2012 staff criticizes Hogs AD

Say Smith’s deal undermined team

— The aftermath of Arkansas’ football meltdown of 2012 took another turn Wednesday.

Former Coach John L. Smith and former assistants Paul Petrino and Paul Haynes criticized Arkansas Athletic Director Jeff Long in a Sporting News article for giving Smith a 10-month contract in April after firing Bobby Petrino, and insinuated that some of the team’s seniors didn’t give everything they had down the stretch.

Paul Petrino, now the head coach at Idaho, told the Sporting News he thought it was a mistake to give Smith only 10 months as the head coach.

“Players know what that means; they understand that,” he told the magazine for an article that appeared online Wednesday evening. “They should’ve hired [Smith] for two years or hired someone else for two years, or just (expletive)-canned all of us.”

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Smith, who is now the head coach at Division II Fort Lewis College in Colorado, told the Sporting News: “You look back and, yeah, a little more time would’ve been nice. Does that giveyou more teeth? Yes.”

The Razorbacks, who were No. 10 in The Associated Press preseason poll, were impacted by key injuries and were upset by Louisiana-Monroe in their second game on the way to a 4-8 season.

“Even if they had a plan to get rid of us no matter what, which I think they did, you say two years and I think the kids dig in,” Haynes, now the head coach at his alma mater Kent State, told the magazine. “When you give 10 months, everyone is on egg shells.”

After firing Bobby Petrino for cause, Long initiated incentive contracts for the nine assistant coaches that paid them more than $719,000 combined above their salaries. Smith received $850,000 for his one season as head coach.

Long would not comment for the Sporting News article and could not be reached for comment Wednesday evening by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

The Sporting News article said Haynes, Petrino and Smith said they didn’t hold any grudges with Long or with Arkansas’ administration and that they were treated well by the school.

However, the magazine said all three coaches claimed that by November “several key members of the team were mailing it in” as Arkansas fell from No. 8 in the AP poll with a four-game losing streak early in the season.

“There were some seniors who kind of hung it up, to be honest with you,” Paul Petrino said in the article. “They weregoing to worry about their futures more than that team. A couple seniors said they were hurt and I don’t know if they really were.”

Paul Petrino praised the players for their effort following Arkansas’ season-ending 20-13 loss to LSU.

“I was proud of everybody that fought as hard as they could to the end,” Petrino told reporters after that game. “That’s something we can all look in the mirror and always know that we did.”

The Sporting News article said the coaches would not identify any players by name in the allegations.

“If a kid’s hurt, he’s hurt,” Smith told Sporting News. “Could some of the guys that were hurt have played with those injuries and continued on? That’s up to those guys.

“But I think some of the players, some of the older guys, said, ‘Why should I continue on?’ They were looking ahead to the NFL.”

Arkansas had numerous seniors injured during the season, including injuries that required surgery for fullback Kiero Small and linebackers Alonzo Highsmith and Tenarius Wright.

Tight end Chris Gragg missed seven games with a deep bone bruise that he hurt in the fourth game against Rutgers and re-injured in the eighth game against Ole Miss. Tailback Knile Davis missed two games with a hamstring injury.

Sports, Pages 19 on 01/31/2013

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