There was absolutely, positively no way.

That was the belief, and it was said so Friday on Sports Rap, when it was brought up that assistant football coaches still being paid by the University of Arkansas were recruiting for Ole Miss.

Saturday morning, this newspaper reported that five assistants — David Lee, James Shibest, Mike Markuson, Tracy Rocker and Chris Vaughn, the recruiting coordinator — will join Houston Nutt at Ole Miss after the bowl.

Lee said he was so focused he could coach the Hogs and work for Ole Miss.

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Talk about a slippery slope.

Until after the bowl, will the soon-to-be Rebels staff use UA phones on UA time to recruit for Houston Nutt and the Ole Miss Rebels ?

No accusation here, but isn’t the UA running a huge risk of negative recruiting against the Razorbacks ?

If those five are working for Ole Miss, they should have already been told to hit the road, Jack, and don’t look back.

There are more than enough retired coaches, outstanding ones, in Northwest Arkansas who would volunteer if the bowl game is that important.

And that one game is not important enough to lose this outstanding recruiting class.

Understand, these f ive coaches have developed relationships with Arkansas ’ recruiting class and it would be easy to say “I made the choice to go to Ole Miss for good reasons.”

If allowed to continue, this could destroy the Razorbacks football program.

Which seems to concern Chancellor John White none.

Maybe he has long been a rebel.

De-emphasize the king and emphasize the dictator.

Frank Broyles no longer runs the athletic department. We saw that on statewide TV last Monday.

It was White who ran the news conference, the same guy who helped run off Gary Blair as the Lady Razorbacks coach and replaced him with Susie Gardner.

Blair has since won a Big 12 championship, and Gardner has been fired.

White hired Stan Heath after Bill Self had been told the job was his (he was at Illinois at the time ).

It was White who sabotaged the hiring of Dana Altman last spring, probably because that would have been Broyles’ last hire.

Forget Nutt, the Springdale Five, the Springdale families and the fans “from the north.”

The person who apparently has been trying to fracture Razorbacks football is Chancellor John A. White.

Or, best-case scenario for him, de-emphasize it.

Since his arrival on campus, he has tried to turn the UA, a wonderful land grant college with a rich history of education, athletics and social life, into a private school with no Greeks.

Maybe he just wants geeks.

If he is trying to reduce the role of Razorbacks football at the university, then it makes sense why he would call Nutt in after the South Carolina victory and tell him he would buy him out.

White further divided and confused the fan base when Nutt was not terminated, didn’t resign, but still received $ 3. 2 million from the Razorback Foundation to become the head coach at Ole Miss.

There is only one hope to stop this erosion, and that is for UA System President B. Alan Sugg and the board of trustees to flex some muscle, and sooner than later.

Surely they understand what is happening with Arkansas ’ recruiting class and that apparently Jeff Long is not being allowed to find a head coach in a timely manner.

Tim Horton, Reggie Herring, Alex Wood and Bobby Allen remain Hogs and are contacting the 19 young men who committed their skills and loyalties to the University of Arkansas football program, but they might be outnumbered on their own campus.

Surely guys like De’Anthony Curtis, Lavunce Askew and Jim Youngblood from Camden Fairview, Greg Childs, Chris Gragg, Basmine Jones and Jarius Wright from Warren, Cruz Williams from Pulaski Academy and Matt Hall from Russellville, along with all the other talented teen-agers, know they might have just become the most important recruiting class in UA history.

They could be the saviors of a rich, storied program.