The locker room and drama go hand in hand in the world of big-time college sports and the Razorbacks are of course no exception.
Whether it’s an assistant undercutting the head coach, or lack of buy-in from a supposedly superstar player or just good ol’ fashioned NIL squabbling, the last two years have dumped more than their fair share of psychic pain into the minds of Arkansas football fans. And who can forget the weirdness around the walk-ons and redshirts who tuned into The Polar Express in a side locker room during halftime while their teammates were en roue to getting blasted by Auburn 48-10?
Three games into this season, it’s been mostly blessedly quiet on this particular front. These Razorbacks haven’t lost in any embarrassing way, after all, and are 2-1 after a hard-fought 37-27 victory of UAB on Saturday.
The potential for drama, given the relative success of the team and how fresh the season is, seems minimal at this point.
Well, that sure changed Saturday night.
Drama after Arkansas vs UAB
The wife of Jarius Wright, the former Arkansas football star, vented in a Facebook post that Wright and Joe Adams, another ex Hog great, were “denied entry to the locker room post game tonight.”
“They simply wanted to see THEIR records and THEIR pictures all over the building and speak to their coach [Bobby Petrino] who wanted to see them,” Mary Katherine Bentley Wright wrote in a Saturday eve post that has since been taken down.
She didn’t want to name whom she felt deserved blame but said it’s not on the security guards, as “they loved seeing them and happily ushered them to the doors.”
UPDATE – David Bazzel has an account of the evening that in part contradicts the above. Read more here:
Bazzel Sets the Record Straight on What Really Happened with Locker Room Drama
Then, this napalm bomb: “This is the epitome of Arkansas’ program right Now. Locking down the facilities & not allowing the greats to see what they helped build. Not inviting the greats back to be apart of the recruitment processes and show their faces in the halls of the places they literally helped build. Imagine being Joe & Jarius and not being allowed entry after all they did for that program, that stadium, that locker room, those fans.”
That deserves an inhale or two. Finally, she finished her message by saying Petrino, the offensive coordinator, and Hunter Yurachek, the athletic director, “wouldn’t condone this treatment… they treat our guys as they should. This is somebody else’s call and I’ll just leave it at that.”
In a comment, she added that Jarius Wright “would NEVER go public with stuff like this, but I will and he gave me the green light. I’m just a life-long hog married to one of the greatest and I’m pissed lol.”
There’s a lot to process here, to say the least.
For one, were players being allowed into the winning locker room in previous years and has something changed?
According to Jarius Wright, who played in the Bobby Petrino era 2008 to 2011, the change has happened since 2019. “With Coach [Bret Bielema] and Chad Morris, we were allowed to go in the locker room,” he texted to Best of Arkansas Sports, declining further comment.
Jerry Franklin, who starred at linebacker for the Hogs during the same years, said that Mary Wright is “right on point” with her Facebook post. “The other programs in the conference are a lot more welcoming to former players,” he texted to Best of Arkansas Sports.
Former Razorback Demarcus Love, who played on the offensive line from 2007-10, chimed in on Mary Wright’s post with this comment:
Clearly, Sam Pittman would disagree with a lot of this. Some of the criticism above and below may across as piling on, but it’s important to note because it shows that this is a bigger story that goes beyond just Adams and Wright.
Former Arkansas Football Players Getting Stiff-Armed?
Over the last few years, there has been some debate over whether former football Razorbacks feel as welcome as they would want. During the Chad Morris era and the first few months of the Sam Pittman era, Peyton Hillis said was so eager to help the program that he “signed up for every position they’ve had an opening for, from quality control to defensive assistant to, heck, waterboy. [Even] recruiter, something where I could come in and help the team.”
But he never got a call back.
“There’s been no contact from either coaching staff,” he added. “It’s kind of like you’ve been abandoned by the staff, not by the university or the fans.”
Not surprisingly, Mary Wright’s post attracted some sympathetic fans and former players. JJ Meaders, a UA wide receiver from the early 1990s, commented: “Welcome to the struggle! That’s why I don’t attend many Razorback functions. Love my teammates and see them regularly, but the school really needs to rethink some things.”
Jamel Harris, a linebacker from the late 1990s, responded to Meadors: “Something similar happened to me when Petrino was the [head coach]. I was like ‘That’s my shirtless picture in the hallway holding 150lb dumbbells’ and I’m not allowed in.”
In January 2024, Sam Olajubutu – who keeps up with many other former Hogs – told Best of Arkansas Sports that “we had a reunion a couple of years ago, but other than that, we’re not really getting invited up there for games.”
We checked with Olajubutu to see what he thought of Mary Wright’s post and he said that he’s never tried to enter the Arkansas football locker room after a game since his playing days. “I went during summer practice and didn’t have a problem,” he added. “But I did let them know I was coming before I go.”
Lots of Questions to Be Answered
It’s unknown whether the former Razorbacks who were blocked from entry into the victorious locker room are giving the staff a heads up and, if so, how much of one. It’s easy to imagine that there are all types of contingencies at play in such scenarios. If the current Hogs were to lose the game, they would be less likely to want others in the locker room with them, for instance.
Even a win, such as the one against UAB that laid bare issues with the defense, is no sure thing. What if the victory isn’t by as big of a margin as the coaches wanted?
Finally, there’s the overarching trend in college football of less access across the board to current players and coaches. In the Bielema and Chad Morris eras, there was no in-house media team taking video of locker room speeches and celebrations for Hogs+ content. That’s changed and now inside looks at locker room celebrations are considered to be valuable content.
If a couple former players – even great ones like Wright and Adams – are seen in the background of a such a celebration video, couldn’t that open a can of worms down the line if other former Razorbacks also want entry into a post-game locker room? Where would the staff draw the line on who and who not to allow?
It’s one thing when legendary Hogs come knocking on the door, but quite another when former walk-ons or players who transferred away start asking for entry.
Perhaps a more open-door policy would introduce more of a headache than it’s worth.
Plenty of questions need to be answered more thoroughly in the coming days, and I’m sure more will be as this is reported out. As you can see below, some are already being addressed by David Bazzel, the former Razorback and sports talk show co-host.
In the meantime, don’t think these handful of former Razorbacks are the only alumni frustrated by doors they feel are unfairly closed to them. It’s almost a certainty that there are many more and that their grievances deserve to be seriously considered.
On the Morning Mayhem show, co-host David Bazzel said that he and Steve Sullivan, the KATV Channel 7 sports anchor, ran into Joe Adams and Jarius Wright in the immediate aftermath of the Hogs’ 37-27 win at Reynolds Razorback Stadium.
More here:
Read our latest column on this drama here:
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