Some of our fans are such enormous crybabies that it makes me want to punch Houston Nutt right in the neck.
I leave the office for a few minutes today to grab a sandwich, and I suffer through some colorful callers on the radio.
The basics of this conversation were this:
Arkansas is looking way up at Alabama, LSU and Texas A&M in the West, the Razorbacks are behind Auburn, and maybe equal with Ole Miss and Mississippi State. Not this year. Not next year. But into the foreseeable future. Maybe forever.
Essentially, we have no hope of competing in the SEC West now, or anytime in the future. Probably. Why? Because WHARRGARBLE.
Really? Can people, even some in the sports media, not see past the end of their noses? All they see is woe and despair. Just this year’s results. Not the fact that things can change, and change quickly.
A year ago, Texas A&M was crap and had been made to (expletive deleted) by Arkansas for three straight years. Houston Nutt’s Ole Miss team was a dumpster fire. Auburn was, and still is, a disaster. MSU is the same now as they were last year – a joke.
We lost our coach in the Spring and then lost a pile of key players during the downward spiral of the season. John L. Smith proved not to be up to the task.
But think about this: In addition to losing our 3 best Receivers, a 4 year starting Linebacker, our best Defensive Lineman, and most of our Secondary to graduation and the draft, we lost our starting Fullback for the season, our All-SEC Tight End for most of season, our All American Quarterback for part of season, both starting Linebackers for most of season, our best Cornerback for most of season, and our second best Wide Receiver for most of season. Yes, we took some ugly whippings, but were still only a few 4th down plays away from winning 7 or 8 games… just like we were last year.
Outside of Alabama and maybe LSU, there is a fine line between being a “good” team and being a “bad” team in the SEC. One Johnny Football injury and A&M is a bad team this year. Hell, they may be average with him next year after losing their offensive line. That is what happened at Auburn – lightning struck when they bought brought Cam Newton in and had an awesome, experienced line in a one year scenario and they still had to have a truckload of luck to win about half a dozen of their games. A&M had that this year and STILL didn’t win squat. No SEC West, no SEC, no anything.
Make a good coaching hire and win. That’s the formula. It really is as simple as that.
It isn’t impossible in Arkansas. Hell, Houston Nutt won a bunch of games here and he is arguably a functional moron.
Settle down and grow a pair for crying out loud. We had our crappiest, most injured, poorly coached and in disarray team in forever this year, and still were able to blast some SEC teams into smithereens and lose in the final seconds to others, including the mighty, unreachable LSU.
I have a confession. I read the message boards. There is an obnoxiously loud (and for sanity’s sake, I have to believe, a disproportionately small) percentage of Razorback “fans” who live on the message boards and call-in shows who are untethered to reality. They loudly and fervently believe:
- Jeff Long is deliberately sabotaging The Program as evidenced by firing the completely innocent and entirely responsible Bobby Petrino
- Jon Gruden is simply waiting for Jeff Long to ask nicely for an invitation that will never come because, see bullet point #1
- Arkansas has unlimited cash on hand. Enough to spend 6 million dollars a year on a new coach and not spending it is akin to Treason
- Every successful coach that isn’t in the SEC is just dying to get into the SEC – all you have to do is wave $6 million a year at them
- And a whole lot more that is entirely too insane to recount
Don’t get me wrong, there is a certain level of entertainment value on the message boards and the call-in shows, and they provide a valuable service in keeping those people off the streets.
But honestly, it has become a self-licking lollipop.
Fantasy becomes rumor, rumor becomes belief, belief becomes fact, fact becomes gospel, and gospel becomes faith. They are, in all likelihood, being trolled for the LULZ.
Let’s take a look at the last hire by each SEC team, shall we?
- Alabama hired Nick Saban after a failed run in the NFL.
- Auburn hired Gene Chizik who was a complete failure at Iowa State.
- Arkansas hired Bobby Petrino who was a miserable failure in the NFL.
- Mississippi State hired Dan Mullen, Offensive Coordinator at Florida.
- Ole Miss hired Hugh Freeze from Arkansas State, a non-AQ team.
- LSU hired Les Miles from Oklahoma State. Miles was fairly successful there.
- Texas A&M hired Kevin Sumlin from Houston, a non-AQ team.
- Florida hired Will Muschamp, Defensive Coordinator at Texas.
- Georgia hired Mark Richt, Offensive Coordinator at Florida State.
- South Carolina hired Steve Spurrier, fresh out of his failure in the NFL.
- Kentucky hires Mark Stoops, Defensive Coordinator from Florida State.
- Vanderbilt hired James Franklin, Offensive Coordinator from Maryland.
- Tennessee hired Derek Dooley from Louisiana Tech, a non-AQ team.
- Missouri hired Gary Pinkel from Toledo, a non-AQ team.
Breaking it down, the last coach from each of the SEC teams were as follows:
1 was a fairly successful coach from a BCS school (Les Miles)
1 was a miserable failure from a BCS school (Gene Chizik)
4 of them were head coaches at non-BCS schools (Freeze, Sumlin, Dooley and Pinkel)
3 were NFL rejects (Saban, Petrino and Spurrier)
5 were coordinators
So, settle down Insane Arkansas Fan. Jeff Long is doing everything humanly possible to hire the very best coach he can. He really does want the very best coach we can manage. He is not sabotaging the program.
He managed to hire Mike Anderson away from Missouri, so there is a chance, in theory, that he will pull a successful coach away from another program. But if we end up with a coach from a non-AQ school, or a coordinator from a successful program, the world is not at an end, despite what you may be reading on the message boards or hearing on the radio.
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