You hit the nail on the head Bluegrass uh er Boar.
Experienced QB in the SEC is priceless and what AA was actually able to do as a first year SEC starter was quite remarkable, in fact he performed at a higher level than 95% of us fans thought he would.
So we really cant fault him for some mistakes he made in the heat of the moment at times, especially after some of the licks he took through out the year.
Patience isn’t in the cards for a lot of Hog Fans, I’m guilty of this too at times, but it may be our greatest virtue with our situation now. Let CBB build it as he sees best. This is a very tough league and AR has less limited resources than the rest of the SECW.
Patience is a virtue, and that virtue is one many fans/people lack. We want what we want, and we want it now.
I think we have better resources than the Mississippi schools. Hugh Freeze seems to have gotten around that by playing fast and loose with the NCAA rulebook. Dan Mullen is going with another time-honored approach at Moo U; he is loading up on junior college recruits this year. Jackie Sherrill won the SEC West in '98 with a boatload of juco kids; that also got him fired five years later, followed by probation for MSU. And we are pretty familiar with the Auburn pattern: cheat, win, get caught, clean things up for a year or two, then start cheating again.
BB has his plan. He’s going to play ball control; he’s going to generally have a dominant OL, this year being an exception; and he’s not going to cut corners on character to get a few extra stars on the recruiting list. He could probably take a few more chances on recruits and we might not notice, or we might end up with a bunch of Joe Mixons and Dorial Green-Beckhams getting headlines we’d rather not have. Bob Stoops clearly is comfortable with that; I’m happy that Bret Bielema isn’t. Hayden Fry taught BB right, that you recruit your own problems. And our lack of patience is exacerbated by the steamroller Nick Saban has going. Nick takes a few character risks too, but he can just say “next” if one doesn’t pan out, and the Bummers don’t care as long as they get their 13 wins a year.
My entire life I have been proud that Arkansas does not cheat. Or, if it does, we sure aren’t flamboyant about it. I have always said I want to win…but win the right way. I may be in the minority, but I prefer 8-10 wins the right way than 11-12 cheating. That’s just me though.
I’m a golfer that doesn’t cheat either. (Actually most real golfers don’t cheat…).
Colonel, I never actually looked at this as a rebuilding year; thought the OL was problematic from the start because of the losses there. And we don’t appear to have the OL pieces in place that gives me any confidence that next year can be classified a rebuilding year either.
Not trying to turn pessimistic on you just still don’t see the OL pieces or the TE and WR that we need for this offense. We will have the QB and RBs but they can’t do it by themselves.
You mentioned lots not being sure what we had with AA. I can tell you after seeing AA in high school, I never doubted he would be good. I thought he was better than Brandon at FHS and I’m not knocking Brandon.
What really bothers me about the AA situation is he will without doubt be the best QB we’ve had in years and may end up not having the players he needs to support him either of his years as a starter. Kinda reminds me of some of the Joe Ferguson teams.
I do think that his OL and the refs just about got him killed in the Bama game. His OL couldn’t protect him and the refs wouldn’t call roughing against Bama and the latter never happened in any game I saw all year. They must be afraid of Saban.
I think that cost him some confidence along with the leg injury.
But, if BB can get these young buck OLmen up to speed and they can bring the new WR along, the offense might have a better time of it next year.
Defensively, I don’t see anything overall, that I’m optimistic about. Just not sure we have anything close to SEC type players anywhere on that side of the ball in the numbers that we need.
I finally see defensive recruiting that I trust to rebuild a unit that just wasn’t top end SEC caliber in a long time. The recruits last year and this year have more speed and ability and that’s at linebacker and defensive line. The defensive linemen in last year’s class are rated in the area that they need to be to play in the SEC. I think McTelvin Agim, Briston Guidry, Austin Capps and Jonathan Marshall were all coveted by the top schools that Arkansas must beat to be good in Power 5 games. That’s always the key, the ability of the front four. I expect the offensive line to develop, too. I like the talent assembled and the way Kurt Anderson is going about coaching that group. If there is an area that takes time, it’s the offensive line.
This was the season when the offensive line was destined to be in its most precarious state. The run-defense failure was a surprise. When you have your head coach (who came up as a defensive position coach and coordinator) questioning the scheme he’s run for a long time, it prompts more questions that have no answers. It takes a lot for a coach to consider switching to a new base defense. Normally, a coach does not make such a move unless he feels like his back is to the wall.
I have a pretty good degree of confidence that the offensive line will be fixed by next year. Lots of returnees for next season, not just end of the year starters, but others who started the first third of the season like Jackson and Raulerson. Plus some others are getting closer to being ready you would think like Jalen Merrick and the JC players. Defense is the very big question mark. I had much more confidence back in the summer that it would be the defense, not the offense, that would be the stabilizer of this year’s hopes for a decent team. The offense lost most everything, the defense had everything back. I’ve continued to think that the more teams start running the spread, the more you get acclimated to it, and eventually figure out a template that works. That clearly is not what’s happening for our defense. It’s almost like a kid that comes to a conclusion that they can’t do something so why continue to try. The players have lost confidence in themselves and in their coaching it appears.
The coach may finally be realizing what worked in the Big 10 and earlier in the Big 8 won’t necessarily work in the SEC. The only reason he had success for the last half of 2014, was due to 3 exceptional players. And that was only, I repeat, for one half of 4 seasons of football. That I can recall, we haven’t had anyone come close to the level those three played.
As for the coach, if he eeks out 7 or 8 wins each season, GPAs, player deportment, graduation rates are acceptable, he continues to build the program the right way (whatever that means), and the facilities building program stays on track, the coach can stay as long as he wishes. That’s if JL is AD. The only thing that could disrupt that is unrest in the fan base and the coach currently has them eating from the palm of his hand.
So, all is good except the annual heartburn caused by blowouts and losses to teams like TT, Toledo, and Mizzo, which usually goes away after a good weekend of bitching on this and other sports boards.
I’m thinking the online will be healthy by the bowl game
Kirkland leaving early had more of an impact than I expected - I think we score on TAMU on the 1yard line with Kirkland and Arkansas season would of been 2 games more in the win bracket
I digress
Yes online is a concearn but with Ragnow staying that will settle any uncertainty and they get better
Defense??? I have to admit I’m worried
But don’t forget the SEC advantage
Arkansas is playing against significantly tough teams every weekend in the SEC West - VATECH in the ACC Coasral not so much -
VATECH is good but if Arkansas can be physical - SEC Physical for the first half And continue as if they were playing Florida then I think VATECH cracks under the pressure and it will be a raise between RWIII and AA for offensive MVP and DWise Def MVP for the bowl game
Austin Allen is shockingly good and tough. If he has a little time he can find a receiver in spite of press coverage muggings that disrupt timing. His passing efficiency took a hit once we got into SEC play, because the Oline was truly exposed by delayed blitzes. He was under insane pressure from blitzes but also press coverage disrupted timing patterns. The good teams had a solid front with good LB’s that could blitz with speed, and corners that could manhandle our WR’s at the line. AA could not count on WR’s being in the areas at the right time before the pressure got to him. He became a “sight” passer as the season went along against the good defenses, because he only could be sure a receiver was open if he SAW them open. This affected us in other ways too because we had to go max protection with RB and TE and that impacted our ability to get Sprinkle loose. The Oline has to pick up the front pressure long enough to keep the LB’s from having easy lanes to delay rush. We are talking about a big difference in our offense if the Oline could have given AA 1-2 seconds to go through progressions.