That is hard to imagine. But, then, I haven't seen many Razorback practices.

I talked about what we were doing in practice. I didn't bring up anything else.

Last year in spring practice I watched the defensive back mug the wide receivers in ways that would have drawn a penalty in an actual game. Hard to practice passing plays when that is happening. Waste a lot of reps in practice. As with the blitzing. We did that last year too early on. Didn't seem to help. These two things, I feel, hurt the development of the offense. And now we are doing it again this year. I felt bad for Gus, and I feel bad for David Lee, and I feel badly for the players that are not getting a chance to get their feet under them in a new part of the offense..

Notice this comment was only about football and the approach being made to the practices.

Gus was the coach, on several ocassions, that stated the biggest reason we were not successful in the passing game last year was due to inexperience at the receiver position. Now is that due to poor recruiting in years past, an investigation hanging over our head keeping players away or his inability as the receivers coach to get the needed production out of our receiving corps.

When you make the statement that Mitch was run off, brings to mind my question of his commitment in the beginning. He never really wanted to come to Arkansas. That can be seen in the fact that he committed and de-commited to Arkansas twice. It's pretty obvious to me that he always wanted to go to Notre Dame, but they did not reciprocate.

Maybe Arkansas will never be a passing team, but to say that Coach Nutt is making empty promises that he never intends to keep, I feel is unfair. I will say that Houston has no intention to become an all out spread offense, passing offense. But, I do think that he wants a passing offense that complements the running game. I will also say that to date he has not made that happen and that falls directly on his shoulders.

I will stand by my statement that Mitch, Gus & Damien left because they didn't get their way. They wanted to run a spread, passing offense. It's obvious that was not going to happen, so they jumped ship. Ben Cleveland, however did not. He for one, even though things were not going as he originally thought, decided to fulfill his commitment and remain a part of the team. He should be commended for that.

I never heard a TV commentator laugh about our passing attack. I did hear the comment in a few situations that we will need an improved passing attack to beat several teams on our schedule. In a few circumstances that held true and in few it didn't. Eliminate the injury to Peyton Hillis and that argument , in my opinion is a mute point.

I am going to try to do better but, I also agree with Bluff and his assessment of Hogblogger's article. It is no longer possible to discuss 'passing' at Arkansas without some reference to the soap opera. As Hogblogger pointed out, this goes back way before the soap opera or even the hot seat. No we did not start the fire and we did not make it an issue. Dale is the one who keeps promising in many and various ways and fails to deliver in any meaningful way year after year. No one told him to make the promises. Just come out and say, "WE ARE A RUNNING TEAM, PERIOD."

How can you comment on any aspect of that with a straight face? The whole Gus/Mitch deal just takes it to a whole new level, from the ridiculous to the sublime, but it is still the same issue, just made to stink. How many TV games did we have last year where the announcers were actually laughing at our passing game? (All of them, I have the tapes.)

To say they left because they didn't get their own way is just childish nonsense. Both of them expressed their views clearly before they were recruited and they were lied to and then run off. There is no other way to characterize that honestly. To ignore losing Mitch after all of our years of running off QBs and still say you are talking Arkansas football takes some pretty tight blinders.

I also never said that I hate Gus or Mitch. I watched and cheered for them every game. But, they are no longer a part of the Razorback program, so at this point they really don't mean anything other than two guys that didn't get their way, so they quit.

For some reason I feel that I am among the "springdale mafia" reading the comments that a few make about our program on this site.

I can certainly agree with BlindHog on his last post. We have a tremendous amount of talent on this team. If Hillis had not been hurt the last four games, you would have seen a different outcome to the end of the season (especially LSU).

"GO HOGS"

Darren is a wonderful football player, only slightly more impressive than Monk, Jones and Hillis. If Hillis had not been hurt last year we would not have needed much more of a passing game. He was our second reciever as well as a great blocker.

Sure we mention the coaches' names in it. But go back and read it…there's nothing in it about all the soap opera stuff. Sure there are questions about whether our coaches' are making the right decisions about how they are trying (again) to develop a passing game. Can we not still question the current leadership of this program anymore?

I know this…most people who come to this site want to read about the football program. And at this point I have no idea how we're going to write "observational commentary" about it without someone being offended or thinking we are trying to keep the soap opera alive.

Maybe I'm wrong…but I think a lot of people just have "blank-Fatigue" (you fill in the blank) right now about the football program.

The good news is the mainstream media is providing those people with plenty of sunshine articles to keep that fatigue from tiring them out any further.  And those articles are linked to every day from this site.

As for us here at RBN, we're going to keep writing what we feel as fans of the program.

All Hogblogger was trying to do was make a very good point about the messages coming out of the Broyles complex for about 5 years now. It was a perfectly good point for anyone was wasn't afraid of the simple truth. Discussing said point could lead some to expound on issues fresh from last season. Next year, hopefully, we will all be talking about the wonderful success of 07 and how that is a reflection of our future. This year, not so much.

If you don't like the opinions expressed, I for one am always willing to listen to another view point but I can't understand why that must begin with some reference to complaining. Please skip the complaining about complaining and just offer your differing opinion seems perfectly normal and cordial to me.

As to 'Houston Dale', go back and listen to the sports show audio where Tommy Smith does reference him as Houston Dale. This happens more than you would like to think for Houston. Most people don't but this isn't that uncommon for Houston.

David is a journeyman QB coach and Houston's second attempt to call the plays while saying otherwise. Gus was no choice. That should have been obvious to Gus and is now obvious to everyone.

The whole pre-Auburn/post-Auburn is a perfect example of how all of this crap begets more crap. They had figured out by then, and yes Darren was healthy, where there strengths were. Auburn was overrated and light on defense. It was the right game plan. It is the three weeks following where they had no OC, no passing game that they were actually willing to use, that were wasted running the ball against cupcakes rather than preparing a passing game and a QB to win some big games down the line.