I stopped listening to Sports Rap on KARN one year ago this month. Listening to Wally Hall and Jim Harris gush over who hated Houston Nutt the most was more than I could take. The hate Nutt mob was rolling, and here was an outlet on the radio where it was not only encouraged but pretty much mandatory to follow the lead of the hosts.
They were even having these goobers from Hogville join in on the air and claim that all viewpoints were welcome on Hogville, which the many people who have been banned or deleted on that site for typing something contradictory to the party line can tell you is pure BS.
Fast forward to a year later. After Saturday's near loss to Western Illinois, suddenly I thought listening to Sports Rap this week would be entertaining again (boy is it).
So who is the first person I hear on the air? Mike Irwin, the TV sportscaster from one of those NWA stations who found sudden popularity on Hogville for posting completely unobjective, hate-filled, and malicious stuff about Houston Nutt. (Wally later discovered the same scam.)
Can someone tell me what business an NWA sportscaster of marginal note has on a Central Arkansas sports talk show? It would be one thing if the guy had something to offer, but he doesn't, other than being Beck Campbell's favorite mouthpiece. So here he is on KARN coming to the defense of poor Bobby Petrino like some hired PR flak. It was frankly embarrassing to hear.
Irwin is not the only guy to flak out in defense of Petrino after Saturday's game. Virtually all of these Razorback press clique guys who climbed the hate Nutt bandwagon are doing it this week. Jimmy Dykes was a guest on Bo Mattingly's radio show and again provided another example of our embarrassing sports media.
Why do these guys feel so compelled to come to the aid of Petrino after one near loss? You would think they have some stake in it.
Oh wait, they helped push Nutt out the door, so yes the successor better work out. Otherwise they will look like all those geniuses who cried for Nolan to be fired and then proclaimed Stan Heath as the savior of Razorback basketball. And we all know how that one worked out, don't we, Dudley.
5 comments:
So being a homer for Nutt is good, but being a homer for Petrino is bad?
Come on Rey, don't let your dislike for the IRPC or LR 1, NWA 0 mindset cloud your thinking. Ditching Nutt was the best thing to happen to Arkansas football since ditching Danny Ford.
Don't be a homer for anybody. Just be objective. That's all I ask of these guys. But it's like they can only go one way or the other.
Ditching Danny Ford was a good thing. As bad as he was, it's funny how Chad Hooten was the only person anywhere saying he should be fired almost up to the last game. That's a strange contrast to what happened to Nutt, a good coach who was good for the UA.
The fanbase was divided. Nutt was no longer good for the UA.
And that was with the IRPC defending his every move up until the writing was on the wall.
The fanbase wasn't as divided as some of the Hogville crazies would have liked to think.
And yes Scott, you are a hogville crazy.
Most fans just wanted to win, they didn't care as much about the coach.
Nutt won on a fairly consistent basis and did just enough to put the Hogs in the national title talk three of his 10 seasons.
That won't be true of Petrino who, frankly, isn't the coach Nutt was or still is. Nutt could motivate a less-talented team to a win. Petrino might be better at play calling, but Xs and Os don't make a coach a coach.
Petrino won't hit the .500 mark until his third but more likely fourth season, assuming he is still around by then.
Petrino will be gone after next season. He won't have the patience after two "foundation years," as Wally refers to them.
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