Plenty of reaction and quotes to share with you regarding the suspension of the SEC officiating crew today.

1. Let’s start with Bobby Petrino, who commented about it in an Arkansas press release:

“We took the appropriate steps to address any issues we had with the league regarding this matter earlier in the week,” Petrino said. “Our focus as a football team has been and remains on this weekend’s game against Ole Miss.”

2. A little more reaction from Arkansas. This from athletic director Jeff Long, who Tweeted about the decision earlier today:

“I respect Comish Slive for the action he took today, I appreciate his leadership. We have moved on, focused on Ole Miss in Football.”

3. Arkansas defensive tackle Malcolm Sheppard (who was the subject of the penalty, non-penalty) was told he couldn’t comment about the situation today. However, he did offer this when pressed a little more after practice.

“I think everybody came out and played hard no matter what happened with the calls and stuff like that. I think everybody competed well, and there’s a lot of intensity in the game and aggression that’s a part of game. And I thought we brought that to the table against Florida.”

4. Mike Fish of ESPN.com did a good job of getting in touch with referee Marc Curles, who is the leader of the suspended crew and also the man who threw the flag on Sheppard. Here is what Curles told ESPN.com. You can find the entire story by clicking this link

“I understand people are passionate about their teams,” Curles told ESPN.com. “Like I said, we sign up for this. I admit I made a mistake in this ballgame. I deserve a little bit of people getting on me. I am getting on myself.”

I got a chance to talk to Arkansas athletic director Jeff Long at length about the punishments a few other topics a little while ago.

I’ll just run some of his responses word for word below:

(On why he felt two to three games was appropriate) “I think given the poor decisions of the student athletes, the situations they place themselves in, we think this is a strong response to those young men. We think it sends them a strong message that they need to make better choices. I think that playing time is something that is very, very important. We feel like we’ve taken a substantial piece of that away from them.”

(His thoughts on John Pelphrey during this incident) “I think John has responded every time a young person has made a misstep. I think he’s responded in a very appropriate way. He has had expectations and when young men have fallen short of those expectations in our program, he has not failed to take appropriate disciplinary action. Even when it meant the possibility of losing a game on the court. I respect that. I support that. I think John understands we’re here for more than just winning basketball games. We’re here to help young men grow and develop and when they leave here, be better, productive citizens. He and I are on the exact same page there. I think I’d be more concerned if he had not responded to these missteps by the young men in the program.”

(On his support for Pelphrey) “He has my support and he’s taking the appropriate action. Do we wish we weren’t facing these situations with our players? Absolutely. Have we responded? Have we taken very substantial steps in educating them, correcting them and disciplining them? Yes. And I believe John has done that.”

(On how much blame a coach takes for repeated incidents) “I think if a coach was ignoring actions of young people or making excuses for them or those kind of things, then I think the coach certainly has some responsibility there. But when a young person who is not under our supervision 24 hours a day, seven days a week make bad choices, which young people 18 to 23, 24, do every night or every day on this campus, it’s difficult to hold a coach responsible for that. I think you can hold a coach responsible if he does not act appropriately when there’s misconduct or missteps in the program.”

(On another unrelated player suspension that was announced today) “We had a violation of team rules that occurred unrelated to this incident that they’re being disciplined for. The media will not become aware of them until the season when they see a player not playing. So what we wanted to do is not create the perception that we had these issues and between now and the start of the basketball season, we had some other issues. And so it would create the wrong perception. We wanted to try to get it out here. We have some unrelated disciplinary action that we’re going to be taking during the season. It’s not related to this incident.”

(On how all of the game suspensions will be assessed) “At the beginning of the season, the penalties will be assessed (for the recent incident). For the disciplinarian action that’s unrelated to this most recent incident, those will be spaced out in order to provide us a reasonable chance to compete with a number of players.”

  I apologize in advance if you’re tired of reading about the new synthetic surface inside Reynolds Razorback Stadium, but I have a quick update about it.

  Arkansas athletic director Jeff Long said Wednesday that the construction work on the turf is done and that the Razorbacks will likely use the field for the first time later today.

  ”The turf gets turned over to us today, and I believe they’re going to have  a conditioning workout this evening,” said Long, who attended the first day of the SEC Media Days in Hoover, Ala. “So we’ll officially have the field today.”

  Long said a few weeks ago that he expected the turf to be in place by the end of July, ahead of his original hope that the field would be complete by early August.

  ”The construction folks have turned it over to us,” Long said. “They’ve done all the testing for compression and everything passes with flying colors, and it’s now ours to work out and take control of.”

  Long said he believes that the Razorbacks will benefit from the construction getting done early, allowing them to work on the synthetic surface before the start of preseason camp on Aug. 6.

  ”They can do conditioning stuff out there and get used to the field,” Long said. “And I think being on the surface and being on the stadium will just help our team this tough season ahead.”

  What a wild day and it’s not over. But here is my story that will appear in Saturday’s edition of The Morning News on Arkansas athletic director Jeff Long working on extending the contract of men’s basketball coach John Pelphrey from 2012 to 2014.

  Back to writing…

  FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas officials are in the process of finalizing the paperwork that would extend the contract of men’s basketball coach John Pelphrey from 2012 to 2014, Arkansas athletic director Jeff Long told The Morning News on Friday.

  Long said he spoke with Pelphrey in June and informed the coach that his contract would be extended for another year.

  University officials are also working on finalizing the paperwork for the one-year extension that Long agreed to give Pelphrey after he took the Razorbacks to the second round of the NCAA Tournament during the 2007-08 season.

  Because of some delays involving attorneys, Long said the paperwork for last year’s extension hasn’t been completed.

  “At the end of every season, the way coach Pelphrey’s contract is structured, I need to make a decision whether to extend him another year or let him know that he has not been extended,” Long said.

  “This summer, as part of our process, I notify him that he’s being extended per his contract and that’s what we’ve done. We haven’t finalized the paperwork on that at this time.”

  Long said Pelphrey’s new deal doesn’t include a raise. The extension agreed to last summer pushed the length of Pelphrey’s contract to 2013 and the new deal extends it to 2014.

  “Going back with attorneys and whatever, that (first extension) never got finalized. But the agreement, the commitment, was there,” Long said. “So, this year when I made the decision to roll him over, we just decided we would handle both years with one document.”

  On Thursday, Long expressed his support for Pelphrey, who has had to deal with a tumultuous offseason that has seen several players transfer, leave the team or get suspended.

  Pelphrey announced last Sunday that troubled guard/forward Jason Henry will not return next season. A source close to the program told The Morning News on Thursday that guard Stefan Welsh has been suspended indefinitely from the team because of academic issues.

  In addition, forwards Brandon Moore and Andre Clark decided to transfer after last season, leaving the Razorbacks with only two players from last year’s six-man recruiting class.

  But Long said the long-term deals that Pelphrey, Arkansas football coach Bobby Petrino and baseball coach Dave Van Horn have further proves that “they have a commitment from the university and likewise we know that we have a commitment” from them.

  Who knew that today would turn into such a busy day?

  Arkansas guard Stefan Welsh gets suspended. Football coach Bobby Petrino donates $100,000 to the Razorback Foundation. And then there’s this…

  Arkansas athletic director Jeff Long and men’s golf coach Brad McMakin have each received contract extensions over the past month, according to documents released today in response to a Freedom of Information Act request submitted by The Morning News.

  Long signed an extension on June 11 that added one year to the length of his deal. His contract now runs through June 30, 2014.

  McMakin received a five-year extension and a $25,000 raise — a nice reward for McMakin leading the Razorbacks to within one hole of winning their first men’s golf national championship. The raise bumps his salary from $105,000 to $130,000.  

  Read more about their extensions, as well as Long talking about a possible new deal for Arkansas baseball coach Dave Van Horn, in Friday’s edition of The Morning News.

  Well, it appears there is more bad news for Arkansas’ basketball team.

  According to a report by 40/29, Arkansas guard Stefan Welsh has been suspended indefinitely from the team for an undisclosed reason.

  The news of Welsh’s suspension comes only four days after Arkansas coach John Pelphrey announced that troubled guard/forward Jason Henry has left the team and will not return. Henry became the fourth member of last year’s six-person recruiting class to leave the Razorbacks since December.

   I spoke with Arkansas athletic director Jeff Long early this afternoon, and I asked him about the growing problems within the basketball program and the displeasure some fans have expressed about the direction of the team under Pelphrey.

  Here is what Long said:

  “I would say that coach Pelphrey has my confidence and he understands the kind of basketball program we want to build and run. He and I are on the same page about that, so I think the future is bright for our men’s basketball program.

  “Are we going to win instantly? No, but we’re building for the future. We’re building a strong program on and off the court and one that we can all be proud of.”

Arkansas athletic director Jeff Long has been in a hiring mood today.

The university has also announced that a new softball coach, Mike Larabee, has been hired today. Larabee comes to Arkansas after spending the past five seasons at Wright State. He is the third coach in the program’s history. Arkansas started softball in 1997.

Below is part of Arkansas’ lengthy release on Larabee. If you want the whole thing, click this link.

FAYETTEVILLE –- After building Wright State into an NCAA Tournament qualifier and establishing himself as one of the nation’s top coaches at the collegiate, national and international levels, Mike Larabee has been named head coach of the University of Arkansas softball program, Vice Chancellor and Director of Athletics Jeff Long announced on Thursday.

“We are pleased to announce that Mike Larabee has been selected to lead the Razorback softball program,” Long said. “His diversified experience of competing in men’s fastpitch softball at the highest level, and coaching college baseball and women’s college softball made him uniquely qualified. He has built a program with limited resources into one that has qualified for the NCAA Tournament. His energy, enthusiasm and confidence in his ability to lead our program to competitive success set him apart from our other candidates. Coach Larabee has demonstrated his ability to teach and motivate his players on the softball field and support them in their academic pursuits as well.

“We have made a tremendous commitment to our softball program, including the completion of Bogle Park. I believe Coach Larabee’s ability to coach, instruct and recruit will allow us to continue toward our goal to compete at the top of the SEC and at the national level.”

Larabee, a two-time United States National Softball Team pool coach and a two-time all-world selection as an athlete, becomes the third head softball coach in University of Arkansas history. The Razorback softball program was launched in 1997.

“I am appreciative of the opportunity Jeff Long and the University of Arkansas has given me to lead the Razorback softball program,” Larabee said. “The University of Arkansas is a place where our coaching staff will work hard teaching and coaching the game while recruiting quality student-athletes. I couldn’t ask for a better opportunity than to coach in the Southeastern Conference at an outstanding institution known for its academic and athletic excellence.”

We’ve spent a lot of time talking about the Arkansas basketball program and its APR shortcomings this year.

It deserves to be talked about. It’s a major sport. And it looks like there is some big trouble brewing.

But let’s take a break and assess the rest of the Arkansas’ APR landscape. Eighteen of Arkansas’ 19 sports earned scores above the 925 cutline. That’s an impressive achievement. Even more impressive, 16 of the 19 teams maintained or improved their scores from last year’s four-year snapshot. And even more impressive than that, 12 of 19 teams scored above 959.

Two of the biggest improvements were pointed out in Arkansas’ release earlier today:

• Baseball went from 914 to 945

• Men’s golf went from 904 to 945

Arkansas athletic director Jeff Long said he was pretty happy with the entire program and how it performed. He said Arkansas holds a higher standard than the NCAA. If a team scores under 935, they examine it, see what has happened and does everything possible to improve. You can’t blame them. I wouldn’t want to be messing around close to the 925 mark.

In those terms, Arkansas will evaluate football (927) and women’s tennis (932). Long was asked about the football program’s score on the teleconference earlier today and had this to say:

“Football, it’s OK,” Long said. “We’re going to work to do better there. It’s beneath that 935 level that we kind of set as an area where we’re going to work even harder and present plans to help our student-athletes achieve at a higher rate. But I’m satisfied because we did go through a coaching change and that does impact your numbers. But we’ve got to stay on top of it. I know Coach Petrino and his staff are on top of it. I think we’ll see improvement as the years go on.”

I’ll close this blog with something Arkansas fans won’t like to see regarding both football and basketball.

Brett McMurphy of the Tampa Tribune has done a little research (at least, I think it was him) and has found the bottom 10 football and basketball scores among BCS conference schools. The school he covers, South Florida, falls in that category in both sports. But guess what? So does Arkansas.

According to McMurphy’s blog, Arkansas is sixth-worst in football (but still above the 925 cutline I might add) among BCS conference schools. The basketball team is fourth worst. So there you go.

Arkansas has issued a press release regarding APR scores for all 19 sports teams. In it, Jeff Long and John Pelphrey were quoted in regard to the basketball team’s score of 888.

Here is what they said:

Long — “We have been closely monitoring our APR situation in our men’s basketball program and know that we still face some challenges ahead. Certainly, we are disappointed that we have subjected ourselves to potential penalties. However, our athletic department administration and academic support staff continue to work closely with the coaching staff to help ensure that our student-athletes have every opportunity to meet their academic responsibility and succeed academically.”

Pelphrey — “As a basketball program, we are committed to the development of student-athletes academically and athletically. Our current APR score is a reflection of many factors including a significant amount of transition in the time period evaluated. Just as we have taken steps to lay the groundwork for an even stronger team on the court, our coaches and academic support staff have worked with our student-athletes to help them enhance their academic progress. I am optimistic that our continued emphasis and proactive approach will result in an improved team APR rating.”

The media will have a chance to speak with Long in a little bit via teleconference. I’ve been told this is the only quote we’re going to have from Pelphrey today. So we’ll let you know when we hear more.

The NCAA will be releasing Academic Progress Rate’s across the country a little later this afternoon, but we know what’s going on with the Razorbacks already: Arkansas’ basketball ball team is going to take a hit and will be penalized in some form or fashion.

Athletic director Jeff Long said last week he doesn’t foresee the Razorbacks losing scholarships right now because of the poor performance in the latest multi-year APR. Instead, Arkansas is expected to get a public warning. We’ll see if that holds true. It may sound like a slap on the wrist, but it’s clearly a concern. It’s something that could lead to scholarship losses or worse down the road.

Ole Miss’ football program is dealing with some fallout today. The Clarion-Ledger indicates the football program will lose three scholarships because of a poor APR rating. There are two kinds of penalties the NCAA dishes out in regard to APR: Historical and Immediate. The scholarship losses at Ole Miss are the result of immediate penalties, meaning these were scholarship athletes who left the program and left the program when they were academically ineligible.

Ole Miss isn’t the only program to take a hit, either. Minnesota football has lost three scholarships as well.

Clearly, the APR is no laughing matter. Check back later for Arkansas’ program-wide scores and any penalties issued.