TAT: Crowe Returns as Competition

This article first appeared in the August 31, 2012 Football Edition of The Arkansas Traveler.

     Tomorrow will be a homecoming for Jacksonville State head coach Jack Crowe, as he was the head coach at Arkansas from 1990 through the first game of the 1992 season.

     The reason many Hog fans still remember him is because of the way he left Arkansas.

     After a 6-6 season in 1991, Arkansas left the Southwest Conference for the Southeastern Conference.

     Crowe knew the SEC was difficult, as he was the offensive coordinator at Auburn from 1982 to 1985, but neither he nor anyone else expected their first non-conference game of the season to be challenging.

     “Some people were saying (Arkansas) needed to be better, but no one felt like a coaching change was imminent,” said Rick Schaeffer, former UA sports information director.

     The Citadel was the first Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA) school Arkansas ever played. Many fans were “looking ahead” to the next week’s game against South Carolina, their first SEC game, and considered it a “forgone conclusion” that Arkansas would beat The Citadel, Schaeffer said.

     Instead, the Bulldogs pulled off a shocking 10-3 upset.

     “Everyone was stunned,” Schaeffer said. “About 37,000 people were there and the stadium was dead silent.”

     Besides the outcome, everything else after the game was normal. The media wrote their stories and the team shifted their focus to rebounding against South Carolina.

     The following day, plans that would lead to the temporary downfall of Crowe were set in motion. Crowe held his weekly Sunday press conference, then went straight to Athletic Director Frank Broyles’ office, where he was informed he had been fired.

     “The media was still upstairs, but no one knew what was going on,” Schaeffer said.

     An hour after Crowe held his press conference, another one was held to introduce defensive coordinator Joe Kines as the interim head coach.

     Crowe went on to be the offensive coordinator at Baylor for three years, before dropping out of coaching and going into private business in Birmingham, Ala.

     “He was doing well from what I was told,” Schaeffer said. “He was a brilliant guy. He had a major in chemistry and was pre-med.”

     However, in 2000, Jacksonville State approached him about becoming their next head coach and he took the job.

     In 2010, he was on the winning side of a similar upset, as he led the Gamecocks to a double overtime 49-48 victory over Ole Miss. Ironically, the Rebels were coached by former Arkansas head coach Houston Nutt.

     Nutt was also a “rising young assistant coach” on Crowe’s 1992 Arkansas coaching staff, Schaeffer said.

     Tomorrow, Schaeffer expects Crowe to use the Ole Miss upset as an example of “It can be done, a David and Goliath story.” Likewise, Arkansas head coach John L. Smith will use it as an example.

     “He can tell them that this team beat Ole Miss two years ago, so don’t go out and lay an egg,” Schaeffer said.

     No matter the outcome, Schaeffer believes it will be a “great homecoming” for Crowe.

     “He’s a great guy and I’m happy for him. I’m expecting a nice ovation from Hog fans, but it ends there. Arkansas still wants to win the game,” Schaeffer said.