College Football
Friday, December 31
Cowboys owner gives Hogs a pep talk
Associated Press

DALLAS -- Arkansas coach Houston Nutt turned to one of the most successful Razorbacks of all time to deliver a few words of inspiration to his team 48 hours before the Cotton Bowl game with Texas.

Jerry Jones, a guard on the 1964 unbeaten Razorbacks, talked to the team for a couple of minutes. The Dallas Cowboys owner arrived with his son, Stephen, also a former Razorback.

Jones said what he told the team was private but that he wouldn't be in the situation he is in today if he hadn't played football at Arkansas. He cited former coaches Frank Broyles and Wilson Matthews as role models.

"Make us proud," he said he told the players. "Make yourselves proud. It's all about willing it."

"The thing I appreciate ... he's been a Razorback," Nutt said. "He's been through everything these guys have been through. He's walked the same steps to go to class, to study hall, the practice field, so he knows what
it takes.

"I just wanted them to hear a little bit from him and he was great," Nutt said.

Jones addressed the team in the middle of a grass field at Nimitz High School about 30 minutes into practice. The Razorbacks practiced the first three days of the week at Texas Stadium, home of the Cowboys, and Jones said he had tried to work it out so that the team could practice on his grass field at Valley Ranch. Jones said, however, that Wednesday and Thursday is a heavy work day for a professional team with a game on Sunday.

While on the sidelines Thursday, Jones and his son took a look at some of the Arkansas players with the NFL draft in mind.

Jones posed with three Arkansas kickers and a variety of fans, including a man wearing a red plastic hog hat with a 2-foot radio antenna poking out the top and a small red plastic pig adorning the antenna.

The Razorbacks worked in shorts and shoulder pads after three days of hitting in full pads.

Nutt said the team worked on making substitutions and tried to simulate the first 25 plays of the game, offensively and defensively.

"Then we concentrated hard on the kicking game and ended with the two-minute drill," he said. Nutt said he was very satisfied.

Asked whether the team would respond positively to the hard hitting during the bowl practices, Nutt said, "You'd like to think so. I've seen it go both ways. I've been around squads where it's been helpful and seen some times where it hasn't. You don't ever know."

He said he thought the tough practices had been a real eye-opener after the Razorbacks' disappointing effort against LSU in the season's finale.

"Effort, intensity and focus --hat's all you want," Nutt said. "That's all you can ask for as a coach."

Texas is favored by about a touchdown. Arkansas has not won a bowl game since the 1985 Holiday Bowl.

"The only time we really think about it is when you guys bring it up," Nutt said. He said he would rather concentrate on the fact that the Razorbacks are playing in a Jan. 1 bowl game for the second straight year.

Texas coach Mack Brown said it is important to remember that Nutt
"wasn't involved in any of those (bowl losses) except one and he was playing the defending national champion, Michigan." That was last year in the Citrus Bowl.

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