Arkansas has never lost 10 games in a season, but there has been at least one other season when a victory was harder to find than 2018.
The most pitiful season dug up in the record books was Fred Thomsen’s third of 13 seasons, the 1932 campaign that started and ended with scoreless ties. Those double goose eggs were against Hendrix and Centenary. The Razorbacks went 1-6-2, including 1-4 in the Southwest Conference with a 20-6 victory over Baylor.
How pitiful this season has been is open for debate. Yes, the Hogs are staring at 2-10 as they head for a rainy, dreary conclusion at Missouri on Friday.
Ever since the Hogs lost to Colorado State and North Texas in back-to-back weeks in September, there has been no dodging the question that haunts the first year of the Chad Morris era: Are these Razorbacks plagued by poor coaching or poor talent?
I think I know the answer, but there’s no place to look but coaching when the loss at Colorado State is considered. There isn’t a way to pass that one off on the players. Not going for it on fourth-and-1 at midfield against a defense that still hasn’t stopped the run has to go down as a poor coaching decision. The Hogs should have beaten the Rams.
Add a victory over Ole Miss and the maximum win total might go up to four. The most this team could have won is four and I’m not sure I see a huge difference in how the season would have been remembered either at 2-10 or 4-8. It’s just different degrees of poor, and it starts with lack of SEC talent.
There just isn’t talent enough in the offensive and defensive line to do much better than that. As woeful as the execution was at Mississippi State last week, the real difference in the game was not play calling or dropped passes or bad throws.
I see some talent. Hjalte Froholdt is a mountain of a man in the offensive line. Rakeem Boyd is an SEC talent in the backfield. Armon Watts has been a pleasant surprise in the defensive line.
But otherwise, it’s not enough either in talent or depth. I like to watch the linebackers play, but they don’t get a break to rest and that’s a problem as the season progresses.
The difference at Mississippi State was just as it has been almost all season, the physical difference in the play up front. You can’t win football games if you are getting beaten in the trenches. That is not coaching. It is talent, pure and simple.
It’s not any different than it was for the last two seasons of the Bret Bielema era. Line talent dipped under Bielema. That’s the area that had been his strength at Wisconsin where he developed stars on both sides of the line.
Talent is what it’s about in the SEC. Robb Smith, Bielema’s defensive coordinator for three seasons, told me almost immediately upon his arrival from the NFL that the SEC was not a step down from what he’d been seeing with Tampa Bay.
“This is a personnel league,” Smith said. “You see offensive linemen and defensive linemen every week that are going to play at the next level. Every team has them. You better be able to match them because you aren’t going to out-scheme talent.”
My first year covering big-time college football came in 1978. I went from the Log Cabin Democrat and five seasons of watching UCA as a student and then as sports editor. I had seen the Razorbacks play as a youngster, following my father around the Southwest Conference, but that’s about it.
Things changed when I arrived at the Tulsa World and was given the job as one of four college football writers. We didn’t have beats. Each week you swapped teams, covering either Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Arkansas or Tulsa.
It was a fantastic era for a young journalist covering college football. Coaches welcomed the writers from the top papers to practice. They might even sit with you to explain things.
I learned from Barry Switzer at Oklahoma, Jimmy Johnson at Oklahoma State, John Cooper at Tulsa and Lou Holtz at Arkansas. They had great assistant coaches, many who became head coaches.
The great Monte Kiffin was the defensive coordinator at Arkansas. Lovie Smith was the defensive team captain at Tulsa. Merv Johnson was the offensive line coach at Oklahoma. He helped Frank Broyles win a national title at Arkansas, as well as Dan Devine at Notre Dame and Switzer at OU.
Great coaching was everywhere I looked and it was fun no matter the assignment of the week. I might cover Oklahoma-Texas one week, then Arkansas-Texas the next. Oklahoma-Oklahoma State and Nebraska-Oklahoma were the treats waiting for the end of the season. I might cover three bowl games and that included the practices leading up to the games. That might mean 20 days straight of seeing practices and fun games.
Mostly I was a sidebar writer for those really big games my first season, riding along with sports editor Bill Connors. But I had practice duty leading up to those games to gather feature material and was welcomed by the coaches to drive to Norman, Stillwater or Fayetteville. Later, I’d have those games as the lead writer as my skills were proven.
Here’s the point: I quickly tried to figure out who were the best of the best coaches and who couldn’t coach. Why wouldn’t you speculate, even to yourself? Don’t we all want to rank everything we see from best to worst? Isn’t that what we do each week with every poll that can be imagined?
I did it. And, almost instantly I decided that Switzer and Holtz were the two best coaches. Among the teams I saw on the other sideline, I figured Tom Osborne as a giant of a coach.
The worst was Jimmy Johnson. I saw Johnson’s Oklahoma State team routinely swamped by teams coached by Switzer and Osborne.
But I was wrong. It was talent, not coaching.
Holtz was good the first two seasons at Arkansas when he had the great talent recruited at the end of the Broyles era. As Holtz tried to reload, it became obvious that he could coach great talent, but wasn’t recruiting at the same level that Broyles did at the end.
And, the best of the recruiting champions was clearly Switzer. Osborne was a close second.
Johnson could recruit, but wasn’t winning enough head-to-head battles with Switzer. And, the Sooners were getting the great players in Texas, while OSU just barely had enough to stay ahead of the likes of Missouri, Kansas and Colorado.
The Cowboys got some great backs, but not the linemen to really play toe-to-toe with the Sooners and Cornhuskers.
But it was too early to say Johnson couldn’t coach. Obviously, the former Razorbacks player and assistant proved to be a brilliant coach with a college national championship at Miami and two Super Bowls with the Dallas Cowboys. He was named a semifinalist for the Pro Football Hall of Fame this week.
I was wrong. It was talent, not coaching that I was watching in 1978. Of course, you can argue and be right that recruiting is about coaching. That’s where Chad Morris must be considered as the Razorbacks try to reload.
Switzer, himself, is the one who finally explained it to me in the most precise manner as Johnson’s teams at Miami began to slug both Oklahoma and Arkansas in dramatic fashion.
“My record against Jimmy is clear,” Switzer said. “When I had the best players, I never lost. Now he has the best players.”
It can never be stated better.
Back to Arkansas, Morris has tried to put a positive spin at every turn. Even when losing 34-3 at Auburn, Morris picked effort as the post-game topic, pointing to Ty Storey’s grass-stained uniform to highlight the grit and determination displayed by his quarterback.
Everyone could see fight and determination in losses to Texas A&M, Alabama, Ole Miss and LSU. No question, the Hogs were playing hard.
I’ve always thought the ultimate test of coaching is whether or not the team plays hard. I never questioned that with Nolan Richardson’s basketball teams. They fought with the ultimate grit.
But there is just so long a team can fight without seeing results. The Hogs even fought for a bit against Mississippi State, although playing poorly in many situations. They resisted on defense until just past halftime when the offense had it’s only real chance at a touchdown wiped off the board on offensive pass interference. It could have been 17-10, but was 24-6 in a heartbeat.
By then everyone in the stadium and on both sidelines knew that Mississippi State’s linemen on both sides of the ball were winning the war in a huge way. I saw Arkansas linemen knocked down and even tumbled backward on plays throughout the day.
The MSU defensive line led by Jeffery Simmons and Montez Sweat dominated. Simmons blew up the screen plays and runs. Sweat chased the quarterback. When double teamed, others ran free to smack an end to promising plays. MSU’s offensive line was good, too.
So a team that had fought hard most of the season to earn the praise of their new coach shut it down. There’s no other way to say it. And, this time Morris didn’t give them anything but harsh criticism. Oh, he even blasted his coaches, as deserved.
That left an opening for some that have wanted to criticize coaching all season. Morris wasn’t the choice of everyone, but he is the right choice to lead the Hogs.
Why? He can recruit. He has completely revamped every area of a poorly-constructed recruiting machine. The offices in the Fred W. Smith Center designed by Bobby Petrino for turn-of-the-century staff sizes have been redone and sliced up for about 20 more spaces to accommodate a polished and efficient recruiting operation.
I loved the line from Morris a few weeks ago on his weekly radio show. There can be no bad days in recruiting.
I figure Morris will stick with these coaches even after what looms as a 2-10 season, because they are producing with what might turn out to be a top 10 recruiting class. Defensive line talent has been the No. 1 emphasis, but big, fast wide receivers are a close second.
Switzer would love it. He’d nod his head in approval for the efforts in Texas.
So would Johnson. It’s what he told his assistant coaches to do when there was not enough talent in Oklahoma to catch the Sooners and Cornhuskers.
The organization in the Arkansas recruiting operation is fantastic. The use of social media is orchestrated days in advance with a plan that overwhelms high school players. Taylor Edwards, the recruiting operations man hired from Alabama, told the statewide radio audience Tuesday on Morris’ show that it trumps what he saw being done in Nick Saban’s operation.
This is the section that usually begins with the 10 keys to victory. Not this week. I’ll switch gears a little to get to the heart of the season, just five things that make me thankful.
Good Health
It’s been a tough personal season. An infection from a previous surgery for cyst removal in the back hit the week of the Auburn game, then was removed by surgery the day before the Alabama game.
I’m recovering, although the wound still has a few more weeks to heal. The ordeal of packing and unpacking the wound as it healed finally fell to me for the Starkville trip. I couldn’t ask my wife to go for that trip, or ask a co-worker to help.
I did it by laying the dressing on the bed and falling back on it, as suggested by my surgeon, Dr. Jay Mullis.
Former UA trainer Dean Weber loved it as I described it at halftime. He said, “That’s one way, but I used to tell my players when they had to change their dressings on a hard-to-reach place on the back to tape the gauze to the wall and back up to it. Either way works. Hang tough.”
And, I did. I’ll be gauze free by Christmas, but I’m thankful that I’m pain free now. Heck, I may go fishing next week and that means wading the river. You can’t do that with an open wound. I’ve fallen in the river plenty of times over the last 20 years.
Great Team
I’m talking about our staff at Hawgs Illustrated. My co-workers have encouraged and helped pick up the slack as I’ve hit low spots this season. Dudley Dawson, Scottie Bordelon, Matt Jones and Ben Goff have helped produce awesome content for our magazine and website.
Then, you have the behind-the-scenes folks telling me to slow down and to put more on them. That’s Fran Johnson, Kai Caddy and Eric Burney, the page designers. They are wonderful.
Everyone from the business office to circulation and to the very top have tried to help. Todd Nelson, president at the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, ordered me out of the office at one point just after the surgery. He added, “Go home and listen to Jean Ann.”
I am thankful.
Customers
Yes, we are all thankful for customers. Without them, we have nothing.
I remember a Jack Stephens statement from years ago: “Take care of your customers. If you don’t, someone else will.”
Our customers are in many instances friends and family. With our message boards on our website, they can get to know us and us them.
I look for them to know what I should write. When they ask a question, I know that my stories did not provide the answers. It’s perfect guidance.
Thank you.
Great Family
There’s no getting around it, I hugged them a little tighter and a little longer this Thanksgiving. That’s wife Jean Ann, daughters Sarah and Becca and son-in-law Kristopher.
I long to be in Kristopher’s boat to fish. He’s the best fly fishing guide in America. Oh, I don’t know all of them, but I’ve seen many I’d call elite. He’s up-up-and-away the best.
All of those have had a shot at changing my dressing, and I’m not talking about what went with the turkey. It’s yucky and you know someone loves you when they say, “I’ll do it and I want to see if that wound is getting smaller!” Even Kristopher has taken a turn.
Great Friends
I’ve got them. They have worn out my phone checking on me. I had no idea how many there were until I needed them. They were there.
I know they care because this is one time that I can’t give them a fishing report.
I’ve even gotten a few calls from old friends in my Conway and Tulsa days. Yes, we’ve talked a little football, but not much.
All of this I’d put in the list of pure talent. Yeah, you can coach friends and family, but ultimately they either have it or they don’t. Those around me have elite talent. Go with talent every time.