Really interesting article I found on the Athletic about the Nebraska '03 football head coaching search and how much of a cluster it was.
Arkansas is featured heavy in due to Nutt almost going there. I'll paste some exerpts below. But man if Twitter was around then, it would've been a field day.
"Details emerged about the NFL coordinator so intrigued by Nebraska that he began to assemble a staff for the move and a motive that helped lead Pederson to oddball candidate Houston Nutt of Arkansas."
The twin-engine turbojet sat on the tarmac at Northwest Arkansas National Airport on Jan. 2, 2004, ready to whisk a head coach away to Lincoln.
Pederson nervously waited at home on that Friday afternoon for a decision from Nutt. Nebraska’s plane had left the Millard Airport in suburban Omaha shortly after 2 p.m. As the hours dragged on, a tense Pederson checked in with Nebraska chancellor Harvey Perlman about whether the plane should stay or bail.
“I said, ‘Well, we’re already going to get so much crap from having the plane down there,’” Perlman surmised, “‘that it doesn’t hurt to take 10 more minutes or a half hour.’”
They’d already been turned down twice. Pederson’s secret plan had failed. Now he had to land this one. And Nutt could sense that. The AD’s urgency made him uneasy.
“I’mma tell you something, this seemed like it was ultra-fast,” Nutt told The Athletic. “I felt like this was moving real fast, now. I just felt like his foot was on the pedal. Everything, he wanted it warp speed. He wanted it now.”
What ensued was a brief but dramatic tug-of-war for a coach who, six years in with the Razorbacks, hadn’t enjoyed a season better than 9-3. Pederson would later say they were only trying to get Nutt to fly in for an interview. Perlman hadn’t met him. But Nutt’s agent, Jimmy Sexton, assured Nutt if he got on the plane, Sexton would have a deal written up before they landed. They both knew there was no coming back to Fayetteville if Nutt boarded the jet.
Pederson was determined to get a deal done and announced over the weekend. He’d spent that Thursday in Fayetteville pitching Nutt on the job. Going into Friday, Arkansas AD Frank Broyles told the “Arkansas Democrat-Gazette”: “I think he’s going. I think there’s a 90 percent chance that he is.”
In order to avoid the Nebraska media following their every move, Pederson and executive associate AD Marc Boehm booked a creative accommodation: When Nutt got into town, he’d stay in a spare bedroom at Boehm’s house.
But Broyles and Jim Lindsey, a former star running back at the school who sat on the Arkansas board of trustees, didn’t surrender. They spent that Friday afternoon negotiating in Nutt’s living room. The message from Lindsey was compelling: Arkansas is home, he had something special going and he was just getting started. Broyles was flattering, too, but his patience was wearing thin. He refused to speak to Sexton. He needed an answer.
“Make a decision,” Nutt recalls him saying. “If you’re gonna leave, leave!”
Sexton advised him to pick Nebraska, because it was offering the kind of money Arkansas couldn’t match. Pederson appeared willing to overpay.
“I do remember Steve saying, ‘We’ve got to try to make this happen, so we will try to do what’s necessary,’” Boehm said.
The “Democrat-Gazette” reported on a bidding war that went into Friday evening, claiming Nebraska offered as much as $2.5 million per year — a salary that would’ve made Nutt the sport’s highest-paid coach. Nebraska leadership publicly denied it.
By floating the allegedly exorbitant offer, though, Arkansas made Nebraska look even more desperate. Arkansas was willing to double Nutt’s salary to nearly $1.5 million. It was enough.
“Bottom line, I could not get on that plane,” Nutt said. “I couldn’t do it.”
“They played us well,” Perlman said.
How did Pederson take it?
“Not good,” Nutt said. “He thought he at least had me on that plane, and he was really close. He was really close.”
Broyles had the last laugh. “Everything’s fair in love, war and coaching,” he said at the time. And now Nebraska had a real problem. This was the moment when the search turned ugly. Perlman admits this step in the process became disastrous. After 33 days, Pederson was starting over again. The fan base was running out of patience and confidence.
Arkansas is featured heavy in due to Nutt almost going there. I'll paste some exerpts below. But man if Twitter was around then, it would've been a field day.
"Details emerged about the NFL coordinator so intrigued by Nebraska that he began to assemble a staff for the move and a motive that helped lead Pederson to oddball candidate Houston Nutt of Arkansas."
The twin-engine turbojet sat on the tarmac at Northwest Arkansas National Airport on Jan. 2, 2004, ready to whisk a head coach away to Lincoln.
Pederson nervously waited at home on that Friday afternoon for a decision from Nutt. Nebraska’s plane had left the Millard Airport in suburban Omaha shortly after 2 p.m. As the hours dragged on, a tense Pederson checked in with Nebraska chancellor Harvey Perlman about whether the plane should stay or bail.
“I said, ‘Well, we’re already going to get so much crap from having the plane down there,’” Perlman surmised, “‘that it doesn’t hurt to take 10 more minutes or a half hour.’”
They’d already been turned down twice. Pederson’s secret plan had failed. Now he had to land this one. And Nutt could sense that. The AD’s urgency made him uneasy.
“I’mma tell you something, this seemed like it was ultra-fast,” Nutt told The Athletic. “I felt like this was moving real fast, now. I just felt like his foot was on the pedal. Everything, he wanted it warp speed. He wanted it now.”
What ensued was a brief but dramatic tug-of-war for a coach who, six years in with the Razorbacks, hadn’t enjoyed a season better than 9-3. Pederson would later say they were only trying to get Nutt to fly in for an interview. Perlman hadn’t met him. But Nutt’s agent, Jimmy Sexton, assured Nutt if he got on the plane, Sexton would have a deal written up before they landed. They both knew there was no coming back to Fayetteville if Nutt boarded the jet.
Pederson was determined to get a deal done and announced over the weekend. He’d spent that Thursday in Fayetteville pitching Nutt on the job. Going into Friday, Arkansas AD Frank Broyles told the “Arkansas Democrat-Gazette”: “I think he’s going. I think there’s a 90 percent chance that he is.”
In order to avoid the Nebraska media following their every move, Pederson and executive associate AD Marc Boehm booked a creative accommodation: When Nutt got into town, he’d stay in a spare bedroom at Boehm’s house.
But Broyles and Jim Lindsey, a former star running back at the school who sat on the Arkansas board of trustees, didn’t surrender. They spent that Friday afternoon negotiating in Nutt’s living room. The message from Lindsey was compelling: Arkansas is home, he had something special going and he was just getting started. Broyles was flattering, too, but his patience was wearing thin. He refused to speak to Sexton. He needed an answer.
“Make a decision,” Nutt recalls him saying. “If you’re gonna leave, leave!”
Sexton advised him to pick Nebraska, because it was offering the kind of money Arkansas couldn’t match. Pederson appeared willing to overpay.
“I do remember Steve saying, ‘We’ve got to try to make this happen, so we will try to do what’s necessary,’” Boehm said.
The “Democrat-Gazette” reported on a bidding war that went into Friday evening, claiming Nebraska offered as much as $2.5 million per year — a salary that would’ve made Nutt the sport’s highest-paid coach. Nebraska leadership publicly denied it.
By floating the allegedly exorbitant offer, though, Arkansas made Nebraska look even more desperate. Arkansas was willing to double Nutt’s salary to nearly $1.5 million. It was enough.
“Bottom line, I could not get on that plane,” Nutt said. “I couldn’t do it.”
“They played us well,” Perlman said.
How did Pederson take it?
“Not good,” Nutt said. “He thought he at least had me on that plane, and he was really close. He was really close.”
Broyles had the last laugh. “Everything’s fair in love, war and coaching,” he said at the time. And now Nebraska had a real problem. This was the moment when the search turned ugly. Perlman admits this step in the process became disastrous. After 33 days, Pederson was starting over again. The fan base was running out of patience and confidence.
