It didn't take long for Arkansas fans to call for Stan Heath's ouster. Fourteen games into the season and the Razorbacks basketball coach is already being excoriated for his perceived failures. Tempers flared after the Hogs lost their conference opener Saturday to Mississippi State, a team that many thought would be a pushover this season after several players graduated and its point guard, Gary Ervin, transferred to Arkansas during a tumultuous offseason.

  Three's Company

For a team that started the season with a promising 11-2 nonconference record, the 69-67 loss to the Bulldogs is still cause for worry. We have seen here before, after all. Last year, Arkansas jumped out of the gates with a 12-1 record, before going 6-10 in conference play and declining an invitation to the N.I.T. because the players were "tired." Fans were angry, and many said that Heath would be fired after this season if he didn't steer the Razorbacks to March's NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2001.

But there is reason to believe that won't happen. And that has a lot to do with two people: Heath's predecessor Nolan Richardson and Arkansas football coach Houston Nutt. Richardson, of course, was fired in 2002 and claimed that the university racially discriminated against him and infringed on his free-speech rights during the dismissal process.

He then brought his case to federal court in a lawsuit that was dismissed in July 2004 by U.S. District Judge William R. Wilson Jr. He has since appealed the decision and asked his arguments be reinstated by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis and those presiding over the case have yet to uphold or overturn the ruling. So what does this have to do with Nutt or Heath?

Among the claims Richardson made was that Nutt was treated better than him when both were coaching at Arkansas. If you compared just the individual accomplishments of both men, it's hard to argue with Richardson, who won a national championship and took his teams to three Final Fours. He was given a seven-year, $7.21 million contract. Nutt, meanwhile, has never won ten games in a season or come close to leading Arkansas to a BCS Bowl berth. But after his flirtations with Nebraska in 2003 he was able to leverage a $1.05-million contract with incentives. To his credit, Nutt does graduate players and has never publicly asked the university to buy him out (Richardson didn't do the former, but did the latter).

Apparently, that means a lot to the athletic director Frank Broyles, who has tolerated Nutt's back-to-back losing seasons in 2004 and 2005. Broyles didn't even ask Nutt to provide a written evaluation of the program after the football team went 4-7 this season. Of course, Heath was subjected to this embarrassing exercise after his team compiled a winning record last season.

In fact, Heath's teams have improved each year, whereas it can be argued that Nutt's best season was his first in 1998. That year, Arkansas went 9-3 and reached the Citrus Bowl. The Razorbacks have shown flashes of brilliance since, but have given fans little to cheer about the last two years.

As a result, even if Heath somehow botched this season and could only qualify his team for the NIT, the university would have a hard time getting rid of him. How can Broyles fire one coach who has produced better results each of the last three seasons when he didn't remove the other coach who has seen his program deteriorate during the same period of time?

He can't, not unless he wants to give Richardson's claims more legitimacy. Broyles has been backed into a corner and he only has himself to blame, while Richardson has inadvertently helped his replacement and at the same time stuck it to his former boss. The result? Heath can now sit back and relax -- no matter how bad things get.

While a majority of fans and pundits have called for the overhauling of the BCS system in the past, few have expressed outrage with the USA Today/ESPN Coaches' poll. But after the final poll of the regular season was released and the public was given the opportunity to see how each of 62 participating coaches filled out their Top 25, there should have been more pleas to reform a ranking system that is rife with voters who are careless, uninformed and biased.

 What was he thinking?

Courtesy MSNBC

Frank Solich, the head coach at Ohio, ranked LSU ten spots ahead of Georgia a day after the Bulldogs defeated the Tigers in the Southeastern Conference Championship game. What was he thinking? Arkansas coach Houston Nutt left a 10-1 West Virginia team out of the polls and included a 7-4 South Carolina squad in his Top 25 while elevating the rankings of SEC teams. Oregon coach Mike Belotti and Ohio State coach Jim Tressel, whose schools were each battling for a spot in a major bowl, ranked their teams high and one of their BCS rivals significantly lower than it should have been. Tyrone Willingham, who was ousted as Notre Dame coach last year, stuck it to the Fighting Irish by listing them ninth in his poll.

Coaches have an agenda and some of them probably don't like each other. Gamecocks coach Steve Spurrier and Tennesee field general Phillip Fulmer probably don't have tea together. They also can exercise some sweet revenge on each other when they are voting in the poll. That is why it is ridiculous that a group of men are allowed to bear influence on the status of not only their teams but also their competitors. If the poll was treated like a court case, all 62 coaches would have to recuse themselves because of their conflicts of interest.

It seems the best way to correct this problem is to transfer the voting power from the coaches to each of the Division I-A conference commissioners. Since they oversee their leagues, they would have more of an objective viewpoint of the teams both in their conferences and outside them. They also would not be involved in any personal rivalries and would have time to pay attention to the games. Coaches often ask their school's sports information director to fill out the poll because they can't follow all of the action when they are busy concentrating on Saturday's game.

But what happens come late November, when the stakes are raised and the BCS game matchups are being determined? Won't the commissioners favor the teams in their leagues so their conferences get the big payout? This problem can be solved by penalizing a commissioner who ranks a team five spots lower or higher than the cumulative poll by preventing him or her from voting in the following week's poll. In essence, stick them where it hurts, because in the dog-eat-dog world of college football that is all anybody understands anymore. And at least in this scenario Kevin Weiberg and Mike Slive, as opposed to Steve Spurrier, will be able to determine where South Carolina and Tennessee will be ranked. After all, the Ole' Ball Coach is too busy drawing up plays and getting under the skin of his team's opponent that week.

If the news is true about Dan Hawkins, then it appears all but certain he will become the latest coach from Boise State to make the leap to a major Division I school -- and perhaps the best to do so. Hawkins is likely headed to Colorado -- a program that has endured numerous setbacks both on and off the field in recent years under the stewardship of Gary Barnett. Maybe it is the blue turf the Broncos trample each home game or the Idaho sky, but the Gem State's capital has been home to a few diamonds in the rough when it comes to field generals.

 Courtesy Honolulu Star-Bulletin

Arkansas coach Houston Nutt and Arizona State coach Dirk Koetter have made stops in Boise, building up their resumes in the West and earning respect Napoleon Dynamite would only dream about. In the process, Boise State's football program has improved dramatically since it was elevated by the NCAA to Division I-A status in 1996. That has a lot to do with the fact that each coach has built on what his predecessor left behind. Nutt took over in 1997 and spent one season with the Broncos, steering Boise State to a 5-6 record before impressing a committee at Arkansas when he interviewed for the Razorbacks' head coaching position. Koetter then brought Boise State to new heights, instituting an efficient passing attack, leading the Broncos to two 10-win seasons and their first two bowl appearances before bolting for the desert after the 2000 campaign.

Hawkins, who looks like he still could play football, turned Boise State into one of the best non-BCS programs in the country. Between 2002 and 2004, the Broncos won 35 of 38 games and finished ranked in the Top 15 each year. This season, Boise State is going bowling again. Colorado obviously has been watching Hawkins, while taking note of the fact that Nutt and Koetter are still walking the sidelines at the schools they landed at after their stints in Boise.

Other big programs are also aware of Boise State's penchant for finding strong leaders. And that is why coaches, who want to move up in the ranks, better start sending in their resumes for the Broncos' expected vacancy. They may have to suffer through some cold winters, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Just ask Nutt, Koetter and Hawkins.