From arrests to text messages and e-mails, former Arkansas Coach Houston Nutt dealt with several problems that had nothing to do with football during his 10-year term at Arkansas.

The most recent issues, stemming from several e-mails sent from a booster and Nutt’s wife, Diana, created national headlines. One e-mail helped persuade heralded recruit Mitch Mustain to transfer to Southern California and resulted in a lawsuit filed against Arkansas.

Monday, at a news conference announcing his resignation, Nutt declined to say how much or even whether the off-field controversy contributed to his decision. Nutt did discuss the difficulty of coaching with the turmoil swirling around him.

“I have a great wife who understands it and four great kids who are awesome,” Nutt said. “Three are going to the University of Arkansas, and they love it. But I hate some of the things they have had to encounter.”

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Nutt’s own players created the first problems.

The first real criticism Nutt received for non-football issues involved his handling of the arrests of two star players in 2002 — Cedric Cobbs and Ken Hamlin.

In the summer before the 2002 season, Hamlin, a junior starting safety on his way to the NFL, pleaded guilty to his second DWI offense in a year and served nine days in the Fayetteville jail. Cobbs, then a junior running back once touted as a possible Heisman Trophy candidate, was found guilty of DWI on a charge involving marijuana and received a fine and community services.

Nutt announced at Arkansas’ media day that August that the players wouldn’t be suspended, noting that Hamlin and Cobbs had to meet several conditions he had set, were remorseful for their mistakes and had been sufficiently punished by the courts.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving came out against Nutt, and Nutt came under fire in editorials and on radio talk-shows for his leniency.

“I think the message that got across is that I have a short fuse right now,” Nutt said at the time. “I don’t have a lot of patience in a lot of areas right now, especially anything dealing with off the field.

“ I tell you what, it eats my guts out when my wife is in a shopping center and somebody wants to think that they’re a comedian and say, Are we going to be able to keep a couple guys out of prison this year ? ’... That hurts. Hurts a bunch.”

Later that season, on Oct. 23, senior defensive lineman and team co-captain Jermaine Brooks was arrested on drug and weapons charges after 10 pounds of marijuana, firearms and almost $ 17, 000 in cash were seized from his home. Nutt dismissed Brooks from the team.

Then came the 2004 season, when there were 10 known arrests involving eight Arkansas football players, with two players getting arrested twice.

The situation reached a boiling point when starting linebackers Jimarr Gallon and Sam Olajubutu were arrested for DWIs within five days of each other in the last week of November. Gallon was dismissed from the team, and Olajubutu was suspended for one game.

Those two arrests brought the total to 26 arrests of Arkansas football players in Nutt’s first seven years, with nine players being arrested for drunk driving.

“You hate it when a young man makes a foolish decision and puts a bad, bad light on the ones that do it right,” Nutt said. “That’s what you hate the most because [the media ] won’t talk about it for the next three days of the 96 percent that do it right. You’ll talk about the one, and it’s sad.”

E-mails and text messages dominated the headlines this past season and put Nutt under scrutiny and criticism that finally led him to say at a Sunday news conference that Arkansas ’ fan base was fractured. Nutt said this divide was a primary reason he resigned.

Razorbacks booster Teresa Prewett, a close friend of Houston Nutt who was the physical therapist for former Arkansas running backs coach Danny Nutt, sent Mustain a one-page e-mail on Dec. 7, 2006, filled with derogatory and disparaging remarks aimed at Mustain.

Mustain announced he was transferring to Southern California on Jan. 16, and said the e-mail contributed to the decision to ask for his release from Arkansas.

Mount Ida resident John David Terry filed a lawsuit on April 24 naming Chancellor John White and University of Arkansas System President B. Alan Sugg as defendants, claiming that White failed to properly investigate the Dec. 7 e-mail.

Washington County Circuit Judge Mark Lindsay twice dismissed Terry’s lawsuit, the final time on Aug. 17, although another appeal is pending.

Prewett also sent an e-mail on Dec. 6 that contained disparaging passages not only about Mustain but also about former offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn, to Diana Nutt’s e-mail account, among others. The coach’s wife forwarded it to a Springdale business, remarking that some of the bits were “quite funny.”

As a result of a report in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on the two Prewett e-mails, Searcy resident Thomas McAfee submitted a request under the state Freedom of Information Act for Nutt’s phone records. Among the 500 pages of records McAfee received were records of 1, 063 text messages sent from Nutt to the KHBS / KHOG news anchor Donna Bragg between Nov. 30 and Jan. 11, including one moments before the kickoff of the Capital One Bowl.

Nutt later put out a press release stating he did not have an inappropriate relationship with Bragg.

Later, a request under the state Freedom of Information Act by the Democrat-Gazette revealed another e-mail sent from Diana Nutt’s e-mail address, this one to Prewett’s roommate, Sherri Darby. This e-mail described an incident in which two women “beat the s ***” out of Beck Campbell, Mustain’s mother, and the author wrote that she wished to have been involved in the attack.

White was asked at Monday’s news conference whether he thought Arkansas would have any trouble bringing in a quality coach after all the turmoil the program has been through.

White said he equated Arkansas’ current situation to when Ron Zook left Florida, and said he felt Arkansas would get a quality coach.

But later White did acknowledge how hard this season has been on Nutt.

“He had a very difficult year,” White said. “Unless you have walked in his moccasins, you cannot imagine what it was like.”