Arkansas AD Hunter Yurachek takes shot at Bobby Petrino while celebrating season ticket sales
The vibes around Arkansas football this offseason are as good as they’ve been in a while. And athletic director Hunter Yurachek has the facts to back it up.
Speaking to boosters earlier this week at luncheon to discuss the state of Arkansas athletics, Yurachek shared that the Razorbacks are headed towards 50,000 season tickets sold for the 2023 football season. He pointed out that’s the highest level since then-Arkansas head coach Bobby Petrino got into a now-infamous motorcycle crash in 2012.
“Kevin, can I say it? Can I say it? I’m going to say it, Kevin,” Yurachek said, presumably asking senior athletic director of public relations Kevin Trainor for his blessing. “We’re at about 45,000, on our way to 50,000 season tickets sold this year. That will be the most that we’ve had sold since the motorcycle accident.”
Arkansas had won double-digit games in back-to-back seasons before Petrino’s offseason motorcycle crash, including an 11-win campaign in 2011. That season featured a Cotton Bowl victory over Kansas State and the only two losses came to LSU and Alabama — who would face off in the BCS national championship game.
It was a modern high water mark for the Razorbacks, as Petrino’s motorcycle incident resulted in his firing and a period of fallow football for Arkansas. From 2012 through 2020, Arkansas was bowl eligible three times and the best win-loss record was 8-5 during Bret Bielema’s third season.
But following back-to-back bowl games and a nine-win 2021 campaign, current Arkansas head coach Sam Pittman seems to have the Razorbacks trending up. And the season ticket sales seem to reflect that.
And it’s led to Yurachek making a humorous proclamation.
“Since the motorcycle accident, we took a dip. Now we’re back up on this — coach Pittman’s got us headed in the right direction,” Yurachek said. “And I forbid him from getting on motorcycles, by the way.”
Yurachek’s Petrino riff wasn’t his only controversial take this week
As a spate of college athletics and NIL collective leaders go to Washington D.C. to do some political lobbying, Yurachek made waves with his articulation of some of the issues facing college sports.
“Young men and women are making decisions not to go to Major League Baseball or the WNBA or the NBA because they can make more money in college,” Yurachek said, via the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s Matt Jones. “Does that make any sense, that you can make more money by staying in college than you can by going and being a professional athlete? That’s where we have some issues in college athletics.”