FAYETTEVILLE -- They tried and they tried -- some even cried -- and still the Arkansas Razorbacks could not break their ever-expanding chain of SEC losses as the 2014 season entered its final month.
Then came the breakthrough.
In a grand style not even the most avid Arkansas supporter could have imagined, the Razorbacks posted back-to-back shutouts against No. 17 LSU and No. 8 Ole Miss on consecutive Saturdays at Reynolds Razorback Stadium in mid-November.
The Hogs ended their 17-game losing streak against SEC competition by becoming college football's first unranked team to shut out ranked opponents in back-to-back games.
For their perseverance in the face of adversity and one of the toughest schedules ever encountered by an Arkansas team, the Razorbacks' football season is the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette's story of the year as chosen by the sports staff.
The Razorbacks are back in the postseason, gaining an invitation to the Texas Bowl to face old rival Texas in Houston on Monday, but their bounce-back 6-6 season had the potential to be much more.
"I'm glad we're going to a bowl game, but I feel we should have had three more wins easily and we just weren't able to pull through," second-year Coach Bret Bielema said. "A lot of people said they'd be shocked with six or nine wins, but not me. Not in the position I'm in."
The rest of the country took note of Arkansas' vast improvement after back-to-back losing seasons amid the tumult of Bobby Petrino's sudden departure, John L. Smith's unsteady reign as interim coach to Bielema's arrival in successive seasons.
Arkansas improved to 6-5 to become bowl eligible after the 30-0 victory against Ole Miss on Nov. 22, but voters in the Associated Press poll ranked the Hogs as the first team just outside the top 25. At the time, no team in the poll had more than three losses.
Arkansas Athletic Director Jeff Long said he had to recuse himself from the discussions of the College Football Playoff selection committee after the Razorbacks' consecutive shutouts because they were in the pool of 30 teams in consideration for the weekly rankings.
"That's a tremendous testament to two things," Long said. "One, the coaching staff, because if you don't have a coaching staff that keeps the players focused even after those heartbreaking disappointments, they have a tendency to fall off. So many times we were so close and we could have turned the other way and we didn't.
" ... And then the student-athletes. They accepted that coaching. They believed in themselves. They bought in to what our coaches were saying, and it paid off.
"And you know what, sure we'd all like that to have happened a little bit sooner, but you can see it happening and developing. I think it's a classic case of building a program and not a season."
Arkansas' push to break into the major polls came up short after a 21-14 loss at No. 17 Missouri to end the regular season.
"This is pretty tough," senior defensive end Trey Flowers said that day in Columbia, Mo. "We really wanted this one to just make our mark in the SEC. I think we were on the outside of being ranked. With this loss, we missed out on an opportunity."
Arkansas, coming off a 3-9 season, started turning heads in the first half of its season opener at Auburn. The Razorbacks rallied from a two-touchdown deficit to tie defending SEC champion Auburn 21-21 at halftime before losing 45-21. Arkansas proceeded to blitz three consecutive nonconference opponents in September, including a 49-28 road victory at Texas Tech, by a combined 125-point winning margin.
Then, SEC play resumed.
The quality of Arkansas' opponents was a factor in not being able to finish off victories. The Razorbacks' first five SEC games came against teams ranked in the top 10 at the time of their game.
And still the Razorbacks had their chances, letting a 28-14 lead slip away to an overtime loss against Texas A&M, and failing to capitalize on early momentum in a 14-13 home loss to Alabama.
They kept plugging away, even when things took a sudden turn for the worse when they were on the wrong end of a 31-0 second-quarter blitz at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock against No. 10 Georgia. Arkansas outplayed Georgia in the second half after trailing 38-6 at halftime, and ended up making the final score respectable, 45-32.
The frustration of the mounting losses came to a head after the Razorbacks jumped ahead of No. 1 Mississippi State 10-0 on the road but failed to score in the second half of a 17-10 loss.
Flowers, a defensive captain who had delivered a fiery pregame message at midfield, was sobbing outside the locker room, emotionally drained after the Razorbacks' 17th consecutive SEC loss.
Bielema consoled his star defensive end and gave his own emotional message about his players after that loss in Starkville, Miss.
"They expect to win every game we're involved in, we just at times run out of the wrong horses and don't have enough of what we need to finish these things out," he said. "But I think it just shows the resiliency our guys have and the faith that they're going to get.
"At this point, it's almost numbing to be so close and not be able to come out with one of these opportunities. But I can promise you, we'll take a bye week, get a little bit better, get healthy, and nobody will attack these last three games ... harder than the Arkansas Razorbacks."
Bielema was proven right.
Arkansas responded two weeks later, with a wind-chill factor dipping below 30 degrees in Fayetteville, and held LSU to 123 total yards and knocked off the Tigers 17-0. The victory touched off a field-storming scene at Razorback Stadium by jubilant fans who were just as eager to celebrate the end of the streak as the Arkansas players were to wrap their hands around the Golden Boot trophy and haul it back to their sideline.
"Watching our guys run across the field there, the emotion, the excitement to get the Boot, that's why you do it, the feelings like that at the end of a football game," Arkansas defensive coordinator Robb Smith said. "It was a special night."
Arkansas dominated No. 8 Ole Miss the following week, snatching away six turnovers, including Rohan Gaines' 100-yard interception return for a touchdown, to win 30-0.
"Like I say, blessed and faithful," Flowers said. "We just kept the faith. We believed that we were going through what we were going through for a purpose. God just blessed us on the back end."
Offensive tackle Brey Cook was ecstatic that night.
"It's an unbelievable thing for this team, for these seniors who have gone through so much," said Cook, a senior captain. "Tonight was very special for us."
Senior safety Alan Turner, also a captain, said the Razorbacks knew they were improving week by week, even as the SEC losses mounted.
"Every week we got better, but the results weren't what we wanted a few weeks before," Turner said. "We just knew if we kept getting better it would finally turn the page and we finally turned it."
Sports on 12/26/2014