re: What was the moment that killed Arkansas football?

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Their downfall was not joining the Big 12 when the Southwest Conference folded. Could have kicked Baylor out, maybe, for Arkansas instead. If they had fought hard to get in the south division of the Big 12, they literally could have taken Nebraska's spot in the annual turkey day game against OU, and it would have been a big deal for their recruiting, in my opinion. It would have become a natural rivalry game to look forward too. Not like the Red River shootout, but more like Texas vs A&M on Turkey day. And, more importantly TV sets in Texas would tune in for that game. Nebraska would have thrown a major hissy fit over that but who cares. No foresight though on Arkansas part..

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Arkansas was already in the SEC when the Southwest Conference imploded. I guess you could say that they should have been the ones forcing a move to the Big 8 (and there was talk about this in the ‘80s), but it takes two to tango, and it took some softening up for the Big 8 membership to realize that things were going to have to change because they had no TV markets (and Arkansas wouldn’t have helped in that regard). It was the SEC that had the vision to realize that the status quo would not last (Penn States move to the Big Ten was the first domino to fall).

You also have to remember that Arkansas was a poor state, and Northwest Arkansas was not the economic boom area that it would later become. The fact that Fayetteville was closer to a bunch of Big 8 schools didn’t matter much when Fayetteville was just a small college town. The state as a whole was more oriented south than west.