That Auburn game was a historic low point for a Razorback defense spanning over 100 years of football participation by the proud U of A. The Florida game was your hallowed “step forward” by the Hogs with a sparkling defensive performance matched with a satisfactory offensive showing by the team.
Now we have this big LSU defensive stumble that surely rates not just several steps backwards but as an all out convulsive flop. I don’t know what in the world gives you any confidence that this coach can ever sustain anything approaching a championship competitive level of winning in Fayetteville?? He will stumble & flop over & over again as he did with Toledo, Auburn & tonight. The SEC is always tough and dogs do not and can not change their spots. Bielema doesn’t even apparently have the gumption to fire sorry assistants. He will go out of here on a rail in a year or two with this kind of football.
First off, dude, you’re a professional, he looks like he was eating BBQ at a Bar in Little Rock all night before games. Will someone teach this clown how to look like a professional? If you look like you barely have the energy to put on a sock, your team will often respond with that same energy.
Second, obviously you need a new offensive line coach, and a new defensive coordinator, with energy, passion, creativity, someone who will send at least one blitz on every set of downs.
Third, obviously he’s lost his team. Who throws a post route out of the end zone, when you haven’t protected all night? For Arkansas to be successful, they have to run for a minimum of 35 yds a qrtr, because they can’t protect.
Fourth, Austin Allen plays like crap because there’s no one pushing him for playing time. He can throw a terrible ball, go over and blame the coach, and go back out on the next drive. Only a fool coach, which Bielema obviously is, would put all his eggs in one basket. Competition is essential for the QB position.
Arkansas will be okay at times with this guy, but will look really bad at times also. Nothing is going to change, I would fire him. Not so much because of results, but because he could not find a quality assistant anywhere that would want to work with him. People have to like you. There’s a reason Ed Orgeron can recruit, even at Ole Miss, because people like him.
Here are a few stats for you all,
BEST SEC RECORDS OVER LAST 17 GAMES:
BAMA 17-0
TENNESSEE 13-4
ARKANSAS 12-5
BAMA and ARKANSAS are the only 2 teams in the country with 3 wins over top 15 ranked opponents.
Over the last 3 seasons CBB is 10-1 after an SEC loss.
All 7 power five conf. teams Arkansas has played this year were ranked in the top 25. No other SEC team has done so. Hogs are 3-4
These are the type of things that are looked at when determining if a coach is successful or not. CBB is not going anywhere in the near future, unless he chooses to.
As in politics I’ve grown tired of all the haters that spew their BS without any perspective to their opinion. We need to stay the course with Bielema.
If I have any complaint about our game plan it would be that we started out with play action passing without having run the ball yet. Rawleigh didn’t touch the ball till the third drive I think. Rawleigh and Devwah ran good last night. Just not enough opportunities. We had 55 plays and they only touched the ball on 20 rush attempts. The other plays where pass attempts or sacks. Austin hasnt been near as accurate since the knee injury at Auburn. And to be fair to him the protection is horrid.
Enos should’ve tried to slow the game down with a ground and pound approach. We would have broke some good runs had we stayed with it. Might have helped our D some as well to shorten the game.
Clay wrote a good article about needing to run and defend the run if we want to be successful. It seems we can’t duplicate the defense when Flowers, Spaight and Philon played here. They were an attacking defense that would confuse and disrupt an offense. We haven’t seen that defense he last 2 years. We don’t have the large thick linemen who can control 2 gaps so we have to resort to quickness but all I’ve seen is our undersized guys reading and then get shielded from where the runner is going and our LB’s unable to fill the hole.
I think Smith needs to be replaced and I would go after Butch Davis. He can’t get a HC job but I think he would jump at the DC position. He knows talent and has the championship rings to prove it. As for the offense, Bielema needs to double his efforts to get some really big and thick linemen we can match up better with SEC West defenses.
Here are some more realistic & indicative states of the overall condition of the program:
Bielema is 9-21 overall in the SEC while at Arkansas
Bielema is 9-8 in his last 17 SEC games.
Bielema was 5-3 in the SEC in 2015.
Bielema is 2-4 SEC so far in 2016.
No matter what happens in the last two games, This year is a backwards step in the SEC. Attempts to figure cupcakes into Bielema’s overall record of the last 17 overall games to make it more palatable fools no one who has watched much football. Bielema teams quit and do not play to their full capabilities. That is totally unacceptable in any sport. Bielema is therefore not a good coach.
First, I know people far outside the borders of this state can be passionate Razorback fans. Never been one myself but I have relatives that fully fit that bill. All being born in this state though.
However I notice people on these boards. We had just plain old trolls on the old board who were just over achievers in the posting department and nothing more with constant senseless banter. They were from California, Texas & Boston.
I notice the people now adamant about staying the course with Bielema are from Louisiana, Tennessee & Hawaii.
I really don’t know what these fans expect in Arkansas football?? However I think it could perhaps be different from many people within this state. I just feel most Arkansas people recognize, detest & abhor bad football. Perhaps just inherently better than some of these out of state folks.
I don’t advocate firing Bielema because I like that he has stabilized the program. I think he thought he could come into the SEC and recreate what he did at Wisconsin. He came here and immediately caused some unwanted publicity about the HUNH offense and when doing so made himself open to ridicule. Recruits notice that!
I think our defense should be the first priority and since it has sucked for more years than it’s been good, he should fire Smith. When you don’t have dominate linemen who can physically control the line of scrimmage, you have to be more aggressive. I’ve said it many times we should go after Butch Davis and build a championship caliber defense.
I think we have good skilled players on offense but the O line needs a focus. I think a Enos is a good OC but just needs better personnel on the O line so he can run his offense. We took a huge step backward this year no doubt and Bielema needs to swallow his pride and make the necessary changes. If he doesn’t just expect the same next year.
I can practically throw a rock and hit Arkansas. There is a large Razorback fan base in West Tennessee. Including major donors. So your premise is rediculous.
From the stands, it seemed like we quit on defense in the second half. Also, I think Allen is not being completely truthful regarding his health. His passing the past two games has not been good, with a few exceptions. I believe it was his right leg that got injured against Auburn, and that’s the leg he has to plant to throw. I don’t know if there is any value in making this public, as he is still likely our best QB option, so I do understand why he’s not admitting it, but if the truth be known, he is still hurt. We have got to figure out how to block on offense and how to stop the run on defense, and I really don’t know what the answer is. I don’t agree with getting rid of any coaches, as I believe all of our coaches are smart guys that can make adjustments to get better. We may have to step up recruiting and continue pursuing good linemen, but need to step up the talent at linebacker. Adjustments and recruiting improvement will be a lot shorter solution than firing any coach.
I largely agree with this entire assessment as well as the recommendation of getting stronger linemen and stepping up recruiting. LSU really looked to have NFL caliber players at every position. Their blocking was tremendous at times but those stud RBs really made the difference in the game with their shifty, speedy and very powerful running styles to compliment their OL. Otherwise our DL had some excellent moments. There’s a reason why Les Miles was let go. LSU looked more of an NFL team than even Bama sans at QB. Those RBs were numbers 1 and 2 at their positions coming out of high school. They looked and played like NFL running backs that you see on Sundays right now.
Our screen pass game I wished we would have gotten to earlier in the game in order to sustain the first two drives as we really do excel at this with Ragnow, Skipper, Froholdt and company. This is one of our biggest strengths on offense as Williams and Whaley are big-time performers themselves as well-rounded running backs and also LSU’s defense was in a downhill attacking mode from the very begginning. We may probably could have navigated that with some running back screens. That is my only beef as otherwise the momentum would not have shifted so strongly into LSU’s favor by the middle of the 1st quarter as both their offense and defense became entrenched in attacking downhill afterwards with this early 1st quarter momentum. LSU played very well. A not 100% Austin Allen actually needed to thread the needle on just about every pass play because LSU’s corners/Ss were hinged to our top WRs throughout the game. Remember they held Bama scoreless for 3 quarters of the game last week. Still our RBs were able to find some running lanes through our blocking up front. Maybe we were good to put at least 17-24 points on this beast of a defense still had things been tweaked a little earlier in the game on offense in hindsight. But they just did not want to lose 3 in a row, too much pride and actually this game was on the line for their interim coach Orgeron. Thus a thin line between winning and losing with the Hogs’ need to have a perfectly executed game plan in this important must win game for LSU. Their talent showed up to play under Orgeron.