FAYETTEVILLE — Airplane banners with anti-Houston Nutt messages that have been flown over the past two Arkansas home games are wearing thin with the Razorbacks.
They take the messages as attempts to fracture the football program.
"Personally, it's kind of funny hearing it coming from a 22-year-old, but I think it's a little bit childish," senior linebacker Weston Dacus said. "You know, I think people should focus their time on other things rather than trying tomaybe tear a university apart or tear a team apart during the middle of a season."
Arkansas demolished Ole Miss 44-8 last Saturday in Oxford, Miss., to notch its first SEC victory.
After the game, Arkansas offensive coordinator David Lee praised Nutt for his effort in keeping the team together.
"Houston did a super job fighting off all the crud that's flying around our program andgetting our players ready to play," Lee said. "A lot of credit goes to Houston."
Nutt, whose contract runs through 2012, has a 71-47 record in his 10th season at Arkansas. He has a 39-37 record in SEC games and has guided the Razorbacks to one 10-victory season and two nine-victory years. Arkansas has not won an SEC championship under his watch, and has gone through two losing seasons.
Arkansas has won three of its past four games to pull to 4-3 overall, 1-3 in SEC play. The Razorbacks had fourth-quarter leads in all three of their SEC losses, and two were especially excruciating: an Alabama touchdown with eight seconds left led to a 41-38 loss, and an Auburn field goal with 21 seconds left sealed the 9-7 defeat at Reynolds Razorback Stadium.
A plane circled the stadium before the Auburn game trailing a banner that ended with the message: Fire Nutt.
"That's not right," senior defensive lineman Marcus Harrison said. "The booing and the planes flying over the stadium and things like that.
"A lot of them people aren't even aware of the situation [Nutt] has been in. I don't know how they can try to judge somebody and be judgmental when they don't even know what's going on."
Junior tailback Darren Mc-Fadden said he has not seen the banners, the other of which was carried over War Memorial Stadium before the Razorbacks' 34-15 victory over Tennessee-Chattanooga on Oct. 6 in Little Rock.
"Fans have their thoughts and things like that," McFadden said. "It doesn't really matter what I think about them. It's just something fans want to do."
McFadden has been vocal in his support of Nutt. He grabbed a microphone after the Razorbacks' 66-7 victory over NorthTexas on Sept. 29 and addressed fans who wore black T-shirts to the game to show their dissatisfaction with Nutt.
"Y'all act like you want Coach Nutt gone. That's just like wanting us gone, baby," McFadden said.
This week, McFadden was asked how Nutt's handling the criticism.
"Coach Nutt is a great man," McFadden said. "Out of all the pressure he's under, I think If I was in Coach Nutt's shoes, I probably would have folded. He's been a great man and he's stood tall through all of it."
Nutt has addressed the negativity with the media a couple of times this season, and said he talks to the players when he sees it as necessary.
"I let them know, Hey, there is not one thing [negative fans] can do," Nutt said Oct. 14. "They are not going to help you get better at blocking or tackling. All it's doing, it's wasted energy. It's wasted oxygen.
"Hey, you just play the gamethe way you know how to play it. Let's coach as hard as we know how to coach it. Let's do the best we can and turn it loose. Don't worry about any of that. When you start worrying about all that, you're taking away from what you're supposed to do."
Nutt spoke after the lopsided victory at Ole Miss about how it was "good for us to get on the road at this particular time. It really was very good.
"The [fans] that come this far, they have to make a genuine effort to travel. They're here because they want to follow those Hogs. I really appreciate them being here."
After starting the second half of the regular season with a victory, the Razorbacks' aim the rest of the way is to get bowl-eligible and finish strong.
"We've got one focus and that's winning ballgames," Dacus said. "You know there's going to be a few people who speak their minds, but we know we've got the majority behind us right now."
Sports, Pages 25, 30 on 10/26/2007