dead time for football fans. The Nutt vs. Mitch Mustain saga has been going on plenty long enough now, but suddenly we get a full-scale rehash as a portion of a four-part piece in ESPN.com on the Razorback Nation?

We’ve been around long enough to see what this is about: damage control, as directed by Broyles with the help of other inside powers, perhaps even from longtime supporters in the corporate world.

Want to know why I’m sure this is being orchestrated, especially by the coach and his boss? We keep reading this tired refrain, that Nutt realized his dream of signing with the Hogs out of high school but had to transfer away because Lou Holtz came and installed an option offense. Barnhart wrote it today, in fact.

This is total, unadulterated hogwash, crafted to make it appear that Nutt, through no fault of his own, was forced to leave the school of his dreams and regrets it to this day. Talk with many of the old-time Hog players, though, and the first thing they will cite in their displeasure of the current coach is that he walked away from Arkansas. He was a Hog who quit.

Here’s how it really went down: Nutt in the winter of 1975-76 was sold a bill of goods by his recruiter, Frank Broyles, who was running the veer option, but promised Nutt that he would eventually move the Hogs into a pro-style passing game again, like that run by Joe Ferguson and the Razorbacks earlier in the 1970s. So, Nutt signed with Arkansas over Bear Bryant and Alabama. Broyles had hired Bo Rein off Lou Holtz’s staff at N.C. State to successfully install the veer option in 1975, then Rein returned in N.C. State to replace Holtz, who took the head coaching job with the NFL’s New York Jets. Bob Gatling followed Rein at Arkansas as coordinator. Nutt, as a true freshman, was forced into action by the fourth game of the season when starter Ron Calcagni was injured, and Nutt ended up starting several games before also getting hurt. Broyles then wooed Holtz back to the college game to replace him after Holtz’ failed year with the Jets, and Holtz CONTINUED Arkansas’s veer-option style offense that his protégé, Rein, had installed.

Nutt quarterbacked one season under Holtz, traveled with Eddie Sutton’s basketball Hogs to Hawaii in December and with the football team to Miami and the Orange Bowl as Calcagni’s backup, then split in the dead of night to Oklahoma State without informing Holtz (this according to Holtz himself).

Years later, Nutt would lament the treatment he received from Holtz, including what he perceived as a public humiliation his being jerked by the headgear by the frothing coach on the sidelines when the young quarterback apparently didn’t catch all that the coach was telling him.

In a year like the one he’s had, Nutt still manages to be the honoree as Arkansan of the Year for Easter Seals. I can think of at least 100 names off the top of my head of Arkansans who accomplished far greater feats and with less histrionics and public scandal in 2006-07 than did the Hog coach. But in this state full of "Hogaholics," as John Brummett so aptly deemed them, a 10-4 season by the football coach is reason for high toasts indeed.

As you read these latest stories on Razorback sports, realize that no one in the Arkansas athletic department did anything wrong; it’s been only the work of outsiders, most of them from Springdale. At least that's the message someone would like the reader to derive.

But we will agree with a statement attributed to UA chancellor John White earlier this week: To paraphrase, it’s amazing we continue to keep reading about the transfers of unhappy freshmen and the departure of a coaching proponent of the no-huddle offense, when Heisman Trophy runner-up Darren McFadden still stands on the Arkansas side, donning red and white, healthier than ever as the 2007 season awaits just three months away.

Meanwhile, Nutt tells Atlanta writer Tony Barnhart that the story “just won’t go away. People keep churning it up.”

Yes, people like Houston Nutt.