Former Arkansas Coach Miffed at Coaches Getting Rewarded for Losing

Kiffin used old playbook perfected for getting raises from former Razorback AD Frank Broyles to land latest boost in pay

Author:
Kent Smith
Publish date:
Dec 1, 2022 10:25 PM EST

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Arkansas Razorbacks

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Former Arkansas Razorback coach Houston Nutt is having a hard time understanding the coaching pay raise circus that is going on across college football.

Wednesday morning, during a special appearance with Little Rock's 103.7 the Buzz's "Morning Mayhem" radio show, Nutt voiced his confusion about how several coaches are getting large contracts and big opportunities despite a lack of recent success.

"Make this make sense to me," Nutt said. "I coached in the state of Mississippi. When you lose your last four out of five and you lose to the in-state rival, you darn sure wasn't going to get a raise. In fact, you're gonna to get blasted a little bit for not beating Mississippi State, but instead you get a $2 million dollar raise. You get an extension."

How Kiffin got that raise should have looked familiar to Nutt as it came directly out of his old playbook. Find a school that sees 8-9 wins as a big deal, hire Jimmy Sexton as your agent, then, each year when a prominent job comes up, let it get out that you're the top candidate for their much larger check book and do nothing to deny it.

A holiday season wasn't complete in Arkansas without Nutt's name popping up at another school followed by athletics director Frank Broyles calling Nutt in for another raise. Kiffin just learned from the master and ran the play to perfection this year.

It's not like it wasn't something Nutt would have liked to have been able to do while at Ole Miss. He just didn't have an athletics director interested in supporting football financially at the time.

"I was trying to find those guys when Pete Boone was AD to build a team meeting room and a weight room and I couldn't find them," Nutt said. "We went to two back to back Cotton Bowls and they wouldn't build a weight room or a meeting room, but they'd go build a soccer field."

Kiffin wasn't the only coach whose financial situation flumoxed Nutt.

"Coaches are being paid millions of dollars for losing who don't coach anymore," Nutt said. "It's just a different world.

"It goes across the country now. The administrators and some of these ADs are so desperate. Matt Rhule, I know he's a good coach, but he got fired for losing. Nebraska is going to pay $74 million."

But, as will be shown in an upcoming story, the coach whose fortune appeared to irritate Nutt the most was his sworn enemy, Hugh Freeze.

Despite the Level 1 infractions, numerous phone calls to escort services on a company phone, lying about Nutt being responsible for most of the infractions that nearly sunk Ole Miss, and having a former player admit on TV during NFL draft coverage that he was paid by Ole Miss coaches, that's not what bothers Nutt about the hire.

"I'm all for second chances and third chances," Nutt said. "Whatever. That's fine."

What bothered Nutt most was how Freeze's Liberty team fell apart down the stretch.

"Auburn is gonna hire a guy who lost the last month," Nutt said. "You could tell when he started looking for jobs. He got beat by New Mexico State. He got beat by UConn, UConn got better, and Virginia Tech. It's a different world."

Nutt can be seen on CBS Sports as part of the network's college football analysts' desk.