The thing that worried me most about whether CSP could be a success at Arkansas was whether he could win early enough to give credibility to his recruiting pitches. It’s one thing to believe a coach can turn a program around, but players & recruits must have something tangible to point to. This win did that. Now he can tell these kids if they come here, they really can be part of a winning program. He’s done well getting them to come on blind faith. Now, it’s paying off. Even the loss to UGA was better than what we’ve seen.
I’m more optimistic than I’ve been in a while. If we can win 2-4 more, we can tell recruits we’ve turned the corner. Winnable games include MU, OM, TAMU, & TN. Who knows? Perhaps even AU & LSU suffered enough losses from last season that we might surprise one of them.
Against this schedule a 3-7 record is a vast improvement. Tonight’s win alone is big improvement.
I said last week that 3-7 against this schedule would feel like 7-3. I still believe that, but getting two more will not be easy. Especially as the injuries mount and we get wore down. Sure wish we could play Missouri next week.
I’m worried about EOE-K from that list. It took a while for Pruitt to get them started last year, but they have turned a corner and seem to be pretty good. That’s not to say we can’t beat them, but they may well be better than once thought.
Yeah, TN is looking stronger than I thought they’d be. But I said “winnable” not “we’ll win.” For the first time in 2-3 years, I feel all but maybe a couple of games on our remaining schedule are winnable. (caveat: with the covid wild card, I suppose every game could become winnable and every game we have a shot at winning could be too much to overcome. I’m assuming no team gets inordinately hit with it. Probably not a realistic assumption.)