Arkansas Sports 360 - ArkansasSports360.com

9/7/2010 at 3:36pm

Where was Bobby Johnson on Saturday evening? Watching every Vanderbilt play against Northwestern from start to finish, he said Tuesday at the Little Rock Touchdown Club.

But after the game, he didn't have a heartbroken team to address following a 23-21 loss that had its share of controversy. Johnson may have yelled at the officials, but not from the sideline. His wife, Catherine, could look over and for the first time in 34 years wasn't alone, while the coach was with his team. She didn't have to hear the despondent Vandy fans suffering through another disappointing loss and yelling about how the coach should have done this and that to make the outcome different.

"It's different, no doubt about it" Johnson said Tuesday of his current lifestyle, which changed to its relaxed state in July when he abruptly resigned as Vanderbilt coach and the school turned to his longtime aide, Robbie Caldwell. "It's going to be an adjustment." Johnson has plans to catch as many games as he can on TV, and he has "pilgrimages" planned for the season back to alma mater Clemson and Furman, where he coached before Vanderbilt, reaching three Division I-AA title games and winning one. And he'll schedule around Vanderbilt games, which will have his attention.

'I watched every play Saturday. I will be that way for a long time."

Johnson said he has missed coaching everyday since stepping down. This Labor Day was the first once since he started playing football that he wasn't preparing for the next game.

But he says he is and will continue to be a Vanderbilt fan. "I think they'll be better than last year," he said of a 2-9 season that was full of near-misses and injuries that ruined the good feelings left from 2008, when Vanderbilt won its first bowl game since 1955.

"And the next season is when the really should be a good team," he said. Johnson said Vanderbilt enjoyed its best recruiting year in his time in Nashville following the bowl win, and recruiting at Vanderbilt has steadily improved since he took over in 2002. The continuity with all of his assistants staying over, and Caldwell being promoted to coach -- the "interim" tag was taken off in August -- should be a boost to the players who signed on with Johnson over the past couple of seasons.

Vanderbilt cycles back onto Arkansas' schedule this year, with a game in Fayetteville on Oct. 30, and at Nashville next season. The last time Vandy was on the Hogs' schedule, right after then Arkansas coach Houston Nutt complained that his program "didn't get to play Vanderbilt" enough, the Commodores shocked the Hogs 28-24 in Fayetteville in 2005, with future NFL star Jay Cutler leading the way, then came a couple of feet on a field goal from doing it again in 2006.

Johnson was always good for pulling a shocker over some team that expected Vanderbilt to roll over, at least until last year's traumatic 0-8 league season. Though Johnson waited until July to make his decision on the job, and no one saw it coming, it appears 2009 took a big toll on Johnson and his wife too.

"When it's time to retire, it's time to retire," Johnson told the Touchdown Club gathering.

He's left with some good memories, though -- the best being the 2008 win over Tennessee that ended a long Volunteers' domination in the series. "Because of the importance that win carried with the Vanderbilt fans and the Vandy program," he said of why it rated No. 1 in his mind. "It had been a long time since Vanderbilt had won in the series, since 1975. Frankly, I didn't quite know how important it meant to the Vandy fans."

Jay Cutler, with the Chicago Bears after starting his career in Denver, stays close to Johnson and the Vanderbilt program, Johnson said, and returns to Nashville to work out in the off season. "He's still great for our program. He was a great player and a good student. I'm not going to say he was a great student, but he was a good one," JOhnson said after the luncheon. He's a great example for the program, to show that you can go to Vanderbilt and go on to the NFL."

Johnson said that with Ryan Mallett at quarterback, Arkansas should expect to have a big season. "Bobby Petrino is a class act and a great football coach," he said. "In fact, one of the first things I did when I got the Vanderbilt job, in 2001, was to cancel a series with Louisville. I knew they were going to be very good. Bobby Petrino is a top quality coach."

Later, he would add of Mallett: "You can tell he's a competitor, a leader and a talented player. THere's not much else you need. It all depends this year on how he handles adversity with that arises. I understand he's a good kid, and you like to see those kind of players have success.

He added, "Bobby Petrino demands a lot from his players ... You see that they are sound and you saw this at Louisville and now here that they are going to play tough defense and will always have an explosive offense."

Still, the Southeastern Conference Western Division race may be a "flip the coin" type of result, Johnson said, listing everyone but Ole Miss as a possibility if Alabama falters.

One of Johnson's former players, Russellville native Alan Bubbus, who works for Arvest Bank in Little Rock now, was in the audience and offered a brief testimonial to what Johnson expected of all the Commodores. Bubbus, who walked on for his senior year the season that Johnson arrived, said that he was taking a pass-fail course and was missing classes, expecting to just take the test and pass the course. Johnson learned that Bubbus was missing the classes and called him in. Bubbus, working toward a triple major, tried to explain to his coach that it was a pass-fail class, but he added, "Coach Johnson said, 'I want you do it the right way.' That's just the kind of class act he is."

Johnson said he felt good about Vanderbilt's future in the football dominant SEC, where the rest of the league is made up of public institutions. "I think Vanderbilt can fairly consistently go to bowl games and win games in the SEC," he said.

Johnson won't be on the sideline making that happen now, but he'll be close by urging the Commodores on and still sharing emotionally with their highs and lows.

Tagged: Bobby Johnson, Vanderbilt Commodores, Robbie Caldwell, Bobby Petrino, Ryan Mallett