Mike Irwin puts the swerve on Hogville

"The Razorback Internet fans have gone completely crazy."

That's what NWA TV guy Mike Irwin said on KARN's "Sports Rap" on Wednesday after being asked about the firing of Renee Gork after she wore a Florida Gators hat to a Bobby Petrino press conference.

Irwin then told hosts Shawn and Wally that the Internet people -- and you know who you are -- went way over the line when they went after Gork personally, sent her hate e-mails, asked her employer to fire her, tried to organize an advertiser boycott, and mined her personal information from Facebook and Twitter to use against her.

He's right -- many of the Razorback fans on the Internet are disgusting people and use sports as an outlet to put that on display. When you are mad at the coach, it's an easy excuse to let out all the frustrations of your life on that target.

But perhaps this quote from Irwin struck you as a little odd considering his history.

Irwin was once a leader of that Internet mob on Hogville as the ball was rolling to unleash the hate machine on Houston Nutt. His minions went after Nutt personally, asked his employer to fire him, sent hate e-mails, and you know the rest of all the absolutely bizarre ends these people went to in order to oust Nutt.

Irwin left his position as an administrator on Hogville only after the TV station he worked for told him to.

Mike Irwin, I salute you for putting the swerve on your former following.

You know the nastiness on the Internet message boards has gotten bad when even its former spokespeople are disowning what is going on there.

Some of these Razorback message boards have become Public Enemy No. 1 to Razorback athletics, and they continue to self-destruct the program and put the state in a negative light nationwide. With Gork, the dorks struck again.

When Booth Rand was running things on Pigpen, he would never let this nonsense get out of hand. But the guys running the Pigpen spawns seem to thrive in this stuff and delete any dissenting and rational thought.

And one more note on Renee Gork: She is married to Mike Capshaw -- and wasn't he one of the beat reporters on the campaign to fire Nolan who was in the group that got chewed out at the infamous press conference?

Alms to the Boar:Rey Pygsterio issues statement on drastic increase in donation requirements in order to purchase Razorback football tickets

Man, you people are living in a dream world, and I bet most of you championing this move aren't even contributers to the Razorback Foundation in the first place.

Razorback Stadium has only sold out one time since expansion thanks to those $125 indoor club seats. That tells you the demand. So if there isn't enough demand to sell out the stadium, what makes you think there is enough of a demand to raise the donation levels?

This move by Jeff Long is going to have exactly the opposite effect. Season ticket sales will go down as more people who were previously season-ticket holders decide to just buy on a game-by-game basis and avoid paying the donation.

Long's philosophy of building a program is straight out of a management textbook and would never have been successful in establishing the Razorback brand.

Like Shields said in a recent column, if it is only about money, the Razorbacks have already lost. The UA athletic department already has plenty of $$$. What Long wants is more $$$.

If the University of Arkansas athletic department is a business, it needs to stop begging for handouts from its customers and its parent company needs to stop taking taxpayer money from the state.

Let me throw out a disaster scenario. Say Arkansas goes 8-4, which would be below most fans' expectations for the year, and then Petrino leaves to take the Michigan job.

Who is going to be buying tickets with a huge tax (donation) attached to them after that?

And after a few years when fans start grumbling that the additional money has provided no additional wins, well, we ain't seen nothing yet compared to the fan implosion that is coming on that day.

The Democrat-Gazette story says Arkansas football has only 14,116 season ticket holders. 14,116!!! And that includes season tickets at two stadiums. I wonder what is the average number of seats each ticket holder purchases. If the average is four, which I bet is too high, that's still just 56,464 season tickets sold. That number doesn't exactly tell me there is a huge demand out there willing to pay all this additional money.

Oh yeah, by the way, the football program had a $20-million profit last year, according to Forbes magazine, which put it at 17th best in the country.

Yet the UA wants more for a new locker room and Broyles Center. Sorry, Petrino, you've got all kinds of great facilities, so make due with your poor little locker room and stop complaining. And I don't see anything wrong with the Broyles Center that warrants an emergency update in this economy.

And why can the UA charge this amount for seats, yet I can't resell them at the same price without getting the attention of the police?

I love hearing all these media people, who never have to actually buy tickets or donate to the Razorback Foundation, talk about how this is such a great idea.

The UA must really be nervous about this for Jeff Long and Chris Wyrick to travel to Little Rock the day after the announcement to sell this snake oil to the media. They spent an hour on 103.7's "The Zone" in studio and probably have several other stops today. It also underscores how important Central Arkansas and the southwestern two-thirds of the state are to the program financially.

Meanwhile, I have decided to take my $3,000 that they are requesting for donations in order to get my same seats and just buy a recruit a car because that will have a lot more of an impact on winning games than a new locker room and updated Broyles Center.

And since UA athletics have become solely about money, I plan to start dressing like Matthew Lesko to games except the suit will be red with dollar signs.

A response to Stewart Mandel's web column attacking Houston Nutt and Jeremiah Masoli

Stewart Mandel of Sports Illustrated wrote a hit piece Monday on Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt's decision to allow Jeremiah Masoli on the team, and the column seems to have sparked a firestorm of activity from those critical of giving Masoli another chance to play college football.

I am anxious to read Mandel's column in November discussing Masoli's chances of winning the Heisman Trophy and acknowledging that Nutt made a great decision to bolster an otherwise rebuilding offense with an experienced quarterback custom made to run the Wildcat offense.

But until then, I'm going to re-read this week's column and point out the many errors in it, starting with...

• Nutt didn't hire Gus Malzahn to keep a quarterback recruit. He was forced to hire Malzahn by then-AD Frank Broyles because Broyles thought it would appease the fan outcry for Nutt to hire an offensive coordinator (a fan cliche anytime they are not being entertained by enough passes in the offense when the team isn't winning) and at the same time deliver a heralded quarterback and his overbearing mother.

• Nutt did not get the nickname "Right Reverend" for his strong Christian values. I never heard the name in Arkansas until it was delivered through the magic of television by ESPN's Rece Davis, who I assume dubbed him that for his sometimes preacher-like inspirational locker-room speeches. As a sidebar, I will add that the Right Reverend probably has stronger Christian values than Pastor Floyd, who leads the church where Malzahn and Mustain attended and whose school is responsible for ruining it for every other private high school in Arkansas thanks to its unscrupulous recruiting and then running up the score on the likes of Lavaca and Hector.

• Nutt's hiring of Malzahn and signing of the infamous Springdale players had very little to do with the 10-win season and SEC West title. In fact, it probably worked against the team the entire year. What led to so many wins? Try current NFL stars Darren McFadden and Felix Jones.

• Nutt is correct that Malzahn's offense wasn't working, and to this day it has yet to be effective at Auburn. In fact, Gene Chizik said at SEC media days that the team needs to run the ball more this season to control the clock, which is exactly what Malzahn's offense doesn't do.

• To say that a vocal minority of Razorback fans unleashed the hounds is an understatement. They unleashed a disgusting campaign of hate for a guy who was giving everything he had to win games for this group. It was the second time Razorback fans formed a mob to run a coach out of town, the first time being against Nolan Richardson. Both instances revealed a very ugly side of Razorback fans that I have yet to see anywhere else in the country, college or pro. Dale Brown said it best: "What happened to Nolan Richardson at Arkansas is a crime." What happened to Nutt wasn't too far behind.

• Nutt packed his bags for Oxford because our idiot fan base and chancellor were going to fire him anyway. What do you expect him to do? Not pursue a great job in the best conference in the country? And he's been a great success at Ole Miss, much more of a success so far than his successor at Arkansas.

• Masoli is a legitimate Heisman Trophy contender who wanted to come to a team that had just lost its back-up QB and was considered to be in a rebuilding year after losing its primary offensive weapons. What coach in his right mind would not consider that? Let's face it, fans only remember wins. After losing seasons, you never hear a fan say, "Well it was really a great year because all the kids had a lot of character even though we went 4-8."

• Nutt's attitude toward discipline? You just cited a player he kicked off the team, for crying out loud. You are really bending the facts to support your argument here.

Morally ambivalent? Dirty? Nothing could be farther from the truth in describing Nutt. Just ask his players. You owe him an apology -- and I expect to see it when the experiment pays off for Masoli and for the Rebels.


And in case you forgot, scoreboard says...

Follow Rey Pygsterio on Twitter.

LR 2, nWa 0

Agent for Burnett and Lee Is 2-0, and Counting

Nutt 2, Hogville/Wally/Beck 0

All your sad and lost apostles hum my name and flare their nostrils
Choking on the bones you toss to them
Well I'm not one to sit and spin
'Cause living well's the best revenge
Baby, I am calling you on that

Ole Miss 30, Arkansas 17
“That’s about as disappointing as it gets,” Petrino said. “They beat us in all phases. They beat our defense up. They beat our offense up and they won the special teams. We didn’t match thier intensity early. We didn’t come out and execute on offense and had a hard time protecting the quarterback and running the ball. So it’s about as disappointing as you can get after having a great battle last week and then taking a huge step backwards.”

Auburn: The coronation was premature

"Is it possible that former Arkansas head coach Houston Nutt was actually right when he wrested control of the Hog offense from Malzahn midway through Malzahn's one-season tenure with the Razorbacks?"

Clinton Avenue in Little Rock Named One of America's 10 Great Streets

The American Planning Association announced Wednesday that President Clinton Avenue in Little Rock had been designated one of 10 Great Streets for 2009 by the association's Great Places in America program.

Suck it, Springdale.

Nutt 2, Hogville/Wally/Beck 0

The know-it-alls in the media who were so vicious in helping to usher the exit of Houston Nutt are falling all over themselves to serve as public-relations agents for Bobby Petrino as he enters his second season.

In Friday's column, Wally Hall says a record of 7-5 would be "an acceptable improvement" and that "it has been more than a decade since there has been this much excitement and optimism among fans."

First, I find it funny in the midst of all the predictions of nine or 10 wins from fans on the talk shows and Internet that the statewide columnist feels the need to temper expectations to soften the blow to all these fans in what will most likely be a six-win season. Wally then goes on to tout how great it would be for the Razorbacks to make it to the Liberty Bowl.

Wow, where were those low expectations for Nutt, Wally? He did the same thing for Stan Heath after taking over for Nolan. It's almost like he has a computer program that spits these formats out whenever he gets a coach fired to talk up the replacement.

Second, there hasn't been this much excitement for Razorback football in more than a decade (which is coincidentally the tenure of the former coach)? Call me crazy, but the 10-4 season in 2006 that included a visit from ESPN Gameday and a trip to the SEC championship game was pretty exciting for most of us (for everyone other than the Springdale crazies), and it may be a long time before the Razorbacks win 10 games again.

The Friday column comes the day after Wally and his radio buddy Shawn Arnell spent a good 10 minutes trashing Nutt for touting new artificial turf at Ole Miss. Any excuse they can get to bring up Nutt and get their digs in, they take. Wally even criticized Nutt for pushing for new athletic facilities while he was at the University of Arkansas. What would Wally have said had the coach not wanted to constantly improve facilities??? He would have trashed him for that too.

What Wally and Shawn need to understand is that not everyone in their listening audience is one of these trolls on Hogville who wakes up every morning obsessed with their hatred for Nutt. That segment of the fan base is not representative of the majority. No wonder the ratings for Sports Rap are so low -- people are so tired of listening to that garbage from the callers much less the hosts.

Another guy who can't open his mouth without pumping up Petrino is Jimmy Dykes, the frequent guest on Bo Mattingly's radio program. Dykes, the self-proclaimed "guy who studies sports for a living" so we must accept that he is always right, recently said Petrino was "the absolute right hire even if he only wins five games this year." Again, where were these passes for Nutt from these people?

Dykes went on to gush about how "efficient" Petrino's practices are (after reminding us again that he has been to the practices and studies sports for a living) and that he will get everything out of his players there is to get. Oh yeah, isn't this what Nutt is heralded for by his coaching peers in the SEC and elsewhere? Again, this sounds like the Stan Heath lovefest all over again when the experts were telling us how great his practices were and how it is so nice to finally have a coach who stresses rebounding.

A better topic for Dykes to address on the radio show -- Has he ever condoned recruiting as athletic director at Shiloh Christian?

As the pundits in the media and fans in Arkansas do everything to trash Nutt, meanwhile everyone else outside Arkansas is talking about what a great coach he is and putting Ole Miss in various slots in the preseason top 10. The scoreboard at the end of the season will judge who is right.

Column of the year: Run it up, Houston Nutt

"Run it up, Houston Nutt. Give Arkansas and its fans a beating they'll never forget -- even if it won't be half the beating they deserve. "

Nutt should run score up as payback toward Arkansas' nuts

Nutt 3, Hogville/Wally/Beck 0

All your sad and lost apostles hum my name and flare their nostrils
Choking on the bones you toss to them
Well I'm not one to sit and spin
'Cause living well's the best revenge
Baby, I am calling you on that

Ole Miss 31, Florida 30
Jevan Snead threw two touchdown passes, ran for another score and led the Rebels to a 31-30 upset of No. 4 Florida on Saturday. It gave coach Houston Nutt a signature win in his fourth game at Ole Miss and put Florida in a hole with several tough Southeastern Conference games remaining.

Texas 52, Arkansas 10
Forget the famous rivalry. Colt McCoy and No. 7 Texas clobbered Arkansas like any other early season warmup. And when the most lopsided game between the border foes in decades was over, all Razorbacks coach Bobby Petrino could do Saturday was collapse into a chair and sigh. Hard. "That's a beating," Petrino said.

When will Hogville and all our other lousy fans, media, and Little League parents be held accountable for what they've done to Razorback football? Still predicting a 6-6 season, Biggus? Mike Irwin must have really struggled getting that Ole Miss score out of his mouth on his NWA sportscast.

Hogville, Wally, and Beck may have killed Razorback football for the next decade

The thing about Hogville is that they delete and ban so many posts and posters with dissenting viewpoints that you are left with a board in which it looks like this online representation of Razorback fans are all in agreement. They are not.

Hogville operates like the old days of Mother Russia. Got something to say that we don't like? Your voice disappears from our site. The guy who owns the site will get on KARN and claim that "the great thing about Hogville is that we allow all viewpoints," but it is pure BS.

Public opinion does not equal what you read on Hogville.

What's worse are the broadcast journalists who sell out to Hogville because they think they are getting an audience, or in some cases a following. Mike Erwin and Mark Lericos, two NWA TV guys you have never heard of otherwise, might as well be writing quotes for Long and Petrino on the UA dole. They come off as nothing more than PR flaks for the UA. Erwin has particularly taken broadcast journalism to a new low in this state in the last year.

Another sellout looking for attention from these freaks is Shawn Arnell, who sounds like he knows radio and could be a good talk-show host if only he wasn't longing for the attention of this group of wackos. Shawn, other people listen to your show besides Hogville readers, and they aren't happy with what you and Wally have done in the last year.

Wes Moore, please be careful. So far your posts there have remained typically just to promote your newscast, which you do a fine job on. But when I see you have thrown up an ad on that site, well it makes me not want to tune in anymore.

Razorback football may be over for another decade thanks to the false perception of public opinion pushed upon the state by Hogville, some members of the Razorback press clique, and some whining parents from NWA upset that Little Johnny didn't get to play throw and catch like he did in high school.

Well fans, you've got your wish -- the University of Arkansas finally has the passing offense you've cried about. Unfortunately, half the fans in the stadium on Saturday don't like the losing ways that have come with it. Neither do half the fans in the state.

The Wally Code: Petrino coach of the year?

Thursday's Wally Hall column offers more comedy and cheerleading for Bobby Petrino as Wally attempts to build him up to a Nick Saban level. As Wally draws out the comparisons between the two, it's funny that one thing he fails to mention is that Saban won a national championship. Petrino? A Big East championship.

Wally calls out to his colleagues in the biz for Petrino to be named the "Associated Press National Coach of the Year" if the Razorbacks win a bowl game. Let me get this straight. Wally thinks a coach who depended on fourth-quarter comebacks against Div. I-AA Western Illinois and Sun Belt rent-a-win Louisana-Monroe should be considered for coach of the year?

Somehow I just don't see the voting members of the AP selecting the winner of the PapaJohns.com bowl as national coach of the year. But not to worry because that's not going to happen -- neither is another win for the Razorbacks this season.

Then Wally throws out this gem: "Atlanta fans moved on immediately after Petrino, and Louisville fans understood Petrino had to get the NFL out of his system."

Atlanta fans moved on immediately after Petrino? Say what??? He is still the most-hated sports figure in that city, and that's probably topping Michael Vick. And Louisville fans understood he had to get the NFL out of his system? They didn't understand then, and they are still complaining about his annual flirtations with other jobs that far outnumbered Houston Nutt's two job interests and are blaming him for the downfall of Louisville football because of all the off-the-field issues the new coach inherited.

And don't forget how much Auburn fans still love Petrino after only one year as offensive coordinator in the Plains. They are counting down the days to his return to Jordan-Hare.

Wally starts off his column by saying Saban and Petrino are kind of like lemonade versus limeade. Except no one drinks limeade. And no one at the AP is going to vote Petrino coach of the year either.

The AP writer who supplies the weekly college football preview in the same issue as Wally's column makes a much better comparison between the two coaches in his game summary...

"Bobby Petrino vs. Nick Saban. The loser MUST honor his current contract."

Does Schaeffer still claim the economy is great?

About a month ago I was listening to Drive Time Sports, and Rick Schaeffer launched into a monologue about how the media was to blame for making too big of an issue of several football player arrests. Then, he compared it to the bad news on the economy, which he called a media creation, citing USA Today as one primary culprit for having a story a day about the economy being in bad shape.

In the words of a famous orator, what say you now, Rick? Still the media's fault?

LR 54, nWa 57

Arkansas Business reports...

Little Rock MSA No. 54 Among Milken's Best-Performing Cities List

The Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway metropolitan statistical area ranked No. 54 among the Milken Institute's 2008 list of America's Best-Performing Cities Index.

Released Thursday, the index measures the hottest places for jobs creation in the country.

The Little Rock metro moved up on the list from No. 73 in 2007.

The Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers metro dropped in the rankings from No. 21 last year to No. 57 in 2008.

Nutt 2, Hogville/Wally/Beck 0

Wake Forest 30, Ole Miss 28
"Sam Swank kicked a 41-yard field goal with 3 seconds left to cap a dramatic final minute and give No. 20 Wake Forest to a 30-28 win over Ole Miss on Saturday. The Rebels (1-1) were a minute away from giving first-year coach Houston Nutt a signature win in only his second game, when Snead led a 7-minute, 80-yard drive."

Arkansas 28, Louisiana-Monroe 27
"Ole Miss, coached by former Arkansas coach Houston Nutt, lost at No. 20 Wake Forest 30-28 on a last-minute field goal. The Arkansas crowd cheered when the score was announced. Of course, the Razorbacks would have lost by the same score and in exactly the same fashion if Jeremy Gener's 45-yard kick in the final minute had been good for Louisiana-Monroe."

Monroe? In the words of Ted Knight, "Monroe???!!!"

Razorback press clique turns flak for Petrino

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.

'Petrino: Run game will improve'

Now there's an irony in the headline of Monday's sports section.

After all the complaining about the passing game under Nutt from the crazies out there who want more passing primarily because they want to be entertained rather than an actual concern for doing the best thing to get a win, now suddenly after almost having another Citadel game the problem is the running game.

Calling a rushing play only 16 times in the entire game is going to get you crushed in the SEC. It almost got you crushed in the Missouri Valley Conference. You get what you ask for, fans.

By the way, nice pants.

Nutt 1, Hogville/Wally/Beck 0

Arkansas 28, Western Illinois 24
"For a while, the game was reminiscent of Arkansas' season-opening loss to the Citadel in 1992. That game got coach Jack Crowe fired, and although Petrino can expect a much longer leash, the honeymoon could be brief if the Razorbacks' youngsters continue to struggle."

Ole Miss 41, Memphis 24
"It was the first time Ole Miss scored 40 points against a Football Bowl Subdivision opponent since a 43-40 win over South Carolina on Nov. 1, 2003."

You did it again, fans.

LR 1, nWa 0: Goodbye Real Deal on the Hill

I was so dismayed to read in Wally's column that northwest Arkansas could not support the Real Deal on the Hill basketball tournament and that it was moving to Little Rock. It was no surprise that 123 of the 141 volunteers for the tournament were from Central Arkansas, or that many teams had to fly into Little Rock and rent a van to drive to Fayetteville.

To summarize: