Had a chance to listen some. Does not happen that often. Seem like the theme starting with Jack Crow is there is no excuse for Arkansas to be mediocre. I agree 100%. Not talking about this year, but there is no reason that should be accepted that Arkansas cannot be very, very good. I hear people talking and posting that 8 wins with an occasional 9 or 10 is what we should set as a goal. I am so tired of hearing that. BS!!! I know and have heard all the excuses; small poor state, recruiting base, tough SEC and on and on. Those are just obstacles to be overcome. Let the pundits on ESPN and SEC networks be realistic. Not us. We should no better and demand better. What did Sam Walton say when they told him he could not beat Ben Franklin? I don’t know exactly, but I know there are 3 Walmart Super Centers within 20 min. of my house in CO and where is Ben Franklin? Can’t be done in Arkansas? BS, no double BS!!!
I totally agree! I have never understood with all the money Arkansas has and all the great facilities why we shouldn’t be as dominant as anybody!! I know there aren’t but 7-8 D1 players in state but TX and La have tons so lock up the state and get what you need elsewhere!!
I love the hire of CCM for that reason he has such great connections in Tx and you can see it’s already paying off before we play one game. Its Time we start selling the OPPORTUNITY to BUILD a Dynasty and not just be apart of the legacy like it is at Bama.
I have never understood why it couldn’t happen at Ark and why I am so passionate about the Hogs…time to bury that stinking thinking!!
Success breeds success. A couple of winning seasons will do wonders for recruiting. Good athletes want to win. They also want the opportunity to play at the next level and winning teams produce more NFL draft picks than losing teams. We have good athletes. They need to have the mental conditioning to finish every play and every game. No reason why this bunch can’t have a great season with the proper mindset and coaching, which I believe they will have tomorrow. One game at a time. One play at a time. No other way to look at it in my opinion. My son-in-law is a sports psychologist. He once told me that when focusing on the putt on the green, don’t just focus on the cup. Focus on the blade of grass that will bend when the ball rolls over it into the cup. That’s the kinds of mental focus a player must have to get to the next level.
I have said it many times on his show. All it takes is the right coach. Look at the different sports that are great at Arkansas. Hire the right coach. Three different coaches have won national titles in track. Frank and Nolan have done it in football and hoops. Van Horn and DeBriyn have been second in baseball. McMakin has finished second in golf.
Yes, it can be done. It’s recruiting and coaching. Very simple.
I know I’m right.
I think we can do a lot better with the right recruiter and it appears we have a much better recruiting staff than we have had at Arkansas in a very long time. So, I am excited, too, but you are talking about doing something that Holtz, Hatfield, Ford, Nutt, Petrino, and Bielema all failed to do. That is recruit well enough and coach well enough at Arkansas to consistently be competitive in the SEC West which makes you competitive nationally at the top of the heap. There have been high points in those careers, particularly with Holtz, Hatfield, and Nutt, but only Nutt did it, temporarily, in the SEC West and the West is a lot tougher now than it was then. Bama, Auburn, MissState, and A&M’s programs are light years ahead of where they were then. All you have to do is look at where we “might” finish in the recruiting rankings this year IF Morris’ class finishes strong and it is maybe 15-18 nationally and 9-10 ranked in the SEC. That means there is a very long way to go before we are truly competitive. All of those SEC programs that take up half of the top 20 recruiting rankings have great coaches, great facilities, great tradition, and great recruiting ability. Can we do it at Arkansas? Yes, but it will require the program to achieve a level of competitiveness beyond anything we have done in fifty years. Going undefeated in the SWC in 1964 was much easier than doing the same, today, in the SEC West. As Dorothy said to Toto: “I don’t think we are in Kansas (the SWC) anymore.” There is a monumental difference. JMVVVVVHO.
I agree we should be able to compete for conference championship, a high tier bowl game, and every once in a while, a National Championship. However, I believe the dynamics of college football and college basketball today are different and present a significant challenge for us to be able to do that.
Corruption and a will to win at any cost is rampant in both college football and basketball and the level playing field is long gone.
If you go back to the last time Arkansas participated in a BCS bowl game, which was Sugar in 2011, there have been 56 opportunities for teams to participate in a BCS bowl through 2014, and then beginning in 2015 the BCS playoffs. Of those 56 opportunities, only 27 teams participated which is less than 50%. 11 of those 27 teams participated more than once. The breakdown is as follows:
Bama = 8
Clemson = 5
Oregon = 4
Stanford = 4
Oklahoma = 4
Ohio St = 4
Florida St = 3
Auburn = 2
Virginia Tech = 2
Wisconsin = 2
Michigan St = 2
Arkansas = 1
TCU = 1
UCONN = 1
LSU = 1
Oklahoma St = 1
West Virginia = 1
Michigan = 1
Notre Dame = 1
Northern Illinois = 1
Kansas St = 1
Louisville = 1
Florida = 1
UCF = 1
Baylor = 1
Washington = 1
Georgia = 1
I have been a Razorback supporter and fan through and through for 42 years, but I have been bitten by the Apathy Bug, and I believe that several fans have the same issues. I believe this is contributing to attendance dropping the past few years and will probably continue to do so. It has become a big money game and fans like me are finding it easier to simply stay at home and watch it on the big screen.
I will continue to attend games from time to time, in fact, I will be there this weekend to see what the new staff has in store for offense and defense hoping excitement and winning tradition returns. And hopefully one day, a shot at a National Championship.
Go Hogs!!
Last year both Pat Jones talking on the Sports Animal show out of Tulsa and Tommy Tubberville talking at one of the Razorback Club meetings said the same thing there is no excuse for the Razorbacks not to be a force in recruiting with our facilities.
“The right coach”, yes. But, when do we know whether we have it, or not? How long do you wait? How many times do you start over? Pittsburgh Steelers have had like 5? Ever? Finding the line between starting over and having the right coach has been difficult for us to find. There will be people on this board that say CM is the wrong coach in about 8 weeks. Will they be right? Maybe? They probably said that after 8 weeks of Nolan, and they would have been wrong. If Beliema miraculously won a NC 10 years from now at AR, would he have been the right coach? All of these questions, we all think we know answers to. We think we are right. We can’t all have our way. The wrong coach is the one that doesn’t fill the seats and sell tickets. That’s the standard we’ve followed for decades.
It can be done at Arkansas in the SEC. No reason it can’t. None. There are no arguments that I will buy that it can’t be done. I know it can. I don’t care what anyone else thinks. They are wrong. You can win at Arkansas.
Lou Holtz was 60-21-2 at Arkansas, including 37-18-1 in conference w 1 Conference Championship
Ken H was 55-17-1 at Arkansas, including 36-10-0 in conference w 2 Conference Championships
Neither coached a game in the SEC West.
Holtz was 0-1 vs. Alabama (which won the NC that year; some things don’t change that much) and 2-1 vs. Ole Miss which was not very good then.
Hatfield was 5-0-1 vs. Ole Miss (yes they used to have ties in college football) and 0-1 vs Auburn with Bo Jackson. But even with Bo, Auburn is much better now than it was then.
TYSM Clay!
I agree and God Bless Jack Crowe for saying what I’ve felt for some time
Culture - culture culture
I still don’t think Bo Mattingly gets it
Mike Irwin , You (Clay) and Jack Crowe do get it about Arkansas
When JFB came to Arkansas the same conditions and limitations existed in the SEC then that exist now with Arkansas in the SEC
Back then UT (Spit) was a Bama clone
TCU, Tex Tech and TAMU were all good
And winners
JFB saw the potential and changed the conditions by thinking outside the box and he built …, “relationships” with the people of Arkansas and didn’t poor mouth the state
My hope is Chad Morris is our new JFB
While I’m not as optimistic as Coach Crowe (Sec championship game every 3 yrs) I do think Arkansas can win the West 2x times a decade and the SEC at least 1x a decade the way Chad Morris is working
So in the end as Mike Irein said yesterday on Bo Show - “Win” and it will all be ok
The only thing that I disagreed with Crowe on was him saying HDN told him Darren McFadden was a nondescript player and not that highly thought of in high school.
I think Bo has been here over 20 years now. I think its time to let the non-Arkansan thing go.
Coach Broyles, Coach Richardson, Coach Petrino, Coach DeBryiyn, Coach Van Horn, Coach Anderson - none of those guys were born in Arkansas and still got it.
Clay you and I think exactly alike on this…no reason whatsoever we shouldn’t be getting elite type talent to win in here with all we offer never have believed it why I called it stinking thinking.
Under Broyles & Holtz the hogs were as good as any team in the country. The 1960’s &’70’s weren’t that different from today. There were about 5 really good conferences & each had about 2, maybe 3, dominating teams. The SEC had Bama & usually LSU. The SWC had us & Tex. Big 8 had OU & Neb. Pac 8 had USC & UCLA. Big 10 had OSU & Mich. Sometimes it had Mich St & Purdue.
Today the SEC is good from top to bottom & the bottom is better than the middle of most other conferences.
I agree it’s going to be hard to get to the top of recruiting rankings in the SEC anytime soon, but there’s usually not much difference between the #3 nationally ranked team & the 19th ranked team. One can be 9th in the SEC & close enough to the top to be competitive & even win it. Recruiting rankings mean something, but they’re not exact. Besides, other things can enter into a team’s success besides recruiting talent. (Desire, work ethic, late development by a player, injuries are just a few other factors.). Talent has to be close, but it doesn’t have to be “the best.”
Texas Tech was not even in the SWC when JFB arrived; their first season competing for the SWC title was 1960. Number of SWC titles (co-champions) won by Tech: One, the year JFB and DKR retired.
TCU was good when Frank got here, but that didn’t last long. From 1960 to 1994, TCU won more than six games ONCE.
A&M wasn’t even good. Here is the list of TAM finishes in the SEC in Frank’s first nine seasons: 5th, 7th, 7th, 4th, 4th, 8th, 7th, 7th. Then in year 10 A&M caught lightning in a bottle and won the conference.
At best, the SWC was a three-team league for most of JFB’s tenure. That third team would fluctuate, sometimes SMU, sometimes A&M, sometimes Baylor. Houston joined the league in JFB’s last year; we beat them, nobody else did and they went to the Cotton Bowl.
Amen to this post. I’ve been listening to the why we can’t for years now. And not calling anyone out at all, but some people high up on this board heirarcy.
Get it done and if you can’t, hire another coach. That includes basketball and track. In all sports. It was right to let the last coach go. Let’s give Morris a chance.
Maybe the sleeping giant is awaking…time will tell…WPS
That’s interesting. My experience in listening to Bo’s show is that in the past he has often spent a lot of time preaching to Arkansas fans about how the program is what it is (mid level) and that we should just accept that and eat it.
If only Sam Walton would have chose to be a Coach or AD at AR instead of a savvy business man.
Hmmmm