The 2016 Arkansas Razorbacks football season is finally over. It limped to a complete halt at the end of the first half tonight, and rolled over and expired. I won’t yield to the raw emotions which are threatening to compel me to utter bitter, inane condemnations of the coaching staff and the players. Such a vintage of sour grapes would serve no useful purpose at this time, as they would certainly not act to lift anyone’s spirits or mollify the bruised and battered sensibilities of the Hogs faithful.
This ignominious season is over. I don’t want to talk about it right now; - - and I don’t want to hear about it right now. The 2016 Arkansas Razorbacks football season is dead and buried. R.I.P.
[quote=“SilverFox”]
The 2016 Arkansas Razorbacks football season is finally over. It limped to a complete halt at the end of the first half tonight, and rolled over and expired. I won’t yield to the raw emotions which are threatening to compel me to utter bitter, inane condemnations of the coaching staff and the players. Such a vintage of sour grapes would serve no useful purpose at this time, as they would certainly not act to lift anyone’s spirits or mollify the bruised and battered sensibilities of the Hogs faithful.
This ignominious season is over. I don’t want to talk about it right now; - - and I don’t want to hear about it right now. The 2016 Arkansas Razorbacks football season is dead and buried. R.I.P.
[/quote]This year is about average for most years. You only need look at the recruiting rankings to understand that Arkansas will usually finish in the lower 1/3rd of the SEC.
I agree it’s over. I’m at the Belk bowl right now and you should see the disgusted fanbase down here. Everyone seemed to agree that there is something seriously wrong with the program. We were sitting behind the team and there seemed to be a total lack of motivation by the this coaching staff.
Those folks who say we are hampered by recruiting are correct. However, it is up to the coaching staff to correct that. Also, I would contrast the coaching styles of Beliema who wants to be a player’s best friend and Saban who is likely to get in a player’s face and ask him if he really wants it.
I am not going to go crazy about the football results because if is exactly what I predicted from the beginning. I never liked the Jeff Long style nor the Beliema style. Long has a bias for his northern roots. Beliema came in shooting off his big mouth and bragging about what he was going to do. He has certainly not backed it up. His style contrasts with the dignified, gentlemanly style of a Frank Broyles. I stated a long time ago that we have become the University of Somewhere Up North (USUN). We pretty much severed our connections to the south with the coming of the Long era. Beliema drove off our fine recruiting coordinator, Tim Horton. Auburn has been glad to have him. Beliema has briefly had assistants with connections to Florida and to Texas but he lacks the recruiting talent to compete in the south. Beliema is good at recruiting overweight offensive linemen, decent running backs and timid defensive backs who run a 4.6 forty. We lack team speed and physical toughness on defense and pre-game hype and motivation doesn’t seem to last beyond half-time.
Bielema lost this team after the Auburn game. That is when they realized that the coaches don’t know what they’re doing. They will at first question their own talent but then will blame the coaches because it was then reinforced when they blow 2nd half leads and we can not adjust.
Long posted today that the sky isn’t falling and they will make changes. What those changes are are still unknown. Every head coach needs a first class coaching staff. As much as we think Saban, Meyer and the rest of them are coaching Gods, they need good assistants. Long will need to open the purse and put more money in the assistant coaching pot. Let it be known, we are going out to hire the best in the business and are willing to pay for their service.
As a fan base we can no longer sit back and accept a mediocre product and we should all voice our displeasure. Some of us who were around watching football in the 60’s and remember how much respect we had nationally want those days to return but we have to demand that the athletic program devotes as much resources to the coaching staff and they do to the brick and mortar.
I am not brimming with confidence that the Arkansas Athletic Department is willing to get to the root of the obvious horrendously deficient and woefully inconsistent morass of debacles that has landed the program in the valley of malaise and act IMMEDIATELY to rectify the abysmal prevailing physical and mental condition retrogression and collapse, along with the current utter lack of attendant expectation of a realistic chance of winning evinced by the football program as a whole.
Even long-time diehard fans like yours truly now sadly no longer believe in the prospective advancement of the program. For the first time in over a half century as a dedicated Razorbacks fan, I have absolutely no faith in the premise that things will improve. I’m out of patience - - - and utterly out of hope.
Left the Belk Bowl right before Morgan go ejected. Never left a Hog game early before. Was cool to beat the traffic out of downtown, but that second half was difficult to watch. How can a team look so dominant in the first half and get blown out so badly in the second? Week to week is one thing; but half to half is getting completely outcoached.