Locked On Razorbacks - Daily Podcast On Arkansas Razorbacks Football & Basketball

Arkansas Razorbacks NIL funding issues: Can they catch up?

Are the Arkansas Razorbacks falling behind in the SEC's NIL race? Athletic Director Hunter Yurachek reveals that top programs are outspending Arkansas in NIL funding, raising questions about the Razorbacks' competitive edge. Coach Sam Pittman addresses the team's lackluster performance against UAB, pinpointing areas like tackling and offensive accuracy that need urgent attention. The episode also explores the controversy surrounding former players Jarius Wright and Joe Adams being denied locker room access, highlighting the need for better communication and the importance of embracing former stars as a recruiting tool.

Join us for an engaging discussion on the Arkansas Razorbacks' challenges and strategies. Listen now for exclusive insights into the team's path forward.

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Broadcast on:: 17 Sep 2024
Audio Format:: other

It's the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Well, Razorback fans, 100-year check, the athletic director for Arkansas spoke to the Little Rock Touchdown Club yesterday and had interesting things to say about the NIO and some people are taking it as blaming the fans. Let's talk about today's Lockdown Razorbacks podcast. And welcome in to the Lockdown Razorbacks podcast. I am your host, John Neighbors. I am also the host of Inside Arkansas Live, which you can catch every weekday starting at noon on Inside Arkansas and inside Arkansas.com. Today's episode is brought to you by Fandool now through September 22. All Fandool customers can bet $5 and get a three-week free trial of NFL Sunday ticket from YouTube and YouTube TV. Just visit fandool.com to get started. Hope everybody is having a wonderful Tuesday as we're going to hear a little bit from Sam Pippen and his press conference that he had dealing with Arkansas and some of the things that they're trying to fix, some of the issues there. But also we'll talk about some pretty dramatic things that were happening outside the locker room post game with some players, former players it is. So we'll get it all that. But I wanted to kind of take a turn a little bit here because I know we'll talk about Auburn as the week goes on and get you ready for that. But for those of you who don't know, the Little Rock Touchdown Club, something that I know David Basel has done a great job with, a friend of mine that always has some really great guests, it's always one to really cause a stir in a lot of cases. Sometimes it's about coaches that are coming back in for their quote unquote rehab of they're trying to rebuild the reputation back and everything. But each and every year though, you get a chance to hear from whoever the Razorback football coach is and whoever the Razorback athletic director is. It's a pretty common thing. Sam Pippen always goes first or at least the head coach for Arkansas always goes first and the whole thing and here it checks you usually pretty early in the process too. Now your check, let me just be very clear about it. I like Hunter your check. I respect Hunter your check. I think that you could find major issues or problems you have with every athletic director. It's not an easy job and I'm not excusing it. But I think all in all in the timeframe the Hunter your check has been the athletic director at Arkansas. I think he's done a good job. Hasn't been perfect, but he's done a good job. I mean basketball coaching hires I think alone have been worth between Merrick Musselman and John Kalperi. I think it's been pretty good. You know he's made sure that baseball has had everything they need in football, no still kind of up in the air. But still I think overall he's done a good job. So I respect him and I like him. Now the clip I'm about to play for you from the Little Rock touchdown club is the clip that was dealing with an IL which we know is a constant conversation that each and every one of us have to have or want to have and diving into it and discussing and all that stuff. But it's still an ongoing thing. In fact it's like fashion. It's never going to go away. It's always going to be a part of the college game. And whenever you're an athletic director you're always going out and one of your biggest jobs actually is fundraising. Whether it's for the foundation, whether it's for facilities or whether it's for the football. Well I want to play the clip in its entirety so everyone has a context for it but your check was at the touchdown club speaking about the NIL, speaking about the collective that they have and what the issue is or what needs to be done in order to make that the best. Take a listen. I mean it has been terrible. It's been awful. NIL the way it was intended, the way it was intended July 1st of 2021 that if a student athlete had a value to their name, image or likeness and there was a business product or service. Like one of these many businesses up here that wanted to use a student athlete to market their business product or service where they could receive compensation, valid compensation to do that. And that's how this all started. And our student athletes in their first year did an incredible job going out knocking on doors and beating the bushes and they generated almost two and a half million dollars and what I will call was legitimate NIL agreements that they went out and got on their own. But in college athletics we are our own worst enemy and we find the loophole to every single rule in the rule book. And we found a loophole where we created these things called collectives and collectives or donors pooling their resources together to pay student athletes, collectives under the office of doing work, charitable work, whether that was tweeting about a charitable organization or signing autographs or making public appearances but the amounts of money that were getting paid were simply ridiculous and still are ridiculous and they just continue to be ridiculous. Because when businesses are making decisions, you make good business decisions, right? If you are going to hire a student athlete to market your business, you are going to pay them market value. Well, collectives aren't paying market value, they are just buying teams and so that figure has grown to just a ridiculous number and athletic directors are charged many times with going out and raising those dollars to various means. And now we have finally gotten their footing at the University of Arkansas in the NIL world but we are not where we need to be. I will tell you the upper echelon of the SEC in football is probably spending double of what we are spending on our football program right now in the NIL space. That's reality. So you can blame that on Sam Pittman but it's not Sam Pittman's problem. It's his problem but it's a money problem, right? Because if someone is spending double of what we are spending, they are going to have a corner on the market. So your check had that to say about the NIL and also went on to say even the comparison of like an old miss and talking about how they have 5,000 members as part of their collective and Arkansas only has 1,000 and saying how much $100 could go a long way if each household was a part of it and how all that. So let me again, let me be clear is like I get what 100-year check is saying and I even agree in principle to what 100-year check is saying. But the thing is, let's be honest about this folks, let's just be very clear. You don't want to know why Ole Miss has 5,000 members of their collective or whatever you want to call it. Do you want to know why they had such a great response and a great setup for it? It's because they win, stop traffic, but it's amazing how much more energy and time, effort and money fans are willing to put in if the results are coming with it. I have zero doubt in my mind that if Arkansas had the similar success of seasons under Sam Pittman in the past three or so years that Ole Miss has had, the whole issue of collectives and money and all that wouldn't be an issue. It truly wouldn't be an issue because people say, hey, we like this, this is fun. This is fun to go to games and see us win. It's fun to see us have 10 win seasons. It's fun to see all this. So let's invest. Let's enjoy it a little bit more. Here you go. But it's not to that case. And you notice that when your check said specifically, you said football, he didn't say basketball. He didn't say baseball. He didn't say any sport. He's like football, which the upper echelon is spinning double what Arkansas is. That is a fact. Now, you've heard me say many times that the NIL is fine at Arkansas and I'm still sticking to that. It is fine, but when I say it's fine, it's not like, okay, well, you've given all you can give. And that's it. That's never going to get any better. It's no people just aren't willing to give as a much right now because the product's not coming along with it. Why are people willing to give so much into basketball? I mean, John Caliperi's not coached a single game for Arkansas, but it's John Caliperi. That's why he's willing everyone's willing to go in on a winner. So saying that, I also understand the other side of it too with your check. He's saying, hey, we can't get better unless we improve our rosters and improve the NIL to be able to make that work, which is 100% true. So it's kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don't type a deal. You need money to improve your rosters and to prove your talent, but the money's not going to come as easily when the results aren't coming along with it too. I don't care what anybody says, Arkansas, I love this state. It's the great state of Arkansas. It's the natural state. It's my home, but it's a reality that people here in Arkansas, they're exactly the richest people in the land. And so $100 per month, it's a lot for a lot of families and a lot of people here in the state. And I'm not doing any sort of thing because I want to donate. I want to help out the Arkansas Rage Brecks anyway. I can't. I know you do too. But I just think that there's got to be a better way of marketing, providing better incentive serene part of the NIL collectives and also, you know, looking at it and being very honest about it, saying, hey, like, don't compare Arkansas with Ole Miss or, you know, these other programs that are winning because people will donate to money to win. If Arkansas again had won 28 games in the past three years, like Ole Miss has, they would have been way past 5,000. So fans aren't to blame success lack thereof is to blame, but you got to get better, you got to invest, you got to keep it going, but it's just one of those catch 22 deals. I give what you're check saying, but it still just kind of feels a little bit odd to hear it. Especially at this point in time. Well, talk about Sam Pimin, though, some of the things he had to say when it comes to the Rage Brecks football and they're weak for Auburn here in just a second. So stay with us here on the Lockdown Rage Brecks podcast. All right, folks, we have a new sponsor here on the Lockdown Rage Brecks podcast. Have you heard about Roy? It stands for return on you and it's a new platform that lets you, the fans get involved in NIL, something we just talked about like never before by making contributions directly to your favorite student athletes. By supporting players directly, you can help shape rosters, retain talent, and keep favorite athletes out of the transfer portal. As you all know, NIL has changed the game for athletes and Roy changes the NIL game for the fans. Here's how Roy is different. You directly support players. 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Get the Roy app for iOS or Android and start making an impact on your favorite team and use referral code locked on for an opportunity to win $5,000 cash, visit joinroy.com for more details, no purchase necessary, void, where prohibited. Get off the sidelines and get into the NIL game with Roy, support the players and change the game with Roy. All right, so moving on into the next segment of the locked on Razorback's podcast, lots of things to fix for the Razorback football team and considering what, hey, way things looked against you, AB, boy, I tell you, there's a lot to really unpack there and get after. But I wanted to play a couple clips from Sam Pittman's press conference that he had over the weekend, or excuse me, on Monday, that was referring to the game that happened over the weekend. And some of the things that they needed to fix up and some of the things that went wrong against you, AB, and we'll start with that one, just here's Sam Pittman talking about it and how, you know, he identified it, at least. Well, not really. I mean, after we, you know, I felt like I was pretty much knew what went on, and a lot of times you have to go back and see who played well and who didn't and all that. But schematically, we just didn't play well at all. You know, they had, they had a ball most of the first half and, you know, 15 play drive to start it, two play drive to score again. We just didn't play well defensively, especially in the first half and pretty much the entire game, didn't tackle well. I had some missed assignments, couldn't get lined up on some specialty glitches. One of them, they were in the middle of the field. We worked it in practice. We just didn't get the communication right. Offensively, I think it's what you saw, I mean, what we saw after the game. We can run the ball, probably need to run it more. We can also throw it, we just weren't quite as accurate, didn't run as good a route as we could have, and we dropped five balls and that, you know, certainly that has a lot to do with winning and losing. But now it was about what I thought after the game. So you know, Sam Pimmons, pretty honest about it, it's just, you know, I have this stuff that happened and I looked at it and it's exactly what I thought. Yeah, cause like this game against UAB wasn't exactly one of those games where you're just like, man, how do you identify the problem here? Like, it doesn't make sense. No, it makes sense. You just didn't play well. You didn't execute the game plan, you tell you a green struggle with this accuracy. The defense just did not get any pressure on the quarterback. It was not saying that it's just an easy, quick fix, which it should be, but it's at least identifiable. You always know what it is and this team has to do that. So he's your said to none, but I, I hate that though. I hate that it comes to that. Every team is going to have a bad game, folks like every team is going to have a bad game. You're seeing teams even over the weekend in the SEC that had bad games, but I hate even comparing it to like Georgia, for instance. Like Georgia went out and barely beat Kentucky on the road. They won 13 to 12. It was a good game for Georgia. Now not justifying it, but there's a big difference between when you're the number one team in the country, Georgia Bulldogs going on the road to an SEC opponent playing poorly or not playing up to your standard and then playing at home against UAB. There's a big difference there. Both teams won their games, but there's still some frustrations that come from that where there's just no need for it. There's no need for it to be that bad. There's no need for it to look that bad. So that's the first clip. And the second clip has to deal with, again, like trying to fix some of these issues, but also where to turn and how to take that next step if you're Sam Pittman and this Razorback football team. Take a listen. Usually, you'd play a little bit better when you didn't play well. Hopefully, you won the game, you know, and you look at Kentucky, the same thing. They were mad. They got focused and played a great game against Georgia. As much as you talk about, these games are about us versus us. I mean, the one Saturday was about us versus us, it's, you know, we had better players. Hopefully, we had as good a coach and staff as they did and, you know, the fire that you play with is something that's expected. And so I don't know for sure, you know, obviously, I think all of us coaches would like to figure that out. But I think I heard Kirby say, you know, they were mad, you know, they were embarrassed the week before Kentucky. And that's a little bit how we feel right now going into the Auburn game. So hopefully, that's a good thing for us. Now, again, if you're anti-Sam Piven, you're going to take this as some sort of like negative deal of like, oh, well, you know, you shouldn't have to get to that point to where you end up being mad because of how you played yada, yada, yada, like that. I'm trying to be pretty fair here because obviously I've had my own frustrations, as you've all known, about Sam Pittman and the way that the team has performed and all that. But I'm trying to be fair. And the fairness to me and the fairness to Sam Pittman, I 100% agree with what he says, where this team needs to come out pissed off. They need to come out mad and hopefully that does happen because if Arkansas comes out and they beat Auburn, like good, like really good. That may be some of the looks back. I'm always like, okay, so they really just pissed off about the way they performed against UAV. That's great. But until you see it, you know, what does that mean? I don't want to have to keep, you know, what is it the, I just think of the movie Avengers from I'm going to get nerdy here. But when Robert Downey Jr., Tony Stark, kind of makes the joke, he's like, we're not the prevengers, we're the Avengers, you know, we're always after the fact. Now, that's kind of what it reminds me of with sometimes things that Arkansas has to go through in a football program and also with Sam Pittman. It's kind of like, it's never about the preventative stuff. It's always like you have to have something happen and then you respond. You have to have something bad happen. You have to have a bad performance and then you respond to that. Why can't you just have a good performance and I have to worry about a response and I have to worry about anything like that. Just do it. That's what I kind of want to see. So anyways, I get it. I'm not coming down on Sam Pittman for this. He's saying the right things. I'm hoping Arkansas comes really upset, comes out really upset against Auburn because Auburn is a beatable team. I probably won't pick Arkansas to win, but they are a beatable team and they have plenty of things to work on themselves. But focus on Auburn too. Yes, if you fix a lot of the issues you're having, you'll be in good shape. But don't forget about doing, you know, focusing on Auburn too. Because they got some, they got some good guys over there as well. Talk about some drama that happened over the weekend. It just never ends. We'll get to that here in a second here on the lockdown, raise your ex podcast, so stay with us. Well, folks, you've heard us talk a lot about FanDuel, America's number one sports book. Well, now we have something a little bit different for you now through September 22nd. All FanDuel customers can bet $5 and get a three week free trial of NFL Sunday ticket from YouTube and YouTube TV. 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But this comes from the best of Arkansas sports where this has to do with some former players. Apparently, this is all according to social media posts and all that. The wife of former Razorback wide receiver, Gerias Wright, vented in a Facebook post that Gerias Wright and Joe Adams, who, well, no Joe Adams, were, quote, denied entry into the locker room post game tonight. The quote was they simply wanted to see their records and their pictures all over the building and speak to their coach, Bobby Petrino, who wanted to see them. This has been since taken down by the way, this post, said, said she didn't want to name names on who she felt deserved the blame, but said it's not on security guards as they love seeing them and happily usher them to the doors. But then she says, quote, this is the epitome of the Arkansas program right now, locking down the facilities and not allowing the greats to see what they helped build, not inviting the greats back to be a part of the recruitment processes and show their faces in the halls of the places they literally helped build. Imagine being Joe and Gerias and not being allowed to be entry for after all they did for that program, that stadium, that locker room, and all those fans. So apparently she finished the message by saying Petrino, the offensive coordinator and Hunter, your check, the athletic director wouldn't condone this treatment. They treat our guys as they should. This is somebody else's call and I'll just leave it at that. So it says that it's not Petrino and it's not your check so you could probably start doing logical deduction there. But she also says that Gerias Wright would never go public with stuff like this, but she will and apparently Gerias gave her the green light. And yeah, apparently they reached out for comment and he just said, Gerias Wright just said, with Coach Beelman, Chad Morris, we were allowed to go in the locker room. And that was it. That's all he said. That Jerry Franklin former Razorback also said that she was right on point with her Facebook post. The other programs in the conference and we're welcoming to their players or Razorback to Marcus Love also commented on it saying that hopefully says did me the same way two years ago, nothing new under Pit, Mr. Pitmeister, I assume he's always saying. But yeah, so apparently there was a few of these issues. Now one, I got to be delicate with this because there's always two sides to every story. And I feel like there's just a lack of communication in this whole thing. I'm not blaming anybody. I'm not saying anyone's at fault, but obviously there's a disconnect with this communication here because like not getting into the locker room post game after a tough game like that. I can understand if it's just like, hey, you know, you don't want that type of thing going on former players because it's like, you're not happy with the performance. But at the same time, there are former players, then if Bobby Petrino wanted to see them, then they should have been allowed in, but at least they should have been some set up or Petrino goes to the security or goes to the S IDs, which, you know, very well could be the S IDs that said no to this. And we're just like, Hey, Jerry's and Joe, they're coming into the after the game just once come see me, see the players, just let them in. Like it was that done? I don't know. Was it planned? I don't know. Like again, there's just so many things that are going wrong, but here's the deal. There's obviously if there's a lot of players that feel this way, one of the best and the biggest and greatest recruiting things that it's a place like Arkansas could do is always welcoming in the former players, Joe Adams, Jerry's right, Darren McFadden, everybody, all the greats, everybody should have welcome and with open arms. Now, does that mean that every single one of them should get access to the locker room directly after a game? Maybe not. But I think that there could be some more done to help out. And people say, Hey, come on to back to Fayetteville, you know, your former Razorback, you mean a lot. You know, let's let's make this work. But it's just sad that this became a story because this is not what anybody needs. It's not what anybody should have to deal with. And frankly, it's just sad. So I think both sides, if they're at fault here, I think both sides could be at fault here. Things could be communicated better on both sides. If there is a divide, fix it, there is there is an issue with former players, address it immediately and find ways to get them involved because it's a great recruiting tool. But also former players, you know, don't, I can't believe I'm saying this, because it's like, I got anybody to say it, but don't also just approach it. And then, and I'm not saying Jerry's right or Joe Adams, any of the people did this. So don't misunderstand. I'm just saying, don't also just feel like you're entitled, just walk in and do whatever you want and say whatever you want and meet with anybody you want at any given time without any notice. Like, don't do that either. Just everybody communicate. So I'm asking, everybody communicate, and this could have been avoided. It feels like it definitely, definitely could have been avoided. And it's just a stupid story that doesn't need to be addressed again. Appreciate everybody listening in watching in to the lockdown, raise your back's podcast. Be sure to like and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or on Google Play. You can get after me on Twitter at john neighbors show for any questions, comments, concerns that you may have or keep it going from there. Same podcast time, same podcast channel tomorrow afternoon. Have a great day, everybody. See you then. A prime members, you can listen to this locked on podcast and free on Amazon music. Download the Amazon music app today. [MUSIC PLAYING]