Tye & Tommy on the Hoops Hype Mason Jones article, Kevin McPherson joins, plus the Michael Jordan of Arkansas!
It’s time to crown a champion in the greatest Razorback football game of all time bracket
This is it. After weeks of voting, debate, and memories, these are the two games you have voted on. Now it’s time to make it official, what is the Greatest Razorback Football Game of All Time?? These two games are two of the most memorable and legendary games in Razorback history. Make sure you submit your vote below!!
Here are some highlights from both of these games! Shoutout to @WarMachine2013 for putting these awesome highlight reels together!
#8 Arkansas @ #1 Texas – 1964
#2 Arkansas @ #6 Nebraska – 1965 Cotton Bowl
Click here to view the full bracket!
Voting is open from now until Friday at 8:00am! We will announce the winning game LIVE on The Morning Rush on Friday! GET YOUR VOTES IN!
Halftime with Phil Elson expands to NWA sports radio starting Wednesday
There’s change coming to sports radio in Fayetteville and Northwest Arkansas.
Halftime, hosted by Razorback baseball and women’s basketball voice Phil Elson joins the ESPN 99.5 station lineup starting Wednesday, May 6.
The show airs from Noon-2 p.m. each weekday afternoon.
Halftime can also be heard on 95.3 in Northwest Arkansas and 1290-AM and online at HitThatLine.com.
Elson co-hosts the show with Matt Jenkins and Matt Travis, both Arkansas natives.
“Bringing Halftime to Northwest Arkansas is the realization of the desire we had when we started the show nearly two years ago,” Elson said. “I know I, Matty T and Matt ‘Smackdown’ Jenkins will continue to bring an informative and entertaining program for sports fans across the state.”
Adding Halftime is something ESPN 99.5 program director Zach Arns has been wanting to do for some time.
“Having Phil as part of our ESPN 99.5 family is something I’ve wanted since the day I took over as program director,” Arns said Tuesday. “We are beyond excited to add Halftime to our locally-produced lineup in Northwest Arkansas
“Phil Elson, Matt Jenkins and Matt Travis have provided Razorback fans with the most informative mid-day show in the state and we can’t wait to bring them to NWA.”
Halftime joins the weekday lineup of Razorback-focused programs including The Morning Rush with Tye Richardson and Tommy Craft from 6-9 a.m. and Ruscin & Zach with Derek Ruscin and Zach Arns from 3-7 p.m.
ESPN Arkansas programs can also be heard on 95.3-FM in Fort Smith-River Valley, 96.3-FM in Hot Springs-West Arkansas and 104.3-FM in Harrison-Mountain Home.
Sherrill remembers playing Hogs at ‘loud’ War Memorial Stadium
Jackie Sherrill coached just about everywhere across five decades and he really liked playing in Arkansas … except when playing in Little Rock’s War Memorial Stadium back in the day.
“For a small stadium it was the loudest stadium of any place we played,” Sherrill said to Tye Richardson and Tommy Craft (The Morning Rush) Tuesday morning on ESPN Arkansas. “For the people that never experienced games in Little Rock it was a hard place to play for the opponent.”
Sherrill’s long career started at Alabama where he played and was a graduate assistant for a year under Paul “Bear” Bryant, then came to Arkansas for a year as a GA for Frank Broyles, but he got to know Johnny Majors, who was on the staff then.
He followed Majors to first Iowa State (where he was on the staff with former Arkansas player and another pretty good coach in Jimmy Johnson). Pittsburgh was next as defensive coordinator before going to Washington State for a year and when Majors moved to Tennessee, Sherrill got his first head coaching position.
In 1981 he came to Texas A&M as the first college coach to make over $100,000 a year and he found out pretty quick the old Southwest Conference was as good as anything in football.
“The SEC today is probably as close,” Sherrill said. “The rivalry in the old Southwest Conference was because you only had one school out of state in Arkansas and the rest were in Texas.”
After Arkansas bolted to the SEC it started a chain reaction of teams moving around in conferences and the old SWC ended up in the Big 12 and Texas greed blew that up mainly because Tom Osborne at Nebraska got tired of it when the Longhorns got their own television network.
Texas athletics director DeLoss Dodds was the one trying to impose Texas will on an entire league.
“The biggest thing is DeLoss got really greedy,” Sherrill said. “When they would go to conference meeting he wanted most of the conference TV money. That was the start.”
They came close to going to the Pac 10 along with Oklahoma and some others but the Longhorns weren’t giving up the Longhorn Network that pays them reportedly around $15 million a year.
“The Pac 10 was going to take all the teams to the Mississippi River,” Sherrill said.
Texas could have given up a little bit of their television deal and the landscape of college football would be completely different.
“The economics drives college football,” Sherrill said. “Everything. The money comes from the television plackage (the SEC Network). No one knows today what that package really is because they don’t want the other conferences to know how much they pay the SEC.
“It comes back to one thing — fan base. That’s where they sell the advertising because that’s where they make their money. You look at the fan basein the SEC all are at over a million in each school in fan base and the only other conference that can challenge that is Big 10.”
Coaching under Bryant, Broyles, Majors
Sherrill worked for Bryant, Broyles and Majors over a three-year period from 1966-68.
“Broyles was probably a CEO,” Sherrill said. “He was very intelligent and approached it differently. Coach Majors was a different PR guy and approached it very differently.
“They all approached it differently, but all three were very successful.”
Praise for Razorback fans
“Arkansas fans one of the ones that is true and loyal,” Sherrill said. “If you’re a head coach you want the fan base in the stands.”
Bud Light Seltzer Morning Rush Podcast — Hunter Yurachek’s comments, Jackie Sherrill and more!
Tye & Tommy on what Hunter Yurachek actually said yesterday, former HC Jackie Sherrill joins and more!
Jorn tells Halftime he’s missing college baseball during ongoing health shutdown
With no games being played, former Razorback pitching coach Dave Jorn told Phil Elson, Matt Jenkins and Matt Travis (Halftime) on ESPN Arkansas he’s disappointed to miss what was looking like a good season for the Hogs.
Hogs planning football players returning mid-July, normal schedule for fall
Hunter Yurachek followed the lead of the SEC on Monday, telling the UA’s Board of Trustees on Monday they are planning on a normal football football schedule and players returning in mid-July.
The board voted unanimously to have classes ready to re-open in the fall.
KARK-TV had a tweet with more details Monday.
JUST IN: University of Arkansas planning on starting Razorback football Sept. 5, with practice starting mid July -per Hunter Yurachek on Board of Trustees virtual meeting today pic.twitter.com/w9IhxH4Zi5
— Susan El Khoury (@SusanElKhoury) May 4, 2020
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey made the media rounds last week and probably the most compelling reason that at least the league is looking at things getting back on track sooner rather than later.
“If football is not an active part of our life in the fall, what’s happening around us becomes a real big question societally, economically and culturally,” he told WJXL-FM sports radio in Jacksonville, Fla.
What he didn’t say is it’s an economic necessity, whether anybody wants to admit it or not.
“My focus is on football as scheduled,” Sankey said. “The week before volleyball and the week before that soccer starting. The circumstances will guide that decision making. We want to be prepared.”
Then Yurachek stepped up and told the UA’s board that very thing in a virtual meeting Monday.
“We have to create confidence for our student-athletes and their parents that we can minimize risk,” Yurachek said.
Will things change? Probably. There will likely be spacing and other measures implemented.
Yurachek told the board season ticket sales have been slower than normal while fans wait to see if the season will be played. The athletics department has alternative budget plans if the season is canceled or shortened, he said.
