FAYETTEVILLE — It is worse than anyone suspected.
The Julie and Joe experiment is a failure.
Former associate athletic director Julie Cromer Peoples recommended Chad Morris during her first football head coaching search, and University of Arkansas Chancellor Joe Steinmetz — who picked Cromer Peoples — trusted her and asked the board of trustees to approve the hire.
After a devastating 45-19 loss to Western Kentucky, Morris is 4-18 with two games to go.
The question is no longer whether the Razorback Foundation can afford to pay his ridiculous $10 million buyout. The question is whether the Foundation can afford not to.
It’s time to show him the money.
Season-ticket sales are down about 22,000, which is lost revenue of about $8 million a year. But half the season-ticket holders didn’t show up to watch Ty Storey become the dominant quarterback on the field.
The former Razorback starter passed for 213 yards and a touchdown. He rushed for two more scores.
Unless something very positive happens very soon, season-ticket sales will drop again next season.
It was obvious Saturday that too many of the players have quit on Morris.
The Hilltoppers, whose highest point total of the season was 30 (against UNC-Charlotte), scored touchdowns on their first five possessions for a 35-7 halftime lead.
It was a historic game. The Razorbacks never had lost to a team who lost at home to the University of Central Arkansas. For most of the country, it appears UCA is better than the UA.
Morris, who is 0-14 against SEC teams and never has won a game against a Power 5 team, should finish the season as coach, if that’s what the powers deem.
It is time for the board of trustees to get involved. At least two of those 10 trustees are former Razorback lettermen, and they know something about athletics.
Football should be the board’s primary concern, whether anyone likes it or not.
Without football, the UA would be a small land-grant college in the mountains. Football launched Arkansas onto the national map.
When Clint Stoerner passed to Anthony Lucas to beat defending national champion Tennessee 20 years ago, the next week the UA had a record number of applications for admission to the school.
This slide has to stop. Whether or not Morris is fired, the situation is bad.
The next recruiting class could be damaged even more. Some of the talented freshmen on campus may transfer, but the rumor is some will even if Morris returns.
It is unacceptable that the program has fallen to a place where it loses at home to San Jose State and Western Kentucky in the same season.
No one has seen the program this low because it has never been this low.
The fans deserve better.
The former players who gave their blood, sweat and tears for this program deserve better.
The students, who half filled their section Saturday, deserve better.
Long before all the Fortune 500 companies existed in Arkansas, the Razorbacks were a constant for people to brag about.
But when you have nonathletic and non-Arkansas people making athletic decisions for Arkansas, this is what happens.
Don’t think the board of trustees is already involved. The trustees are continuously told to worry about academics at all the schools in the UA System.
All the while, the football program has been in a free-fall.
Enough is enough.
Athletic Director Hunter Yurachek already should have a short list of candidates for the trustees to consider. That’s his and their job.
The experiment has failed.