• Nutt Brings the Heat! Houston Nutt and his wife, Diana, met in Little Rock Thursday with the dedicated Razorback fan who filed a Freedom of Information request - you know the one, the tome that implicitly accused Nutt of lying to the press and cheating on his wife - and it got a little testy for Thomas McAfee:
Nutt had been requesting a meeting with McAfee since the 28-year-old Searcy native obtained the coach's cell phone records earlier this year. McAfee also sent a letter to Arkansas' Board of Trustees, expressing his concern with what he found after going through Nutt's phone records.
Those records were used to put together a 48-page document that suggests Nutt might have had prior knowledge of a disparaging e-mail that Teresa Prewett, a family friend, sent former Arkansas quarterback Mitch Mustain in December.
The document, which has been circulating on Internet message boards with McAfee's name on it, also raises the question of whether Nutt is having an affair with a local TV anchor. McAfee has denied writing the now-infamous document.
Interesting, the local Morning News goes with "heated," the Associated Press says "polite, appropriate conversion." Yeah, appropriate, that's the ticket:
This is how I imagine Houston Nutt's tenure at Arkansas ending. You figure out who's who:
We're one step from a coach suing, by proxy, a significant portion of his school's fan base, then snakes pouring out of someone's skull. That seems like a fate Nutt would avoid - Nate Coulter, of course, says any legal action against his client, unlike that in motion against members of the university administration, would be baseless in Arkansas - but then, what has avoidance done for him lately? Once you've entangled yourself with the darksiders, there is no escape, not on your phone, not in your home, until someone is destroyed.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette has video in which Coulter says his client has received threats. At least he didn't ask for Nutt's autograph.
• Pollack Still Pursuing `Plan A': In more optimistic news, the Athens Banner-Herald and Atlanta Journal-Constitution both report, a few months after a devastating neck injury apparently ended his career, David Pollack remains hopeful for an eventual return to the NFL:
"There is no Plan B," Pollack said. "It's all Plan A right now. If I get detoured from Plan A, then I'll start thinking about something else."
• Quickly: Mark Richt plans to discuss with Matt Stafford the consequences of the pictures that made the rounds Thursday, ask for that chick's IM screen name ... The South Carolina legislature "overwhelmingly" overrode Gov. Mark Sanford's veto of a bill that would allow South Carolina to borrow under a higher debt ceiling for a facilities upgrades ... Former Northwestern coach Alex Agase, all-American at two schools, Purple Heart winner at Iwo Jima and Okinawa, dead at age 85 ... Only a handful of networks in the Midwest have informal deals with the Big Ten Network ... It became "very apparent, very quickly" most Penn State students want tickets on first-come, first-serve basis. So that's what they're going to do ... Passed over in the draft by eleven quarterbacks, including one from Central Connecticut State, Chris Leak keeps his head up ... God favors Florida State, in the form of Bobby Bowden's heaven-sent new staff, and '08 commit number eight ... Why the NCAA's APR should worry Maryland ... Matt Grothe attracted negative attention to South Florida for a misdemeanor at his job. The St. Petersburg Times asks how he got there, anyway ... It's time Kansas start winning – really winning, like 8-4 ... Nebraska turns to the Sun Belt to fill out its 2009 schedule ... Fisher DeBerry decided when Fisher DeBerry retired ... Mountaineer Field: football field or parking lot? ... And, appropos of nothing, an actual headline in the Charleston Daily Mail: "Videotape shows apparently drunken David Hasselhoff eating a hamburger."
The Rap Sheet
Crimes, misdemeanors and eligibility-crippling issues legal, academic, institutional and otherwise.
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Arrested, outgoing Tennessee receiver Bret Smith, who was charged Wednesday with eluding arrest and leaving the scene of an accident. The Knoxville News reports Smith's car hit an embankment early, early Sunday morning, and careened "into a tree and concrete retaining wall" near a house, whereby Smith fled on foot. No injuries, no indication to date of alcohol or other substances. If potential NFL suitor wanted to gauge the free agent's game speed, it should have had somebody out there with a stop watch when Smith got out of the car.
Concerned, very, Joe Paterno on the eve of a hearing for the six Penn State players charged last week with starting an apartment brawl and the 13 players subpeonaed to testify along with 24 other witnesses. The "appropriate consequence" for each player will be determined "when due process has transpired," the second step of which begins today in Pennsylvania District Court. Paterno added he has encouraged the players to plead guilty to "wanton possession of a delicious, delicious brain," and offered to handle discipline in-house:
Anthony Scirrotto, Christopher Baker, Justin King, Jerome Hayes, Lydell Sargeant and Tyrell Sales collectively face eight felony counts of criminal trespass, burglary and solicitation to commit a crime and more than a dozen misdemeanors.