Long Says He Talked With Arkansas

FAYETTEVILLE -- Pittsburgh athletic director Jeff Long acknowledged Saturday that he flew to Fayetteville a day earlier to speak with Arkansas officials about the school's athletic director position.

Sources at Arkansas told Hawgs Illustrated publisher Clay Henry on Saturday that Long has been offered the job and is expected to accept it.

"I was asked by the University of Arkansas to come and talk to them about the director of athletics position," Long told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Saturday afternoon.

"I discussed it with (Pitt) Chancellor (Mark) Nordenberg, so I did go to Fayetteville yesterday and discuss the job with the people at Arkansas."

A private plane registered to Arkansas' Board of Trustees flew to Pittsburgh on Friday morning to pick up Long and his wife, Fanny. The plane landed at Drake Field around 10 a.m. Friday.

White has been heading the search to find a new athletic director since Frank Broyles announced in February that he was retiring at the end of the year. Long is the first candidate to be seen visiting Fayetteville.

"But now I am back here in Pittsburgh, focused on our student-athletes that are playing today," Long told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "... I am proud to be Pitt's athletic director. Beyond that I really don't have anything else to say about the situation."

Long didn't answer a phone call to his cell phone by The Morning News on Saturday afternoon.

Long makes around $200,000 a year, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but it is not known whether Pitt will make a counter offer to try to keep Long as its athletic director.