A mission statement, of sorts

Seeing as how the Arkansas Razorback football team appears to be careening toward the ever-dreaded Indy Bowl in 2007, we felt it was time to make a point or two about this blog.

Because our modus operandi is to critique Hogville, which prides itself on being the militant wing of the anti-Houston Nutt movement, it might appear to the untrained eye that we are indirectly defending the indefensible. In other words, because we find the average poster on Hogville to be a churlish dope, there might be a gross misconception that we somehow like Houston Dale Nutt, Jr.

Good God, no.

The Nutt era has been ginormously sucky, to use the parlance of our times. We don't need to rehash all the records and statistics and public relations follies that support this conclusion. Houston is petulant, insipid, embarrassing, dumb, etc., so on and so forth. We don't like him. We don't like what he's done to Razorback football. We don't like what he's done to the Razorback fan base. We don't like how he represents the university, the program, or the state. And we can't possibly say this any more plainly: WE WANT HIM GONE NOW, AND HAVE WANTED HIM GONE FOR FAR TOO LONG.

What is happening right now is a microcosm of the Nutt era: intolerably bad quarterback play, terrible game management, egregious playcalling inflexibilities, lack of any evident progress at certain positions and from certain players, bizarre sphincter clenching at inopportune times, and repetitive mistakes and excuses therefor. We are undisciplined from stem to stern and only our truly excellent players (McFadden, Jones, Tejada, Sheppard) seem to be able to go out on the field and do things consistently well and stay above the turmoil and dissension. Hell, even McFadden got a case of the fumbles the other night, so maybe he's finally catching the same virus, too.

The upshot is that we are clamoring for change just as hard as the Hogvillians are. But we try to keep our disdain for Nutt and his various and sundry minions in perspective. Meanwhile, the legion of buffoons over at Hogville are doing everything short of stalking Nutt himself and challenging him to fistfights at On the Rocks. They're shelling out money for airplane banners and t-shirts and lawsuits and protests and God-knows-what, and none of it has actually worked. Sure, when Nutt finally leaves or is dismissed, they will take credit for their "grass roots" effort to rid us all of the scourge, but that's similar to Michael Vick arguing that he was electrocuting dogs in an effort to more fully understand the moral dilemma of euthanasia.

Hogville and its progeny (and some of its contemporaries, too, particularly one formerly amusing anti-Nutt site that had a notable admin clash sometime last year) have pushed the crazy throttle into overdrive. They want blood, even if they don't smell it in the water. They're looking for new and exciting ways to make sure that Nutt's successor is hand-picked from a really nice pot of deadbeats, burnouts, and castoffs...because, after all, what coach in his right mind would want to put down roots here, with all these zany assholes constantly rocking the boat from several feet beneath the water's surface?

We should also point out that Hogville is also notorious for taking shots at players, and recently a few of the bastards have even called out Darren McFadden. Of course, the Jesus of Arkansas Football, who is going to become the school's all-time leading rusher in 2 1/2 seasons against Auburn this Saturday, probably doesn't care. But again this just shows how disgusting that message board can be: we'll eat our own if they show even the faintest sign of sticking up for their coach. I guess our expectation should be that McFadden, destined to make tons of money in his forthcoming pro career, will sabotage his reputation and his earning potential by tarring and feathering his own coach in print.

Please note that this blog is titled "Smarter Hogville" and not "Smarter Than Hogville." We agree with their core ideas over there, not that they're particularly revolutionary or that they've got some sort of patent on the notion that Houston Dale Nutt, Jr. is a bad coach who needs to go far away. But while they're getting their next little uprising together, we're trying not to make ourselves too miserable, trying to occasionally get some work done, and trying to spend a little time away from the sport for our own sanity.