When Eli Drinkwitz, about to enter his fifth season as Missouri football coach, took the dais at SEC Media Days on Tuesday, an otherwise throwaway remark jumped out to those of us in the Natural State. Drink, as he’s often called, is an Arkansas native, a man raised in Alma and who cut his coaching teeth at Springdale High under the guidance of Gus Malzahn. So when he mentioned Nutt by name during his remarks, ears around here perked up, especially after Nutt had previously said he pitied Razorbacks coach Sam Pittman after Arkansas hired Bobby Petrino.
“He talked about these are the best days of your life,” Drinkwitz said Nutt told his team last fall. “And Cody Schrader still talks about that. He told our team, hey, man, I’m now in the NFL, but I promise you these are the best days of your life and he really embodied that.”
The former Arkansas coach, born and bred in the Natural State, gave advice to the Missouri Tigers, advice that clearly struck the team’s best player. Why would he do that? Why would Nutt have talked to Mizzou instead of, say, the Hogs? Isn’t Nutt supposed to be loyal to his home state? A good number of fans think so.
Arkansas, Missouri Football Have Legitimate Beef
The Arkansas-Missouri rivalry may have been something created out of thin air, but since its inception, it made a whole lot of sense to me. Both schools have had their moments in football, but neither has a history of being some of the roughest and toughest around for the last 30, 40 years. The states themselves are similar geographically, though Missouri’s two metro areas are far bigger than Arkansas’ two. Politically and economically, they’re similar, too. Heck, the two states share the distinction of being the home of the Ozarks. The only state more similar to Arkansas than Missouri is the one to the Arkansas’ west and that sure isn’t a football rivalry.
Since Mizzou joined the SEC, it’s fair to say the Tigers and Hogs have had one of the better rivalries (as compared to Arkansas against anyone else), believe it or not. Yes, Arkansas just won twice – a further testament to the team’s place among the nationally mediocre – but more than half the games between the two schools have been decided by 10 points or less. Five of the 10 meetings have been decided by one possession.
Hogs’ Loyalty Extends More To Petrino Than Native Sons
Heck, part of the reason Petrino was hired was to flip the script on that series. Schrader, the former Tigers running back who won the Burlsworth Trophy last year (named, of course, after Arkansas’ legend) ran roughshod over the Hogs in the Tigers’ 48-14 win last year. Afterward, Drinkwitz had some at Arkansas’ expense, saying his team entered the game to play and the Hogs entered to fight. Two Razorbacks players were ejected for fighting in the second quarter.
The game ended up a perfect microcosm of the Arkansas season. The Razorbacks needed an overhaul after a disaster, so in came Bobby P., the last man to have sustained – if tainted – success in Fayetteville, as Pittman’s offensive coordinator. Petrino immediately became the rumor mill’s preferred candidate to take over for Pittman as head coach should this forthcoming season go awry.
Nutt, the man for whom Petrino took over in 2008, spoke to the Missouri football team during fall camp 2023, Drinkwitz said Tuesday, just before Drinkwitz fielded Mizzou’s best team in a decade. Nutt, too, is an Arkansas native, a Little Rock Central grad and former quarterback for the Hogs in addition to being a former head coach. But his legacy is more complicated to a lot of kinds of people who believe in that sort of aforementioned loyalty.
Unwavering Allegiance Is A Bad Idea
As for the question of loyalty, consider it a non-starter. Geographical loyalties are just like any other kind of loyalty: it exists until it doesn’t. Nutt owes Arkansas, neither the state nor the University of, a thing. Drinkwitz didn’t run the ex-Hogs head man out of town. The people of Arkansas did. No allegiance is owed under normal circumstances and certainly not after messy divorces.
Nutt cares, or appears to care, about people, not brands or logos. No catchphrases will bring him onboard. No jeering from former supporters about his being a fraud will bother him. Instead, Nutt is sticking by the human beings who have had his back, a trait that is increasingly less common in sports. Drinkwitz, then just 24 years old, stuck around at SHS when Nutt hired Malzahn ahead of that ill-fated 2007 season before joining Gus’ staff at Auburn in 2009. It’s fair to say the old coach played a role, however small, in helping Drink climb the coaching ladder.
That sort of thing matters more than a logo or geographical boundaries, that having the back of the people who have yours. Houston Nutt knows this. Eli Drinkwitz knows this. Arkansas fans need to, too.
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If you, dear Arkansas fan, had it to do over, are you hoping for Drinkwitz or Pittman? He’s a son of Arkansas, but he’s also hurt the Hogs. Your call, who ya got?
To the surprise of no one, Nutt appreciates the *people* of Arkansas. The man seems genuine in his love of people. This was just over the weekend.
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