Jimmy Johnson Makes Much-Anticipated Return to Arkansas

Jimmy Johnson wanted to be the man who replaced Frank Broyles in 1977 as head Hog.

Johnson, who had been a key player as an undersized defensive lineman on Arkansas’ 1964 national championship team, was the Razorback defensive coordinator under Broyles in 1976 when the legendary coach announced his retirement at the end of the season.

On Tuesday, during his much-anticipated appearance before the Little Rock Touchdown Club, Johnson told a packed house at the Statehouse Convention Center that he had his eye on the head job in Fayetteville at the end of the ’76 season because Broyles told him he was being considered.

The job of following a legend would ultimately go to Lou Holtz, who led the Hogs to a 60-21-2 record over seven seasons, including the famous 31-6 rout of Oklahoma in the 1978 Orange Bowl.

After Holtz was fired by Broyles in 1983, Johnson, then-head coach at Oklahoma State, thought his time had come. Though a deal had already been made by Broyles with Ken Hatfield, who played with Johnson on that ’64 national title team, to be the next head Hog, Johnson was flown into Fayetteville. At Hermann’s Ribhouse on College, it was revealed to Johnson that there would not be a formal interview because Broyles had made it official with Hatfield.

Johnson, of course, would go on to become a national championship coach with the Miami Hurricanes, an NFL Hall-of-Fame and two-time Super Bowl champion coach with the Dallas Cowboys, and one of the country’s most iconic NFL analysts with Fox Sports. Despite the missed opportunity in northwest Arkansas, things worked out OK for him.

That doesn’t mean the snub didn’t sting, though. In the decades following the hiring of Hatfield, while other members of the Arkansas national championship team remained close to the program, Johnson kept his distance.

Johnson told club co-founder and emcee David Bazzel, himself a former Hog who played under Holtz, that Holtz in 1976 was the right call.

“I wasn’t as prepared to be a head coach as much as Lou was,” he said.

It was a different story seven years later.

Photo by Dewaine Duncan

“I played at Arkansas, have love for Arkansas; I wanted to be the Arkansas head football coach,” he said. “I was upset, but shortly thereafter, I got the University of Miami job.”

Johnson — then five years into a successful run at Oklahoma State — accepted the Miami job on the advice of Larry Lacewell, a Fordyce native, longtime director of scouting for the Cowboys and then-head coach at Arkansas State.

Lacewell told Johnson that if he wanted to win a national championship and eventually become an NFL head coach, he needed to take the Miami job. He ended up accomplishing both goals. Before he left Miami to take the Dallas job, however, he extracted a little retribution on his college program.

The Hogs and Hurricanes scheduled a home-and-home in 1987 and ’88. The ’87 game was played in Little Rock, and Johnson’s Hurricanes, by then a consistent national power, routed a decent and ranked Arkansas team, coached by Hatfield, before escaping with a narrow win the following year in Miami.

Hatfield, it should be noted, provided one of three video tribute messages for Johnson on Tuesday. Johnson credited Hatfield’s punt return for a touchdown against Texas in 1964, leading to a 14-13 win, as the key to the season.

The other two tributes came from Johnson’s longtime Fox colleague, Hall-of-Fame QB and close friend Terry Bradshaw and Dan Hampton, the former Hog and Hall-of-Famer who was recruited to Fayetteville and coached by Johnson. In addition, former Arkansas player and coach Houston Nutt delivered an in-person tribute, razzing Johnson about his seemingly unmovable hair.

(Bradshaw, who Johnson said has watched a lot of Arkansas games with him, will be a call-in guest every Tuesday this fall on The Buzz 103.7’s Morning Mayhem show.)

Hampton shared a story about his recruitment to Arkansas by Johnson. He said Johnson knocked on his classroom door one day and asked to speak with him. Outside, he told the then-gangly 6-foot-6 senior at Jacksonville that he had a future at Arkansas. One thing potentially stood in the way, though: Hampton’s grades.

Hampton said Johnson talked to the JHS principal and “got things worked out.” He added that he was set to play on the offensive line when he arrived on the Hill before Johnson talked Broyles into letting him try the future all-American on the defensive side.

Photo by Dewaine Duncan

The second part of Lacewell’s “prophecy” was made possible by Jerry Jones, Johnson’s teammate on the ’64 title team, who had made his money in oil before buying the Cowboys in 1989. He brought in Johnson to replace the legend, the great Tom Landry. The Cowboys were then coming off three straight losing seasons, and the shine was coming off the Dallas brand. Fans weren’t happy at the perceived corporate manner in which Landry was fired, and neither were locals thrilled by the prospect of their team — the so-called “America’s team” — being run by an Arkansas outsider who brought in one of his cronies to coach.

The Jerry and Jimmy Show took a couple of years to find its footing, but after that initial 1-15 start, Dallas was back. With stars like Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith and Michael Irvin, the latter of whom Johnson had coached in college at Miami, Dallas won back-to-back Super Bowls in the early ‘90s.

Johnson’s run in Dallas lasted only five seasons, as Johnson grew weary of Jones’ micromanagement. The pair’s sometimes volatile relationship became national media fodder, but Johnson’s template kept the Cowboys on top. Another former Hog, Barry Switzer, was brought in to replace Johnson, and Dallas won another NFL title in the ‘90s.

Johnson assured the almost 1,000 in attendance that he and Jones are on good terms again and have been for a while.

“We’re really good now, like, we’re best friends,” he said.

He said a lack of communication, possibly brought on by complacency following the Super Bowl wins, led to their split.

“It’s a good lesson for everybody,” he said. “Dallas was the worst team in the league when we first went there. Every day, we communicated. Then, we stopped communicating.”

Johnson said when the team was 1-15, it “had that hunger.”

“No one told us how good we were,” he said. “You’ve got to have that hunger and confidence to be the best. Once you’ve had that taste of success, it’s hard to get that hunger back.”

Johnson said he reunites with former Cowboys players every year.

“Now, we have a chance to enjoy it like we should have then,” he said. “I’m doing that now.”

Johnson, 82, now retired from broadcasting and still living the good life with his boat, “Three Rings,” in south Florida, seemed genuinely pleased to be back in Arkansas and rekindle his connection to the state.

“I still pull for the Razorbacks,” he said. “It’s really a pleasure for me to be back here. I’ve got great memories of the Arkansas Razorbacks.”

Johnson shared various anecdotes during his 45-minute stay on the dais with Bazzel.

On coaching Aikman, Smith and Irvin, he said players are motivated in different ways. “I had to holler at Michael to get him going. If I hollered at Emitt, he’d go into a shell and we’d not get anything out of him the rest of the day. Troy, he’s my guy.”
On Smith signing with Florida when he was recruited by Johnson to Miami: “I think [Florida] had NIL back then.”
On taking Miami to the next level: “We were an independent then, so we had to play a national schedule. Back then, you had one national game a week and maybe two regional games. Every other week, we were on national TV, so we could recruit better players.”
On the current level of talent in the NFL: “Players are still the key. It’s a little top-heavy in the rosters. The bottom ends of the rosters are not as talented as they need to be.”
On taking the Miami job late into the year, close to the start of the ’84 season: “They required me to retain the entire staff since it was so late in the year. Three of [the assistants] had applied for the job and were told they didn’t get it 30 minutes before I met ‘em. One coach said, ‘I can’t work for you,’ and left right then. It was a very different year.”
The night before the 1963 Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, he and Jones snuck out after curfew. They were eventually tracked down by Razorback assistant coach and curfew monitor Doug Dickey, who would go on to become the head coach and athletics director at Tennessee. “He told us to pay for our drinks and get back to our rooms,” Johnson said, noting that Dickey was not any happier when he told him that their drinks were paid for.
On being friends and teammates with Jones in Fayetteville: “He was a money-making fool. He’s the smartest, hardest-working businessman I’ve ever known in my whole life.” Johnson said he skipped half a semester of invertebrate zoology one year to earn money playing bridge in the Arkansas Union.
Johnson graduated from the former Thomas Jefferson High (now Memorial High) in Port Arthur, Texas. He was classmates with rock icon Janis Joplin. Johnson referred to himself as a typical jock and to Joplin as something of a beatnik. “We didn’t like each other. We lived three blocks from each other. She probably never thought I’d get anywhere, and I never thought she would get anywhere.”
On the ’64 coaching staff at Arkansas, which included the likes of Switzer, Dickey, Wilson Matthews and others who would go on to make names for themselves in the industry, become head coaches and grow the Broyles coaching tree: “Our coaching staff brought out the best in us. We were able to go out and win those games because of the coaching staff, but we weren’t that talented.”
Johnson reminded the crowd several times that the ‘64 national championship defense, which he led as an all-Southwest Conference tackle, shut out the Hogs’ last five opponents.
On facing Nebraska in the ’65 Cotton Bowl: “We found out how small we really were when we stepped out on the field against Nebraska. They rolled me up like a window shade.”
Johnson’s parents are from Lamar in Johnson County, between Russellville and Clarksville. He started receiving scholarship offers after his senior year of football, and after hearing from the Air Force Academy (where he thought he was headed) and schools like Alabama and Texas A&M, Arkansas assistant Jim McKenzie visited and offered him a scholarship on the spot. “I’d never been to Fayetteville in my life. My mom said, ‘You can go anywhere you want to, but if you want us to watch a game, you’ll go to Arkansas.’”
On the recent Netflix docuseries about the Jerry and Jimmy years in Dallas: “Jerry had final say. It was definitely the Jerry Jones documentary.”