It is a more exciting brand of football. It is risky; it is not based on the numbers like Nutt ball or any of the great defensive teams that are as fun to watch as watching paint dry. Alabama will beat Texas by 14 points but, I'll stick with Bobby and play the long shot. When it pays, it pays big.

Will Petrino stick around long enough to rebuild the program? Remains to be seen. I think Petrino has the smarts to build a championship-caliber program, if that is what he determines to do. To achieve that will require a greater commitment on the part of the university and the athletic department and the brain trust than we have had for the last twenty years.

I read somewhere a few years ago that Louisiana produces three times as many blue chip HS players as Arkansas, and the two states are similar in size. It appears that HS football is not as important in Arkansas as it is in most of the South. Add to that the fact that the budget for Arkansas athletics is near the bottom among SEC schools, along with MS and MS State, at just over $50 million. The top schools spend over $70 million. So Arkansas has often overachieved, considering what it has, being a small poor state.

If the UofA is serious about being a national contender in football and basketball, they may need to increase the budget and hire the talent needed to recruit and develop more blue chip players and to rebuild the program up to national class status.

The source of the problem with Arkansas goes much deeper than coaches and players.

Ideally, coaches do not choose one or the other. There are many examples of good offensive and defensive teams…USC (except for this year), Florida, Boise State, TCU, Texas, Oklahoma (except for this year) the list goes on and on….Great coaches and teams have a good balance.

The Hogs have proven this year that outscoring opponents doesn't win ballgames in the SEC. If that were true we would have beaten Georgia, Florida, LSU and maybe Ole Miss. What is frustrating about 3 of these losses is that we only needed one stop. One stop and we win at least 3 more games. Think about that before you are satisfied with our defensive play and 'improvement' – which in reality, if it weren't for offensive improvements we'd be sitting at 5-7 or 4-8 this year…our defense did us no favors at all.

My definition of outscoring an opponent is when neither team can play defense and one team can put up one or more touchdowns against the other, usually due to the losing team making an offensive mistake, not that the defense got a much needed stop. The only time we were successful in 'outscoring' an SEC opponent was against Auburn and maybe Miss St. And thank goodness Auburn's defense was horrible that day and the offense gave us gifts in turnovers or we would have lost. Remember the 3rd quarter when our improved defense gave up 21 points in 8 minutes?

I do agree with you that Petrino will do what he will do without regard to the fans opinions. I'm just sayin that until the Hogs upgrade on defense – whether it's a d-coordinator or talent that can cover a weak d coordinator – the Hogs will not compete with the top tier SEC teams and will be shut out of contention.

The bottom line is that to win a title in the SEC, your defense has to win a couple ball games for you. Long didn't bring in Petrino and pay him millions to make Arkansas a stable middle tier SEC team – he brought him in to win a BCS Championship. And the only way we'll do that is to at least be an above average defensive team. We're a ways from that.

I will concede that an improvement in talent will help…slightly. Maybe we'll be ranked 9th or 10th in total defense rather than 12th. What will get us there is a high quality d coord that can coach the players to do great things.

It doesn't happen by accident. Our resources went into loading up on skill players for the offense. That is why we are short linebackers and DTs. Bobby wants to emphasize offense and outscore his opponents. Arkansas fans still have some adjusting to do.

To say that Nutt was defensive oriented would be only partially correct. He was run oriented to state the obvious. He loaded up on running backs and offensive linemen, then defense. He wasted little time or scholarships on QBs or recievers. That was good for 8-4 most years. It was based on Frank's idea of win enough to keep your job, don't raise expectations, keep that money flowing into the Razorback Foundation.

We've seen in two years that Bobby's approach is a little feast or famine. He can beat anyone, anytime but, so far, he has lost one or two games a year he should have won.

Bobby is not going to do this our way. We are not the Texas Tech of the SEC. Bobby still doesn't have the big back portion of the offense in and his defense will get better over time, but, just because this is the SEC, his philosophy will not change. We are going to have to live and die with the bomb. We'll see. Personally, I'm glad.

Based on these stats it would seem that our secondary is the weak link. If Winston can contribute and Ford and Crim progress we may be in better shape in terms of skill. But hopefully we can improve in the coaching area as well.

I agree with Owasso that our defense was much better in 09 from 08, and they'll be better next year. Maybe the problem is both a lack of talent and coaching on defense. I think T-towner is right that Petrino understands the situation better than anybody. Whether a replacement for Willy is available is another matter. Again you have to rely on Petrino and the Hogs brain trust to find the best DC available. The best of them already have good jobs. Availability is key. If you bring in a new guy, does he adjust to the system fast enough? It's a gamble. I think Petrino is a gambler.

I can't belive that despite the facts you present, people are still satisfied with the incremental improvement. Folks, we are still last or close to last in most every important defensive category. We still gave up big plays – and guess what, our red zone prowess didn't help us win a game – it helped us not get beat as badly.

It's also wierd that folks aren't calling for Willy's head. We have been at the bottom of the SEC in defense for 2 years now – isn't that enough time? Georgia was a little better than us on D and their coordinator was canned – Richt wouldn't tolerate that performance and Petrino shouldn't either. I'm convinced that while an upgrade in talent may help, our defense play calling and game scheme was a big part of the problem. When we were agressive on defense it paid off. Most of our big plays that were given up were over the middle when we played a cover 2 and left the middle wide open for tight ends or receivers on skinny posts. Our 'prevent' defense at LSU lost us the game. Our inability to load the box on McCluster lost us the Ole Miss game.

I want to see Willy gone – now that Arkansas is on the upswing, we may be able to attract a higher quality D coordinator other than someone that was desperate enough to take a job with a damaged program 2 years ago.

I hope that after the bowl game Willy is outta here…..

If you noticed this season, Arkansas was not the only team that played flat after a big game. The SEC is going to have to take greater care with these schedules if they don't want six 8-4 teams every year (Arkansas plays GA/Bama and Auburn/Ole Miss back to back.)

Still think the talent level on defense is no where close to what it needs to be. Given some of the great defenses we've had in the past, I can't stand it that our Razorbacks are last in defense.

With Mallett and the three amigos Bobby and the boys went long early and often. Balance needs to be the strength for 2010. Rest that defense and wear out the other team's; use the depth on offense and a full rotation.

But, as you say, those are all band-aids compared to a dominating, black shirt defense. Great defense will always dominate great offense. You don't have to be as consistent on defense. The margin for error is always in your favor.

What about red zone defense and turnover margin? Definitely not baby steps in these areas. Excellent improvement!

Going back to the why the 1 big play issue… was it that we executed poorly? Probably some… but I think it was also age related. We were too young and tried to be too aggressive. On the aggressive side, we saw the turnover margin improve significantly. Maybe we needed to back off just a little and that would have helped.

No doubt, we need continuous improvement on defensive. But at this point, I believe that with the players we have (size, strength, age, etc), we are moving in the right direction. I think next year we will see fewer "baby" steps than the last 2 years.

Having said all of that, I want to touch on the "expectations of a championship 2010 season"… if we don't be Alabama, we don't have a chance. This is the make or break game next year! We absolutely just can't lose on the head to head match-up. I don't see them losing twice next year so our chances on a conference championship will rest on this one game. The good thing is that it will be at home.