Name a sport(s) and predict the maximum amount of years it will take the Hogs to win a national title and why. Here are my predictions:
Football. 20+ years. Relatively speaking, State of Arkansas doesn’t produce enough D1 SEC level talent compared to LSU, Bama, Georgia, Florida, Texas, Clemson, etc…
Basketball. 10+ years. Same as football but fewer studs required. CEM needs to break the ice and start landing out of state 5 Stars.
Baseball. Within two years. Great coaching, facilities and talent OH to win now. DVH is building a dominating program.
Women’s XC and track. Within two years. Coach Lance Harter is a living legend and has OH the talent and facilities to win it all. He and DVH are UA’s two best coaches in their respective sports.
Mens XC and track. Progressing nicely. Within three years.
I am gonna agree on baseball. Could be this year. If the Diamond Hogs get a Natty, we will be only the 5th program in the country to have National Championships in football, basketball, and baseball in our history. Florida is the only program in the SEC to accomplish that feat.
Pretty much agree with the general theme of what is posted above. Pretty sure it will be womens track. Never bet against DVH. Agree that Harter and DVH are the two best coaches on campus. Could others get there? Of course, but they got it to do.
If CEM can upgrade his recruiting, I could see him doing it some day and recruiting is a big part of college coaching. So far, it is not at the level it needs to be, but in Bball, it only takes a couple to improve agood team.
Football - within 10 years instead of 20+. If CSP don’t get it done, it may be another 50 years. Plus I may be pressed for time to witness it.
Men’s Basketball - 5 years. Could be sooner. As noted depends on recruiting.
Women’s Basketball - 3-5 years. CMN only needs 1 or 2 pieces (post players) to get it done.
Baseball - Any year including current. Never count DVH out at this point. Program is well established.
Men’s XC & Track - Any year including current. Program speaks for itself.
Women’s XC & Track - Same as above, men’s.
Women’s Gymnastics - 5-10 years. Program is on the rise. Seems to have the right coach.
I don’t argue against anything that has been written in this thread. This is only to add to these thoughts.
Any program that is rated in the top 20 is not terribly far away. So I’d say to add to what other’s have said here, I’d put soccer in the mix for having a shot at a national title.
And, the other two teams on campus not many are giving a shot are either one of the golf programs. Both have recruited well. When you only have to field a five-man team, it is not far fetched to think you can get there with only a slight bump up in recruiting.
I don’t know enough about gymnastics to speak on how far away Jordyn Wieber is from the top two or three programs. Can she get the program to that status? Not sure, but I do talk to others who think she is on the right track.
What about the golf programs? Both the Men and Women’s programs have been very good and it seems golf is very prone to the stars aligning (obviously with a talented team). At the tournament at the Blessings this fall where the Women led the field on the women’s side and the Men while not the leader, scored well enough for the combination score for both teams led to a Hog victory with the SEC schools competing. Buhl did not play because of back surgery and he has been a team leader for a couple of years, so one might think either or both have chances, because the SEC is very competitive in golf.
Yes, golf is what I mentioned. Both the men’s and women’s teams have been rated No. 1 in national stats in the not so distant past. Men finished second a few years ago, losing on the last hole in the last group of match play.
Yea Keith, after posting this I thought of both Golf programs. Completely forgot both soccer programs to as Clay mentioned.
What does anybody think about girls softball ?
I do think the women are likely to win a couple of national championships this year. This is as loaded as I’ve seen Lance Harter’s team, which is saying something. They have incredible depth in the distance events and are going to rack up points in the 3,000, mile and maybe 5,000 at the championship meets. It would have been even deeper if Taylor Werner had not gone pro. Right now they have the top three times nationally in the mile and the 3,000. If that holds, that would be 48 points contributed to the team score before any other events are factored. That alone might be a winning score. They also have the world’s best time this year in the mile relay.
The men seem to have a really solid indoor team this year. Because they are running on their home track I think they have a good chance at winning the indoor title in March, but I think it will be a lot closer than the women’s score.
Baseball is a national championship contender every season, in my mind. They have the players to beat anybody. That sport requires some good breaks. The same goes for the golf teams.
Golf? Possible at any time. Make the national tournament and get hot.
Baseball? At any time.
Softball. Not far behind baseball. Hasn’t been to OKC yet but has made a super.
Gymnastics is top 10 already but don’t seem to be that close to Florida or LSU. Maybe I’m wrong and we could just have a great weekend at nationals.
MN loses a ton of talent this year unless some people come back for year 6. I think we’ll dip a bit there. Muss is building but to quote Larry Johnson, he’s gotta get us some men.
Women’s track. This year. Again.
Men’s track is pretty close.
Soccer would have to get hot and catch some breaks. It will be very hard to pry an NC away from the UNC-Stanford-Florida State group any time soon. But with some breaks you might only have to beat one of those.
Baseball is the only one that even has a chance out of the big-3. I would say within 3 or 4 years but baseball is much harder than football to win, so many great teams
I think baseball is going to make another jump soon. That’s not from me. Some of my MLB scouting friends that have seen the players DVH and his coaches are committing in future classes – and the fact that minor league baseball is shrinking – think Arkansas is going to be a super power in baseball. It is already a power. What is a super power? Not sure, but I like the sound of it.
Super power = Bama in football. I’ve compared our baseball future to Bama’s current football reality. That has been on my mind recently. Sounds pretty reasonable with what you are hearing.
Soccer finished the fall at No. 7 in the final rankings. Some conferences didn’t play soccer in the fall, so it’s a bit misleading. But, the top seniors from the soccer team are returning in the fall. Winning the SEC regular season the last two seasons is a pretty good indication that the soccer team will be strong again next season.
NCAA will have a 48-team spring soccer tournament in 2021. Since Vandy (and Sarah Fuller) beat us in the SECT final, they’ll get the automatic bid, but we could and should get a bid, a first round bye and some games at home if they don’t go to some kind of a bubble format. The girls are practicing outside already per Twitter and I think Colby Hale will schedule some games this spring to sharpen up before the tournament.
