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This is an excerpt from Sporting Life Arkansas. To see my full list of grievances, click here.
I never want to see a near-perfect scrimmage performance from an Arkansas quarterback ever again. Ever. In the one open scrimmage during fall camp, Brandon Allen was 16/17 for over 200 yards. It was great. It was exciting. It filled everyone with hope. Then the season started and that never came close to happening. Of course, I understand he hurt his shoulder in the Southern Mississippi game, but the Samford game the week before wasn’t so great either.
And this isn’t just a Brandon Allen thing. Razorback fans went through similar pattern the year before with Tyler Wilson.
I’m done with the practice hype. Apparently, it’s a good thing for the defense to provide a reasonable challenge for the offense. Otherwise it’s like playing an old fighting game like Street Fighter and you secretly pull the other controller out of the console so the other guy can’t do anything and you just pound him mercilessly.
In other words, if there’s no pass defense in practice, that could be a bad sign for the defense instead of "what a great passing performance!" Just a guess.
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People, we’ve got to get to the point where Auburn wins a game or Arkansas loses a game and we can get through the day without waxing poetic about how the Razorbacks didn’t hire Gus Malzahn. This is a necessity. Christmas is commercialized, Nirvana is old enough to be inducted into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame, and Gus Malzahn is not, and odds are will never be, the head coach at Arkansas. Some things you’ve just got to deal with.
And really, when it comes to how he’d do as the coach at Arkansas, I don’t care about him growing up in the state, his high school records, or his high school connections. Do. Not. Care. Pretty much every coach of a BCS conference school, including Bret Bielema, has an impressive resume. And any Razorback coach worth a sooie will be able to get the majority of in-state prospects he wants, and no coach will ever get all of them. Really, Arkansas should want a coach whose strongest connections are out of state because that’s where the majority of Arkansas recruits will always come from.
I feel like I should also point out, as someone who ran one of those coaching search hot boards last year and read through comments and message board threads and discussed it on twitter, it’s not like there was any outpouring of support for Malzahn’s candidacy last year. It was very small and very quiet. Reading comments now you’d think there was this massive "Free Phil Robertson!" type of movement leading up to the hire, but there was none.
Besides, as polarizing a figure as he is in Arkansas, can you imagine the outrage if he’d gone 3-9 or even 6-6? It would make any screaming we’ve seen this year look like a wistful Jimmy Buffet song.
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That Ed Orgeron of all people proved, despite what Arkansas’ interim staff said during the offseason, it is possible to be an effective leader even if long term employment is doubtful.
By the way, those two new coaches with the vital benefit of supposed secure, long-term employment: Paul Haynes went 4-8 at Kent State, Paul Petrino went 1-11 at Idaho, and John L. Smith went 4-7 at Fort Lewis something or other.
All of that and more can be read here. Feel free to share your own in the comments below.
Happy Festivus and Merry Christmas!
