Arkansas Football Program Not Making the Grade

It seems the only thing that can end this tumultuous off-season for the Arkansas Razorbacks is the start of the actual season. Irritated with the assertion that a very small, very vocal minority of fans have any sort of problem with the goings on in Fayetteville, a fan funded a professional poll to determine the program's "approval rating." The numbers are not at all surprising.

Houston Nutt earned himself a 61.75% among avid fans while Chancellor White and Athletic Director Broyles only picked up 40%.

Nutt's rating is only a bit higher than his winning percentage at Arkansas, which is appropriate. White and Broyles, on the other hand, seem about ready to be run out of town by a lynch mob. Less than a quarter are "very satisfied" with Nutt, while the two administrators have little over an eighth in the same category. These numbers are pretty bad, especially considering the success that Arkansas enjoyed last year.
That said, while most of the questions were quite good, there's a bit of ambiguity and leading in some of the questions that will invariably cause some to question the results. Most notably, at least to me, are questions 5, 7, and 8.

Question 5 not only paraphrases Coach Nutt, but also suggests an answer. "Do you agree with that statement or do you think the football program can do better?" Unsurprisingly, only 6% of avid fans agreed after that suggestion. Give them an exact quote and ask whether they agree, disagree, or have no opinion and the numbers turn out significantly different.

Question 7 is more of the same. As opposed to asking how the respondent would rate White's handling of the email fiasco, they asked if the respondents think he "should have done a better job?"

Question 8 starts out with "I am sure you are aware there has been a lawsuit filed...". Why not just ask if the respondent is aware that the suit has been filed, and if not, don't ask them the questions about it?

It given that all of these questions seem to slant in the direction of the malcontents, it seems pretty clear that this "professional" polling organization (credentials, please) has an axe to grind, and to argue that the slantedness of some questions would not skew the results of the others, at least somewhat, is a little naive.

Regardless of those issues, though, it's pretty clear that this "small, vocal minority" is probably not as small as the Pollyanna's would have us believe.