this week on CBS Sports.com. We joined Tennessee and Miami. Would anybody ever believe that could happen? Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. Each of those teams have been a football powerhouse at one time. It is like the Top 100 companies in the world according to Forbes magazine. Many companies that used to be on that list aren’t anymore. Things change.
When I read that article on CBS Sports…it hurt my feelings and embarrassed me. I never, ever thought as a college kid attending the U of A in the late 60’s we could ever be in such a position. Like the Forbes 100 list, those companies that leave the list do so many times because of poor management. That looks to be the case for the Arkansas Razorback football program.
This game of college football is cyclical.
In ‘92, we lose to The Citadel in what was widely regarded as the worst of times for our beloved Razorbacks. Only three years later, we were in our first SEC championship game, then another 3 years later we were 8-0 and within a crazy fumble of beating eventual national champion Tennessee.
Even mighty Alabama isn’t immune. They had only 5 winning seasons during the 10 years that Dubose, Price, Franchione, and Shula were there.
If we are in a list with Miami, things are looking up. They barely lost to Florida. The game against UNC was at UNC and I was there. UNC was down late in the 4th quarter and had a 4th and 17 after 2 consecutive sacks. Miami’s offense looked unstoppable and UNC had done little against Miami’s defense in the 2nd half, but the least worst of the 2 options was to punt to them and hope UNC got the ball back, and if they did, it would be with little time to go and no timeouts. UNC brought out the punt team, the refs unexpectedly called a timeout to see if UNC’s QB had fumbled on the second sack, he had not, UNC changed their mind and sent out the offense, they hit a 20 yard pass, and later scored. Miami drove the length of the field and barely missed a FG that would have sent the game into overtime. So Miami’s 0-2 record is quite deceiving. But if they get mention in the Bottom 10 for a few guffaws, so be it.
That list is somewhat tongue in cheek. It includes P5 programs that clearly are not “bottom 25” but who’ve underperformed. Still, I hate being there. It’s hard to claim we’re much better than the top 100. There’s no real evidence to support it, anyway. We badly need to win the next two games. Even if we lose to A&M, we need to compete well into the 4th quarter. I never thought this would be better than a 5 win year even though I hoped for 6. I admit I’m worried we could win less than 5 and maybe even less than 4. CSU might be more than I expected earlier. Still, if we beat them, I’m confident of at least 4 wins. Maybe still able to get 5. Six if we’re lucky.
I thought we would go 5-7, winning all 4 non-conference and one SEC win. Nick Starkel gives me hope we can still win 5, but we could only win 3 if we don’t beat CSU.
An excellent head coach can usually help a team steal a win or 2 each year. We didn’t steal anything last year. We blew the game at Colorado State and against Ole Miss in Little Rock. This year looks a lot like last year, unfortunately, but we have 10 games to play. It’s time for Coach Morris to show us we made the right hire.