No, asking when he'll do better than Nutt at Ark. When is Petrino the genius going to have a better record than Nutt the moron? When will he win the SECC? If he can't do it with a guy like Mallet...when will he do it?
That depends on how you want to quantify it.
If we win our bowl game, Petrino will have won in three years as many as Nutt won in 10.
Nutt won 9 in his first season. The next year he won 8. The next year, he won 7. The next year, he won 6. Petrino won 5. Then 8. This year, we should win more than 8. I like where we're trending. That's not even getting into the fact that the SEC West is about 1000x more difficult than it was in the late 90s/early 2000s.
Nutt made two SEC Championship games. 2006 was legit, and we legitimately had a shot in the game against Florida. Unlike many Hog fans, I give him that one. But '02 was bull malarkey. We won a 3-way tie for SECOND and got to go because 1st place Bama was on probation. So, yeah, he "took us to Atlanta" in the course of having a better conference record than Ole Miss and MSU.
This was Petrino's first season with the pieces in place. We lost a heartbreaker to Bama, and we lost on the road to Cam Newton, but I feel good about the prospect of winning out. Even at Auburn, 9-3 or 10-2 isn't TOO disappointing of a season, is it? Are you such an elite program that 9-3 makes you feel like you'll never get to the top? Why should we feel that way at Arkansas?
The "if not with Mallett, when?" is idiotic. Petrino will always have a top-notch quarterback. Always. If you've paid any attention to him at all, you'd know that. He attracts great quarterbacks, and he also develops them into better quarterbacks. Look at what he did with Casey Dick in one freaking season. The question to ask is when Petrino will develop the defense that will enable him to win the conference. I think it will happen. You obviously don't. Time will tell.