Some random thoughts after watching the Florida International game.
The Good
– Peyton Hillis had one of his best games of the season, making him a well-deserved selection as the Crip Hall Award winner. In fact, I’d argue that Hillis is the most versatile player on this team right now. Only the tremendous talent of Jones and McFadden make that a debatable point.
– The crowd was classy in showing its appreciation to an obviously still-slowed Marcus Monk, giving him a rousing ovation every time he touched the ball. But I clapped the loudest after he made a nice ‘team player’ block downfield that allowed Hillis to convert a third down. I know all Hog fans hope the decision Monk made last spring to return for his senior season will eventually be rewarded with success this year, and in the future at the next level.
– While Hillis and Monk are always expected to have great games, most Hog fans probably didn’t know what to expect from backup quarterback Nathan Emert. For those of us, however, who have seen him in practice, his performance (13 for 25, 154 yards, 1 TD) wasn’t a big surprise. And it’s a credit to Emert and his coaches that he came into the game ready to play, showing good poise and field generalship. (Yes…I know…I just said something nice about our offensive coaches.)
The Bad
– Unfortunately, it took Casey Dick getting hurt in order for Razorback fans to see Emert’s nice performance. And it’s especially disconcerting to hear that Dick’s injuries — a slight concussion and bruised ribs — are potentially nagging ones. As the Hogs enter their most difficult stretch of the season, this team really didn’t need any new problems coming out of their last ‘cupcake’ game.
The Ugly
– Finally…where the heck was everyone before the game started on Saturday? Our tailgating area had tumbleweeds blowing across it. And it was apparently so bad, Chuck Barrett was called on to provide a ‘cover story’ on the Pravda…er…ARSN radio broadcast…
‘This just in…a wreck near the I-540 tunnel is keeping people from getting here on time. Everyone please stay calm. The near-empty stadium should in no way remind anyone of The Citadel game.’
…or something like that.
Official attendance was listed as 60,750. Any guesses as to what the real number was? Personally, it looked more like 50,000 with only about half of the student body present. We all know what happens when you lose attendance…
From what I could see there is no way there was 60,750. Not even if you count the players, coaches, concessions, ticket takers & security. I really expected it. I certainly didn't want to travel all the way to Fayetteville to watch FIU. Expect a full house on Saturday night when Spurrier & the Gamecocks comes to town.
Interestingly, attendance is down at the same rate of giving to the program. Even if you assume that SC will generate a high number of folks (i.e. most in the last two years), total attendance will be down by almost 5% still.
With the game on ESPN, I'm going to guess that see attendance in the lower 70,000s.
I'd estimate the student section as 60% full at best. Probably less than 50% when you consider there were more security folks on top in the South end zone than students. I didn't know the tunnel on I540 was between the dorms and the stadium.
Maybe all the students stayed back at the dorm with Cleveland, since it's being reported that he was not allowed his jersey to wear on the sideline as a redshirt. If that actually happened, someone needs to pull the cork on the bunch on the hill.
What's this about Monk and returning his senior year? Was that just written oddly?
Sorry for the writing that part confusingly, Seth. I've updated that paragraph.
This game is an important one, if were going to salvage a decent season. Were playing to get to a mediocre bowl game, but it's better than nothing. I hope our run defense is ready for this one. SC has a solid running attack this year, so if we can hold down the run game and create a couple of turnovers, the rest will be up to our DBs. They've played pretty well as of late, but the competition is going to be above board again this time. We should get a good feel for just how much our DBs have improved since Bama.
I pay $75 a seat for my 4 tickets which is quite a bit of cash for me, and yet was having fun at our tailgate chatting with friends and watching other games so we didn't bother walking up to the stadium for FIU. Hard to get motivated to watch a game against the 118th ranked team in the nation, especially when you know your coach is going to "hang his hat" on another hollow victory. I will be in attendance this weekend, and expect to finally see another real football game for second time in 6 weeks. If the Hogs don't win here, the fat lady will be warming her throat.
Does anyone know what happen with Ben Cleveland and not allowed to be on the sideline of the scrimmage game this past weekend? I find amusing that Arkansas plays every team in the Sun Belt Conference except Arkansas State. What is Frank Broyles afraid will happen?
The Wally Hall column today on Ben Cleveland left more questions than answers. First, is the report of the incident accurate? If so, why hasn’t anyone interviewed the equipment manager for his version? The manager’s behavior can only be interpreted as someone in authority had told him not to give Cleveland a jersey. Any one with a lick of sense would have told Cleveland that he would quickly check with someone to get permission to give out a jersey. His walking away indicated that someone had definitely ordered him not to give Cleveland a jersey. Otherwise what harm would it have been to give him a shirt and then check on it? If Wally’s version is true and that was the case then one could develope a number of reasons or scenarios as to what’s behind it. My interpretation would be that the coaches don’t want Cleveland around for whatever reasons; perhaps construed sandbagging due to injury, or suspicion of his not returning or even playing football again, or a residue of malevolence still sticking in the craw of the coaches because of the Springdale 5 mess. Another theory would be that this was a set-up to give Cleveland an excuse to leave, but that would require the cooperation of the equipment manager, which seems highly unlikely. Take yer choice or add new ones. Ben Cleveland is a gifted receiver with excellent hands, as we all know. It would be a shame to lose him because of a “mistake” by the equipment manager. Nutt has apologized, but we all know how much faith we can put in that. Nutt didn’t know? Is this another case of Nutt having someone else do his dirty work for him. If Nutt wants to dispel negative rumors about this incident then he’d better clear this up pretty quick.
I read Wally's column and yes someone had to instruct him not to let the young man on the sideline. Stay tuned there is probably more to this, the laundry list on Nutt is long and just embarrasing at this point.
Isn't it sad that we have gotten to a place that things such as what happened to Cleveland becomes something to write about in the State paper. This alone proves that HDN's time has now come. What is really sad is that the account given about this incident may actually be what really happened but because of the past 12 months we assume that there has to more to this story. Let's get HDN's resume sent to Nebraska ASAP!!!!
Wally Hall is a bad, bad columnist.He makes a 3rd grader writing a story in crayon look like F. Scott Fitzgerald. I've never in my life read anything more amateurish.
If Wally knows the inside scoop, like he claims in his article, then he must also have a source. You can't just make something like that up. I'll bet money someone close to Ben gave Wally a call. Wally is looking to make a jerk out of Houston anyway, so I'm sure this is a direct jab to stir up the gossup pot again. Anyone heard anymore about Mitch and his attorney? Last I heard, they were requesting any documents that might be related to the so-called investigation of the E-mail debacle. I wonder how long this will drag out? I looks to me like Houston may have buried himself. How much longer will he continue to be the bug underneath the microscope? Even if he does continue, how much longer will the university allow it to go on? This is really stating to get old, and the fans deserve better. Football is what we are supposed to be focused on here folks, but the UofA has turned into one big soap opera with the co-stars being "Big Bad Frank" and "Daahhh Which Way Did He Go Boss"? Houston.
I can only imagine the reason Mitch and his attorney wanted to look at the documents and that is to sue the University of Arkansas or Nutt. Why else would they want to look at them, it should be over he is out here in LA going to USC and from my USC coworkers wearing out the first team defense as he runs the scout team. We definitely should be talking about this week's game South Carolina has a nice defense which is odd for a Spurrier team to be defensive minded and not scoring a lot points.
To Boyer in the district
Deflecting criticism to Wally's writting misses the point entirely. You have heard of the messenger being killed because the King didn't like the message. I would like to know if the incident was true or if there was a misundestanding. Some of you writting here have worried about negative stories impacting recuiting. But don't you think that even if this story didn't make the papers that this would be a gift for competing recruiters because the story would get out anyway through the grapevine. That Wally may be after Houston is a plausible theory. But if JFB were still in charge then this story would have been squashed and dealt with internally. What it tells me is the Wally is now answering to other bosses whoever they may be. .
Spurrier had great defenses at Florida.
Wally will tell you he is nothing but an "opinion" writer. The Dem-Gaz loves him because they think that he sells papers, i.e. "if it bleeds, it leads" story line. He fills most of his columns with innuendoes and half truths and then he will sprinkle something for everyone. When some vocal fans got on Holtz, he got on Holtz, when some vocal fans got on Hatfield, he got on Hatfield, when some vocal fans got on Ford, he got on Ford, and when some vocal fans got on HDN, he got on him, too. I think that when John Robert Starr, which is his ex-father- in-law, died he willed his brain to Wally. Nasty stir the pot type of journalism based purely on opinion. And as they say "everyone has one." That is what I have observed from the sports department. They lost their best and most unbiased reporter during the past year to enter finance. I think that reporter truly tried to look at all angles of sports. They have not been successful in replacing him.
Garcia did not exactly light it up in the loss that he pretty much QB'd, but even if he does beat out Mitch next year,, Mitch would still have a year left to make his mark under a loaded, talented team that should be knocking on the BCS Championship door every year. As Mitch progresses, he surely will beat out Garcia from what I saw on TV unless Garcia makes great strides between now and next year. . If one lives with their attention in another place, it may impact that person's growth under that system. It is difficult to concentrate (for most people)if they continue trying to fight two battles…one on the left coast and one in another locale. I cannot even guess why a person would want to do that. Usually, if we want a pound of flesh we wind up somewhat empty. Honest people can and often have diffences of opinions. English can cause many disagreements as to what one intended to say and what we sometimes think that we heard. And E-mail is the absolute worse way to communicate. Companies find that out all of the time. Communication is probably everyone's biggest problem.
Sanchez is doing the same thing at USC that Dick is doing at Arkansas. Starring down 1 reciever, enstead of going through his options of 1st, 2nd, 3rd reciever, etc… It is being said Mitch is doing a great job on the scout team offense, against the 1st team defense. OK then, that's all fine and well, but I also think it's fair to say anyone on any scout team, anywhere in america, is going to play better in practice, enstead of playing in front of 70, 80, 90,000 fans, where you have to execute your own game plan, which opposing DC's have studied vigorously, compared to executing the opposing team's offense, which the 1st team defense does not see every day. If I remember correctly, it has been stated a few times that Casey Dick has had some very good practices this season, through the week, only to stink it up on Saturday. Not trying to take anything away from Mitch, but it is what it is.
I think Sanchez will win out in the spring and be their quarterback next fall, they have another freshman Corp is pretty good not to mention the other ones coming in 2008. Back to Hogs, I am not sure what to make of Casey Dick, do you think if he was at Oklahoma he would be successful because it appears they just plug guys in and they become great college quarterbacks. Which goes back to coaching, DMAC pretty much took the SEC by surprise when he was a freshman and last year Gus added some wrinkles I think it was just plain silly to think he was going to run over everyone again in his third year with a one dimenional offense. If HDN and Lee were smarter they would have spent 75% of spring, summer and fall trying to develop a passing game so defenses wouldn't place 10 people in the box. These last 4 games I doubt he plays all of them, just too beat up.
I think there are several schools around the country that just plug in guys to thier system. Oklahoma, Texas, Texas Tech, LSU, Georgia, Florida, etc…, the list goes a little farther than that, but you get the picture. Arkansas on the other hand is the opposite. It is a no brainer that Houston Nutt does not know how to develope a bonafied passing attake. QB's don't, and will not develope in his coaching system. We've listened patiently for a decade of how we are going to pass more often, we've listened to the BS of how were going to really open things up this year over and over, only to do the same thing, over and over. Do I think Casey would do better at OU? I believe Casey would have never been recruited to OU. This isn't a knock on Casey's talent, but OU doesn't go after guys that are top 15 run-pass oriented QB's. They go after guys that are capable of passing the football on a regular basis, that come from systems of developing passing QBs. Houston has to settle 99% of the time on the recruiting trail, when it comes to convincing one of these guys to commit. The one guy who could finally make him or break him was Mitch Mustain, but we had to hire his HS coach to the staff because he wouldn't consider the Hogs seriously if they didn't. Does this sound like a coach who's system deveolpes QBs? The real question is now, are we going to continue to listen to this garbage, and keep Nutt for another wasted year of soap opera- drama and lawsuits, or will we get rid of the drama king, so that we can finally get back to building a football program? That is the real question.