Cody Campbell fires back at John Tyson's chickens joke

Tyson made the joke at the Little Rock Touchdown Club, and by Monday night Campbell had posted a reply.

Pete Nakos

@PeteNakos

Cody Campbell weighs in on John Tyson’s comments: t.co/0yfrk9GaoD

On3@On3

NEW: Arkansas booster John Tyson on Texas Tech booster Cody Campbell "changing" the Red Raiders football program: "Well he's got oil, I've got chickens."😂 (via @MimsCourtney) t.co/0wO2xgMnoU

Here is the setup. At the Touchdown Club, Tyson got the question every Arkansas fan has been asking: why can't he do for the Razorbacks what Campbell has done for Texas Tech? He said Campbell had "completely by himself changed that whole problem" in Lubbock, then delivered the line: "He's got oil, and I've got chickens." The room loved it. It's a decent bit, too. Campbell is co-founder and co-CEO of Double Eagle Energy Holdings, an oil and gas company. Tyson runs the family business, Tyson Foods, out of Springdale.

Campbell didn't accept the poor-chicken-farmer act. "Let me tell you something: This SOB has PLENTY of chickens," he wrote. "The difference is @JoeyMcGuireTTU. Money is money, but football is still football!" So the oil billionaire takes a joke about his oil money and turns it into a plug for his head coach. Fair enough. It's also a polite way of telling Tyson his chicken money spends just fine.

The numbers back up both men to a point. According to CBS Sports, Arkansas is spending a little over $20 million on its roster, which puts it near the bottom of SEC payrolls. Texas Tech is spending more than $30 million this season. That's a real gap, and it's the gap Tyson was laughing about. Campbell's point is that $10 million doesn't explain why one program became a Big 12 powerhouse while the other is still stuck.

That's why this is more than 2 rich guys trading one-liners. Campbell, a former Texas Tech offensive lineman, has turned into the face of the booster-as-owner model of the NIL era, and every fan base outside Lubbock now wants its own version. Arkansas has the obvious candidate in Tyson, and Tyson Foods is already a major sponsor of the Razorbacks. When he goes in front of a Little Rock crowd and says, basically, don't expect me to be Cody Campbell, Hogs fans hear it.

There's a coaching side to it too. Arkansas is in year 1 under Ryan Silverfield, and Campbell basically credited the whole Texas Tech rise to McGuire. If Campbell is right that coaching matters more than the bank account, then Silverfield is the guy who has to close the gap, not Tyson's wallet. If Tyson is right, Arkansas is stuck at the low end of the SEC pay scale either way.

What happens next is what Arkansas fans actually care about. Either Tyson and the rest of the Razorback money spend more to keep up, or the program tries to win the way Campbell says Tech did, by getting the coaching right first. Either way, "oil vs. chickens" is going to stick around as the shorthand for how far apart these programs are.