Your Expectations? Razorbacks' Chronic Problems Lowers Hope
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — It was an interesting point raised over the weekend. Arkansas fans over the last decade or so don't expect a whole lot before each football season because too often it's the same old disappointment over and over.
My friend Trey Biddy over at HawgSports pointed this out in a story Saturday asking if it's unreasonable for fans to expect eight wins. The number should be raised in the eyes of us old-timers who remember when that number of wins was a disaster and the coach was worried about his job.
Of course that was in a day and age when the athletic department overall was making decisions that made sense. Too often these days they appear to wait until the bandwagon gets rolling on something, then jump under it or try to get a different driver.
What do you expect from the Razorbacks this season? In my opinion, anything over a 5-7 year is positive thinking based on hopes and prayers.
Ask any coach and they'll tell you hope isn't a good plan. Sam Pittman's problem (and he knows this) is while he has some really good players here and there he simply doesn't have enough. He knows how deep you have to be to play for a championship run.
It appears obvious in the recruiting approach the Hogs aren't aggressively chasing (or drawing much interest) in the best players. That means they've got to take a lot of guys they can develop into the type to compete for those titles.
To follow that path in this day and age, that means there has to be a very aggressive and expensive plan to keep them here. Otherwise, they are just being developed to go play for a title with somebody else. Like it or not, that's the way it is. That's why a lot of these old-school coaches are not wanting to be head coaches anymore.
In my lifetime, Arkansas used to be a leader in the world of college sports. I remember when I was in high school, Frank Broyles met with the biggest boosters in the old Barnhill Arena where the executive offices were in those days.
The model was disclosed to them at that time if they every wanted to bounce back from a lull for a couple of years, they had to raise money and going forward they would have to donate to be able to buy tickets. Nobody in college athletics was doing that at the time and was met with predictions of gloom and doom by a lot of people.
The first North End Zone facility was built, becoming the first in the nation to do that. It even took the others awhile to catch up. Some schools have only recently managed to add indoor practice facilities and even the NFL teams copied it.
It didn't take long for the Razorbacks to get back into one of those spots where you looked every single year where they were picked in the summer Top 20 rankings. They were always somewhere in there, at times being at the top and on national magazine preview covers.
The appearance is the Hogs becoming a follower instead of a leader happened when Broyles left in 2007. Fans should expect more than eight wins every single year. It is not unrealistic to expect competing for an SEC championship they've never won. We'll talk about winning their first national title in football after that (and don't throw that four-vote title they claim from 1964 until they get the trophy permanently back from Alabama).
Apparently, though, with the all the boasting about how much money they've raised folks seem entirely comfortable paying for mediocrity. Until that changes, don't expect any big changes.
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ANDY HODGES
Sports columnist, writer, former radio host and television host who has been expressing an opinion on sports in the media for over four decades. He has been at numerous media stops in Arkansas, Texas and Mississippi.