Did Herring and crew throw the game??? No, I don't think so. We poorly played a VERY good Missouri team. Not to mention that we had the ugliest uniforms of the bowls!

Several weeks ago Wally Hall wrote a column in which he emphatically said, don't let the present assistant coaches coach for the Cotton Bowl. He commented that there were a number of coaches in the area who could serve as interims. I thought (which was easy to do with Wally) that the Hallster had gone into a panic mode and was losing his marbles.. Going off the deep end so to speak. I thougjht that Herring and Co. would try to do their very best preparing for the bowl game, at least for their own pride and resumes. .So maybe the Hallster was right. Could it have been any worse considering the lack of adjustments for Mizzous running game? Outside of incompetence, the other possibility, as suggested by another blogger, was that the coaches "threw" the game as a parting gift to Nutt. I find that hard to believe because this was Nutt's team. Its sorry performance is a reflection on him (and his coaches). I wonder if Ole Miss is now wondering if they bought a "pig" in a poke, so to speak, with Nutt and his assistants.

There doesn't seem to be any rush by other schools to hire these guys (with the exception of Louis Campbell who is going to Miss. State – now that should be interesting when State meets the Rebs.). I think that Herring's stock as a future head coach went down, way down after the Cotton Bowl. Almost all of the bowl teams with interim coaches lost their games, but with nowhere near the negative 31 point differntial seen in the Cotton. West Virgina showed that interim coaches can win so, there is no excuse for the pathetic Arkansas performance. One has to feel sorry for the seniors as they head out the door.

On a positive note was Lou Holtz. On ESPN the commentators were making fun of Arkansas. One comment was , "Do they drive on the right side of the road in Arkansas? they were interrupted in their joviality by Holz who said that Arkansas is a wonderful place to work and live. The people are warm and friendly and the Razorback nation is loyal, proud, and back their team Most importantly, Holz said that Arkansas produces 12-16 outstandind athletes every year and they bleed Hog red. With additons from other states, primarily Texas, he implied that the Razorbacks should be nationally competitive every year. I agree and was amazed when Frank Broyles previously said that Arkansas didn't have the recruiting base other schools had. (Broyles has also said in athe recent past that spread offenses wouldn't work in college; a position he reversed himself on TV at the Cotton Bowl without referencing that he had changed his mind on the subject). Anyway good for Lou, whom I regard as the best head coach ever at Arkansas, and who ws was deprived of a shot at the national championship by one of the worst pass interference calls in the history of NCAA football.

But, to pull your redshirt with 4 games to go as a freshman, lose your job to the national high school player of the year while being injured, misdiagnosed and mistreated only to come back and play the last 5 games of your sophomore year and, all for a team with one reciever and no passing game in the midst of a soap opera revolving around the guy you replaced.

It seems only destiny that he lose his starting job to his little brother and get to play the last 3 games of his senior year while winning the Eells award.

His record as a starter is 12-10, all with Darren McFadden at tailback.

.

I am glad he improved. Going into his Senior year he is no Clint Stoerner and there is a big upside to playing a talented freshman.

He might win the job. I doubt it will be his based on this year or his potential.

I expect big things from Casey next year. When you look at his stats this year, he did very well overall, especially down the stretch and was a big part of our LSU win – and 4 TDs against Miss St aint too bad. I just hope our receivers can catch the ball.

That is a tough schedule in 08 followed by a tough schedule in 09. In 2010, you have juniors and seniors with 25 tough games under their belt. Texas and Florida are off the schedule, Georgia is on but breaking in a new QB. Vandy is back.

2010, has Auburn, Ole Miss, Vandy, and SCar on the road, with LSU, Alabama, Miss ST., and Georgia at home. Sounds a lot like 2006, a good schedule for a run to Atlanta.

6-6 with a couple of Liberty Bowls would leave us well under the radar and pretty hungry in 2010. Although, if you could take Texas at home and A&M in Dallas in 09 you could generate a little buzz and set up 2010 with another Cotton Bowl.

On the other hand, I really just want to see what happens in the spring.

Assuming the deal gets done, that year we will play A&M (in Dallas) and Texas in non-conference play, along with Florida (in Gainesville) and Georgia out of the East.

Here's a good link from ARSN:

Future Razorback Football Schedules

Sports talk that Tennessee should go after Malzahn…

It's kind of funny how the local Nashville sports pundents several months ago during all the hooplah with the Nutts, thought it was a crazy Idea for Arkansas to bring a High School coach into the college level.

But now that Tennessee needs an OC, He looks like a good choice to them. What a Joke.

Gus will land with a Major somewhere, and they

will be the recipient of a good one

I think focus has been an issue all year and I don't think you can be surprised by that. Nutt and Broyles should have both gone last year but that was not possible.

It is just too late in the day, the year, the decade, to discuss playcalling one more time. I must say, I thought we reached an all time low.

We really had no business there against a BCS number 6. We should either have taken the weedeater bowl or stayed home. We would have lost, but at least it would have been entertaining and over before New Years.

It may take several years for Bobby to build back a competitive spirit in this team. Houston lost it if he ever had it. It is not too unlike Stan Heath. I bet Bobby has no problem with that given time.

Are you guys really surprised by the Hogs performance? I knew we would get hammered. We all knew that Nutt had 100% control over every piece of the program, so when he leaves the wheels would totally fall off. Lee was clueless, and I truly believe that Herring did the best he could.

Besides, will all of the uncertainty over the future of the program, you can't expect the kids to be 100% focused on the game. Christmas, holiday break, new coach, NFL draft, the gift baskets and bowl activities, all of these factors create a nightmare for focus. Most of these kids had written off the season as successful after beating LSU, and the Cotton bowl was just gravy and fun for them…..up until playing in the actual game.

Positives:

Casey Dick – who predicted he would pass for more yards and be more effective in the passing game than Daniel? He through some great passes that were dropped – my only complaint was that he needs to look downfield more. Good going into next year.

Pass rush – someone said it was bad, but I didn't see that. We were rushing with 2 or 3 men, and still put pressure on Daniel, even sacking him a couple times.

Negatives:

Punt returns – have we returned a punt this year? This has been terrible for years, and I don't get it. Forget about who catches the punt (Fish, Norton, etc); who is blocking on coverage? Even on a 40 yard punt, the coverage is all over our return guy every time. This has to be a formation problem – we don't have anyone in a position to block. We never get close to blocking a punt either, so maybe we just have all freshmen out there.

Defensive formations – I can't belive we didn't make any adjustments at halftime. Why didn't we go back to our typical 4 man front and man coverage in the second half rather than a quarters formation? This was just strange.

O-line – it's like they didn't exist. You can't blame Dmac and Felix for their lack of production, it's all on the o-line. You can't tell me Missouri's defensive front is better than LSU, etc. They must have been bloated from the Lawry's Beef Bowl over the weekend.

Red pants – I knew we were in trouble when I saw them run on the field. Has ANY team ever played well when they are wearing a different uniform? I don't understand how this was a tribute to broyles….how about a patch on the shirt or helmet or something….whoever thought of this needs to go too.

I'm confused by all of the down talk of this season. We had some great wins, some of our players had a great year and we went to the Cotton bowl – and Nutt left. Sure, could have been better, but could have been worse.

Like everyone else, I'm looking forward to seeing what Petrino does. Everyone on this board should have low expectations. But I totally expect we'll be 90% pass. Smith is too small to run in the SEC and we have no other expereinced back. The thing I worry about are our receivers ability to catch the ball. They dropped a lot of passes this year…hopefully Petrino has some drills for that.