Bret Bielema has kicked off each of his three seasons as Arkansas’ football coach with a similar routine.
About a week and a half before the season opener, Bielema has flown to Little Rock to spend a few minutes with a group of reporters and then entertain a packed ballroom of fans while addressing the Little Rock Touchdown Club in its first meeting of the season.
“Awesome to be back,” Bielema said to open his remarks Monday.
He had even more reason to feel that way than he had during his previous two trips.
Bielema’s return to the Touchdown Club came 11 days before opening his third season as Arkansas’ coach against Texas-El Paso, but for the first time since being hired in December 2012 he did so with the written endorsements from media outside the state.
The Razorbacks were ranked No. 18 in the preseason Associated Press poll released Sunday and are No. 20 the USA Today coaches poll. That means their 2:30 p.m. game against UTEP on Sept. 5 in Fayetteville will be the first the Razorbacks have played while ranked in both major polls in almost three years.
Arkansas hasn’t played a game while ranked in both polls since losing 34-31 in overtime to Louisiana-Monroe on Sept. 4, 2012, in Little Rock. The Razorbacks are 13-22 since that game — including 10-15 in Bielema’s first two seasons — but their reputation has been boosted nationally after winning three of their final four games last season, including a 31-7 victory over Texas in the Texas Bowl.
Bielema made a point Monday to refute preseason polls — “We’re into postseason publications more than we’re into preseason publications,” he said — but didn’t totally discount them.
“You’ve got to be in the conversation, I know that,” Bielema said before relaying a story of his first season at Wisconsin in 2006, when the Badgers entered unranked and finished 12-1 and ranked seventh in the AP poll.
The rankings also gave Bielema a chance to address his team Sunday about how to handle such attention.
“There’s 17 teams in front of us, by what the AP thinks,” Bielema said he told his team. “On the same account, there’s probably 40, 50 teams behind us who can beat us any given day. So it’s up to you to take the challenge of the weekly preparation.”
Bielema will begins his third season with more wandering national attention on his program than the previous two.
The last time he was at the Marriott Hotel in downtown Little Rock to address the Touchdown Club two years ago, it was 10 days before he was set to debut as the Razorbacks’ coach and there were modest expectations for his first season that ended with a 3-9 mark. Last year the event was at the Statehouse Convention Center and Bielema stumped for a team that he said was better than ranking that placed them 76th out of 128 FBS teams.
Bielema said he knows where he’d put his team.
“You know what, I believe I have the best team in the country,” he said. “That’s just how I’ve always thought. I think you’re selling yourself short if you don’t.”
Bielema’s 40-minute address to the Touchdown Club touched on a variety of topics, including his first trip to Little Rock while recruiting Martrell Spaight, his failed music career — he played cornet, baritone and tuba — and the difficulties that marked much of his first two seasons with the Razorbacks.
“To walk into those press conferences was hard, because you love your kids,” he said. “As a head coach, I began to see what was happening on a daily basis, what no one else could, not even some of my assistants.”
Bielema said the reactions of his players after losses last season was an indication were some indications of indicated to him that attitudes were changing.
“We were losing games and it killed them,” Bielema said. “Had to take guys literally off the ground and into the locker room who were sobbing their eyes out. That’s not because they’re soft. It’s because they care.
“That wasn’t here my first year. It was kind of, ‘Let’s move onto Saturday night. It’s going to be a hell of a night downtown on Dickson.’ But that doesn’t win you many games.”
Bielema said he agrees with national prognosticators that his team showed improvement over the final month of last season but that hurdles remain, such as winning on the road in the SEC. Arkansas has lost 13 consecutive SEC games away from home — four losses have been in Little Rock or Arlington, Texas — and Bielema is 0-11 in such games the past two seasons.
One of those road losses spoiled what could have been an even better finish last season. Arkansas beat LSU and Ole Miss in consecutive weeks, then lost 21-14 at Missouri to end the regular season before beating Texas in Houston.
Bielema called the Missouri loss a “heart-breaker.”
“We got a little check of reality to lose to a Missouri team that represented the SEC East again,” Bielema said. “We’ve got to learn how to win on the road in the SEC. That’s been a huge point of emphasis from last spring to where we are now.”