FAYETTEVILLE -- Secretly, most every new college head football coach can't wait to put his personal stamp on the program with his recruits.
At least subliminally, that means he can't wait for players he inherited to move on.
Funny, though, if they linger long on their job, those coaches inevitably remember some they inherited as fondly, often even more fondly, than ones they signed.
That thought occurred Monday watching fourth-year Arkansas Coach Bret Bielema discuss his fourth senior class playing their final Reynolds Razorback Stadium game Saturday night hosting LSU.
It's Bielema's last hybrid class of Bobby Petrino February 2012 signees redshirted as freshmen under interim coach John L. Smith, the 2013 Razorbacks recruits committed to Smith before Bielema's December 2012 arrival and the 2013 signees Bielema hastily added.
Next year, Bielema's team will be the first all-Bielema signed.
Yet, they will be no more a part of Bret Bielema than current fifth-year seniors like Jeremy Sprinkle, Keon Hatcher, Taiwan Johnson, Jared Collins, JaMichael Winston, Deatrich Wise and Brandon Lewis, all 2012 redshirts. Or Kody Walker, the last who played for Petrino in 2011, irrevocably sidelined again for his unprecedented sixth and final season because of a broken foot. Walker was granted a sixth season because injuries prematurely ended his campaigns 2011 through 2013.
You don't forget one persevering through nine surgeries and three head coaches, especially the coach Walker had these last four years.
"He is a testimonial," Bielema said. "He represents everything that you would want. I have encouraged him to go out for the coin toss his last game here in the stadium as a captain."
The others, though Brandon Lewis comes close, don't bear Walker's litany of injuries. But those fifth-year seniors do share the trauma of the Petrino program ending in scandal, the 4-8 rudderless ship in 2012 sinking a preseason picked top-10, and playing through the 3-9 shambles Bielema inherited in 2013.
They've had to recover broken pieces of their own, like a 56-3 loss to Auburn two games ago, but they've responded. They routed then No. 10 Florida 31-10 last Saturday and capped 2014 and 2015 with convincing bowl victories. They upset LSU the last two years and now have defeated Ole Miss three years running.
Academically, they have been part of the football program's best overall grades in its history.
"They've meant a lot," Bielema said. "A lot of people on the outside world had no concept of what our guys went through when we came and what we asked them to do differently." From the likes of Brooks Ellis, Dan Skipper and Drew Morgan he signed to the aforementioned he inherited, they have played a lot of ball through good times and bad.
"I don't know if I had a group who played as much football as those guys played," Bielema said. "That's a lot of really good players who have done a lot of really good things."
He proudly calls them all his Hogs.
Sports on 11/09/2016