re: Speculation mounts on Gus Malzahn's hiring at historic college football program

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Tore what fandom apart?

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Followers of Gus threw a major hissy fit when Gus was forced out at Arkansas and once Houston Nutt was fired they fully expected Gus to return in triumph and become the HC here. They had some real movers and shakers in their megachurch. As such they really stirred things up.

How bad could it have been? The current arguments over keeping Petrino seem like a pleasant conversation about Spring weather in comparison to what was ripping through the fans up here. A majority of fans wound up in the "anyone but Gus" camp but that just made the "Springdale Mafia" members even more determined to hire Gus.

To make matters worse every time the Arkansas job opened up Gus was the candidate of choice for a lot of the big wigs... and kept turning us down. It culminated with the first booster revolt to ever succeed in Arkansas history where they tossed out Jeff Long and appointed themselves as the people that would pick the next HC. And they had their hearts set on Gus who they were sure was going to come home, at last.

Gus strung them along, got a major pay raise from Auburn (which infuriated their fans), and then bailed. Leaving us stuck with Chad Morris. A blow the program still has not recovered from.

To put it mildly there is a lot of bad blood, particularly in NW Arkansas, over the whole mess.

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Arkansas is never going to hire Malzahn. You can bet on it.

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Probably. He would be an immediate success.

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ask...did he really even interview?

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There's interviewing and there's interviewing. Some of these interviews are to talk to coaches about other coaches, about schemes, etc.

Gus burned all his bridges with Hog fans when he used the Arkansas opening to get a raise at Auburn. Most Hog fans didn't want him, but were willing to accept him back then. Now, we would rather go 2-10, 0-8 than have Gus as our coach.

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I have visited once but barely got to see anything... not a surprise because jeez that city is huge. I liked Oklahoma City a lot more than I did Dallas.

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How long ago was that?

At one point, OKC was the 3rd largest city in the country in terms of square miles. Not sure if that is still true.

There are at least 5 other cities that are completely enclosed by OKC.

A lot of it is zoned "rural" so farmers can raise animals, but they are slowly selling out to the developers for suburban expansion.

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How long ago was that?

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Goodness, 25 years ago I'd say.

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Gus strung them along, got a major pay raise from Auburn (which infuriated their fans), and then bailed. Leaving us stuck with Chad Morris. A blow the program still has not recovered from.

To put it mildly there is a lot of bad blood, particularly in NW Arkansas, over the whole mess.

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After Arkansas canned Chad Morris, damned if Gus didn't immediately hire him as Auburn's OC.

That's a tight knit bunch of guys.