SID's Prayer Abruptly Changed History of Razorback Football

Answer led to perhaps most turbulent 14 weeks in Arkansas history

Arkansas Razorbacks defensive end returns an interception for a touchdown during the 3rd quarter against the Florida Gators in the SEC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. / Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Anyone who's a true believer knows the power of prayer can be strong. However, those who believe in prayer usually don't bother God with prayer about sports teams as it's typically held to be too frivolous of a matter to take to a higher power.

However, on an early September Sunday in 1992, just six days before the Razorbacks were to play South Carolina in their first ever SEC game, Arkansas sports information director Rick Schaeffer set that common practice aside and went to the Lord in prayer.

"This is would be personal for me," Schaeffer said in a guest appearance on 103.7 The Buzz's Morning Mayhem. "I pray about everything, and I know we shouldn't pray for wins, and I rarely do that, but I can remember that Sunday morning, I was getting ready to go to church and all those Sundays were go to church first and then go to work, and I was on my knees praying, 'God would would you do whatever it takes to turn Arkansas' program back around?'"

Roughly 15 minutes later he got a call from Barbara Broyles that sent Arkansas hurtling down a path that required former athletics director Frank Broyles to oversee three Razorback head football coaches in a span of less than four months. It also set in motion the events led to the Hogs' only SEC West championships and also on the verge of playing in the first ever BCS national championship game.

The moment that shook an Arkansas SID to his knees?

Schaeffer's low point that inspired his holy request came to fruition less than 24 hours earlier in what some Arkansas fans consider the program's darkest day. All he could do was stare down at the field in stunned disbelief, taking in the piercing silence of 36,000 fans in Razorback Stadium as The Citadel, a tiny Division I-AA military school from South Carolina, celebrated a huge upset.

"I have to say, that's the most silent I've ever heard a stadium after a game," Schaeffer said. "Nobody in his right mind would have expected that. I remember we used to greet the visiting SID and talk to him before the game, and Friday we're there talking to Citadel SID, walking around the stadium, and they're talking about what a big deal it is to play. I don't think any of them expected to win, and they did, and it was dead silence. Dead silence."

A new NCAA rule allowing fumbles to be advanced set up a 34-yard touchdown return by The Citadel that was more than enough for the Bulldogs to overcome a lone Todd Wright fourth quarter field goal for a 10-3 win. It wouldn't be the only time that new rule would dramatically shift the direction of the Arkansas program.

Most in the stadium don't know to this day that The Citadel went on to have an 11-2 season and that Arkansas wasn't the only Division I team the Bulldogs beat that season. However, there was one man in particular present that day who wouldn't have cared either way.

Broyles prided himself in identifying coaching talent. His assistants while he was head coach at Arkansas were a Who's-Who of the sport at all levels to the point the award for top assistant in college football is named for him.

He was coming off blockbuster hires of Eddie Sutton and Nolan Richardson in basketball and Lou Holtz and Ken Hatfield in football. Broyles' choices ushered in one of the greatest major sport golden eras any school has seen in the modern era.

However, as Schaeffer tells it, Broyles knew almost instantly he had made a mistake in hiring Hatfield's offensive coordinator, Jack Crowe.

"Arkansas went 3-8 in Jack's first year and he could just sense that Jack, as good of an offensive coordinator as he was, he didn't have the leadership capabilities it took to be a head coach," Schaeffer said. "That was his sense. So the next year, I think he was prepared to fire Jack after the second year, but they beat Texas, got into a bowl game, and so he just thought, 'I can't fire a coach after he just beat Texas and went to a bowl game in Arkansas' last year in SWC.'"

With it already in his mind that Crowe wasn't long for the job, the loss to The Citadel was more than enough to pull the trigger. After a night of stewing on it, even though it was the first game of the season, by morning he was ready for his wife to start making calls to key members of his staff.

Prayer set into motion

Schaeffer had barely said amen when Broyles' wife got to his name on the list and called him up.
"You need to get over to our house right away," she said.

When he arrived, Schaeffer found the entire administrative staff sitting in a big circle. Broyles worked his way around, asking each person to give input on whether Arkansas should get rid of Crowe.

"I was the only one that abstained from firing him because I just didn't feel like I was qualified to decide whether a coach should stay or not," Schaeffer said. "... Everybody else agreed he should be gone."

This put Schaeffer, as head of communications, in a particularly awkward spot because Crowe was taking part in his Sunday press conference going over what didn't go well in the game and what the staff would do to try to turn things around.

"So, Jack meets with the media and talks about the loss, how disappointing, all that, because he doesn't know he's fired," Schaeffer said. "... Right after he meets with the media, Coach Broyles summons him to his office and fires him. So now Jack, he's cleaning out his office and the media's, back then, the media still hung out in the Broyles Center. That's where they did their work."

While Schaeffer is navigating going from a press conference with the media to figuring out how best to handle letting reporters know Crowe has just be fired, Broyles adds even more turbulence to the day by naming a new coach behind the scenes almost immediately after letting Crowe know he no longer had a job.

"I guess he met with Joe privately first, 'You're the interim coach,' calls the rest of the staff together, talks about how we're still going to recruit," Schaeffer said. "Joe Kines is the interim coach, but he's coaching for the opportunity to be the head coach, and at that point, that was the case. And so then there was another press conference at five o'clock with Joe Kines and the media, and Joe's the new head coach."

Perhaps God blocks punts

Early on it was clear Kines might have the ingredients to be a quality head coach. He was a ball of fire as he prepared his players for the first game of his era and it showed as, a week after the crushing loss to the Citadel, Kines introduced Arkansas to the SEC with a 45-7 beating of fellow newbie South Carolina.

"His first practice as head coach was was the most amazing practice I have ever witnessed, because Joe was up," Schaeffer said. "That's how he was on the practice field ... He's yelling at the defense like that, and then he runs over the offense and he does the same thing. And he's yelling and whooping and high-fiving and jumping up and down. And then he goes back to defense that does the same thing. Now, he did that for a week, because after that, he might have dropped dead."

Reality settled in the following week against No. 9 Alabama as Arkansas fans shelled out a hefty price to watch the Hogs get obliterated, 38-11, on pay-per-view. Then came the Memphis game where Arkansas, inexplicably, set a dubious record by giving up four blocked punts in a 22-6 loss.

"The NCAA record was three, and during the game they blocked, they said they blocked three, but then they went back and reviewed the film and found out they got another one," Schaeffer said. "So Joe's thinks the best special teams coach in America is Danny Ford."

Ford, at the time, is still basking in the glow of being a national championship coach and currently the most loved coach in Clemson, South Carolina where former Arkansas coach Ken Hatfield is trying to win Tigers fans to his side. Because Ford's departure had more to do with a disagreement with the university president about how money was spent rather than anything negative on the football field, Broyles agreed Kines could bring him in as a consultant.

The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away (by fumble)

Ford showed up to campus as what many assumed to be the coach-in-waiting. However, neither Ford, nor Broyles, saw it that way at the time. Broyles really believed Kines could be molded into a successful head coach and Ford was doing a friend a favor while packing a few dollars in his bank account during a break from his farm.

"The reason I did it was Joe asked for help and I had the opportunity in these weeks to do it and I want to try to help Joe," Ford said in a Monday night press conference announcing his arrival. "I think it's very important for you to realize it's for eight weeks. Period. I'm honored to be here. I don't know what I can do to help, maybe be a sounding board."

While the effects of Kines and Ford teaming up weren't felt immediately as No. 16 Georgia easily dispatched the Hogs in Razorback Stadium a few days later, the pair pulled off one of the greatest upsets in school history the following week. Arkansas went into Neyland Stadium and took down No. 4 Tennessee, 25-24, back when the Vols were consistently seen as either the No. 1 or No. 2 program in the SEC depending on year.

That win, coupled with a tie at Auburn on Halloween, was enough to convince Broyles Kines was the man. If he could just scratch out another win or two, the job was his.

And it would have been had it not been for that pesky new fumble rule. It's funny how prayers work, but often not how the person praying envisioned.

"Up to that point, wherever the ball it was, that's where you got the ball, right?" Schaeffer said. "Arkansas lost four games — they went 3-7-1 — lost four games on recovered fumbles for touchdown. Boy, that's how Citadel beat [them[, that was their touchdown. Wow. Ed Jackson fumbled, Citadel picked it up, ran for touchdown, 10-3. So, they [also] lost a Mississippi State on a fumbled return for touchdown."

However, entering a non-conference game against SMU the next to last game of the season, according to Schaeffer, all Kines has to do was avoid having a fumble returned for a touchdown and the job was his. Prayers would be answered as the Hogs moved forward with a coach everyone seemed to like with a lot of potential.

"So they're playing SMU and Coach Broyles is convinced, 'Okay, if Arkansas wins this game, Joe Kines is the coach,'" Schaeffer said. "'I can be convinced. I know he hasn't been a head coach, but he's gonna be there.' Everybody loved Joe Kines — fabulous human being. Guess how they lost the game? A fumble punt that SMU picked up and ran for a touchdown. They lost 24-19. If they win that game, Joe Kines is coach. Danny Ford either stays assistant or goes back to South Carolina."

Final answer to the prayer

So, with yet another divine intervention, Broyles was left to mull a season-ending win over LSU against having a third man in charge in 14 weeks. Ultimately, roughly a week into December, Broyles decided he's watched a national championship winning head coach wander around campus just consulting long enough.

"When they lost, Coach Broyles is convinced 'I got to hire a head coach,'" Schaeffer said. "Now he's watching and looking saying, 'I got a head coach on campus. This guy is really good. I don't see any young guys coming up, right? I'm going to hire Danny Ford.'"

Within two years, Ford guided the Hogs to the SEC championship game where Arkansas had a legitimate change against Steve Spurrier's Florida Gators right up until the moment running back Madre Hill went down with a devastating knee injury in the first quarter. A few years later, a youthful Houston Nutt infused his high energy and fiery Baptist preacher-like belief in the Razorbacks as head coach with Ford's ability to identify and develop talent to take Arkansas a fumble while running out the clock against eventual national champion Tennessee from possibly playing for the national championship.

Eight years later, just like Ford, Nutt had Arkansas in the SEC championship game facing Florida. The Gators edged out the Hogs, 38-28, in what would the final of three SEC West championships won under Nutt.

In 1992, Arkansas introduced itself to the SEC by going through what would have been back then 12 year's worth of coaches in 14 weeks. It was all as part of a higher plan to answer an SID's plea to God to spare the Razorback football program from what it would eventually face in the latter half of the 2010s.