Mullins resigns at Arkansas Tech after 16 seasons

LITTLE ROCK — Three seasons ago, Arkansas Tech was nationally ranked and in the NCAA Division II playoffs for the third time under Coach Steve Mullins.

But the Wonder Boys, one of the all-time winningest programs in Division II with 516 victories, haven’t been to the playoffs since, nor have they had a winning season.

Less than a week after Arkansas Tech finished the season with three consecutive losses and a 5-6 record, Mullins resigned as the Wonder Boys’ coach after 16 seasons in Russellville.

Mullins was 96-75 in his only head-coaching job and led Arkansas Tech to the Division II playoffs in 1999, 2004 and 2009 and won the 1999 Gulf South Conference championship. He will re m a i n t h e school’s athletic director and help form a committee to find his replacement.

Mullins, who has been football coach and athletic director since 2003, said he hopes to have the position filled by Christmas.

“It can be tough at times to do both jobs and do them both well,” Mullins said Thursday. “I just appreciate [President] Dr. [Robert] Brown and the board for having enough faith in me to be a college head football coach for 16 years. It’s a little unusual in this day and time.”

Though Mullins said he couldn’t pinpoint an exact time in which he decided to step down, his resignation was accepted during the Arkansas Tech board of trustees’ monthly meeting Thursday.

“Steve Mullins will forever be remembered as the man who restored the Arkansas Tech football program and returned us to a level consistent with our storied past,” Brown said in a statement.

Before Mullins arrived in 1997, Arkansas Tech had one winning season in the previous seven years and was transitioning from the NAIA Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference to the Division II Gulf South.

Mullins was 4-7 his first season and 5-5 in his second before going 9-3 in 1999 and reaching the Division II playoffs. He had six more years with seven or more victories, the last coming in 2009 when the Wonder Boys were 9-3, reached the second round of the Division II playoffs and quarterback Nick Graziano finished third in voting for the Harlon Hill Trophy - Division II’s equivalent of the Heisman Trophy.

But the Wonder Boys struggled to find a replacement for Graziano the next two seasons, finishing 4-7 in 2010 and 2-8 in 2011. When they did find one this year in senior transfer Tanner Marsh, a Great American Conference honorable mention selection, Tech’s defense gave up 495.6 yards and 38.6 points per game.

“I would like to be walking out at 10-1 right now,” Mullins said. “That’s not the reality. There’s not anything I can do to change that. ... I want what’s the very best for Tech. Tech has been very good for me.”

Mullins said no specific guidelines have been set for Arkansas Tech’s next coach. Head-coaching experience won’t be a prerequisite, but Division II experience and knowledge of traditional recruiting bases for GAC schools - Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana - is desired.

“We’re going to look for somebody that has had success,” Mullins said. “I’m not going to say we’ll only look at people who have been head coaches, because Dr. Brown took a chance on me and that’s turned out okay.”