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Mustain Era Begins at Arkansas
September 4, 2006 | By Benjamin Miraski
It didn't take long for Mitch Mustain's Saturday night performance to translate into a change in the depth chart at Arkansas. Head Coach Houston Nutt announced at his press conference on Sunday that Mustain will be given the starting quarterback job against Utah State on Saturday. Former starting quarterback Robert Johnson will move to wide receiver for the contest.
"We are asking [Johnson] to go to wide receiver right now. He’s accepted that with class and we are going to go with Mitch right now (at quarterback). We are going to get him ready," said Nutt during the press conference.
Mustain entered the game to a chorus of cheers by the fans on Saturday against USC. Even the smallest gain in yardage kept re-energizing the crowd. When Mustain ran in a touchdown on his first series, the largest crowd ever for a game at Arkansas was jumping up and down, despite the very lopsided score against them.
Nutt seems to indicate that the scoring drive played a large part in the decision to make the change at signal caller. "He gets in the game and can execute and take us down the field. I just feel like, at this time, you have to give him a shot.”
Nutt didn't comment during the press conference about the lack of communication between Johnson and Mustain on the sideline. He did repeatedly state that Johnson took the decision showing a lot of class. One has to wonder if we will see more work between the two with Johnson being added into what is already a strong receiving core featuring Marcus Monk and Damian Williams.
Nutt is making the change for the game against Utah State, a team which was blasted in their first game against Wyoming, 38-7. Right now, the switch doesn't look like a big risk. If Mustain can gain even more confidence in this game, even against the weak opponent, it could translate to big things for the Razorbacks in the SEC.
Obviously, there was a lot to work on following the loss to USC, but coach Nutt remained optimistic.
"We have a good football team. There is a lot of difference between this year and last year if you watch the film. The score doesn’t really indicate it but it was much closer then that."
Posted September 4, 2006 5:45 PM
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Seem like you're giving Houston Nutt a free pass on this one. Mustain did indeed look good during his first series. But why is Nutt make this move now? If Mustain looked good in camp (with this high school coach calling the plays in an offense he already knew), why waste his and Johnson's time? Now Johnson is moving to WR after spending the spring and summer camps at QB. What a mess.
Posted by: Displaced Trojan at September 4, 2006 11:09 PM
Oh, I will definitely agree that the whole thing was a mess. As I mentioned in my weekly recap, I think Nutt may have made things more difficult for Arkansas just by putting Mustain into the game.
However, I can understand why he might have gone with Johnson in the first game. He is facing USC after all. While I may not be super high on the Trojans (although, after how bad Cal looked, I think I want to change my pick for PAC-10 champ), they still have a solid team and a good defense. Throwing a true freshman, with no college experience into that would probably have made things a lot worse on Arkansas.
As it was, he was able to ease Mustain in during the second half, and will give him the start against a crappy Utah State team.(Utah State fans, please don't write in to say your team isn't crappy. You would just be fooling yourselves.) Chances are that Mustain can build confidence with this and perform well enough for Arkansas to compete in the SEC West.
If Johnson had really done well, this move would not have happened, at least not this soon. But when the guy could only score once in the whole game, no matter if it was a team effort in being bad or not, you can't blame Nutt for the switch. And I won't blame him yet for not making the change in camp, if only for the mental sanity of the future (and current) quarterback of the Razorbacks.
Everyone has growing pains. It is just better for Mustain that he didn't have to have them against USC.
Posted by: bmiraski 
at September 6, 2006 11:42 AM
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