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Bielema Blaming Petrino? Bielema started a mini-fauxrage earlier this week when national reporters caught wind of his quote on the Bo Mattingly show:
I really thought, coming in, because of the guy that I was replacing, I thought we would have a plethora of quarterbacks, wide receivers and offensive skill and expected the defense to have certain things in place. That really wasn't the case. It's not a knock on our guys. For what we need to do offensively and defensively, there was not as much as I thought was going to be there.
Bielema isn't saying anything here I haven't said before. It really is stunning that Petrino couldn't recruit any really high-quality receivers to follow up the tremendous Wright/Childs/Adams/Hamilton crew. You could argue the same about the quarterbacks.
That being said, probably shouldn't have phrased it quite that way with many of Petrino's players still on his roster.
Really, my initial reaction was more, "wow, a pretty staggeringly stunning admission that he had no idea about the roster he agreed to inherit." He's said several times last year he didn't watch any film before the 2013 spring practice, but I thought he surely had a better idea of what the players could do. That quote makes me think a little differently.
I'd just like to think that if I was in a situation where I was staking my career on a major job change that was totally within my control, I'd at least take a good look at the entire situation before I agreed, and for a football coach, that might include the players.
Let's All Claim Old National Titles: Our friends down at Auburn are making a very Auburn move by retroactively claiming old national titles, adding 1913, 1983, and 1993 titles to their website. What's especially funny about 1993 is that they were banned from postseason play and ineligible. But still CHALK IT UP!
Hell, let's all claim national titles. Maybe Arkansas should claim 1977, 1965, and even 1969 just for being close and bringing the president to town. Let's also go ahead and claim both the 2006 and 2007 Heismans for DMAC just because he was badass and deserved them, dammit.
Should UA Build More Statues? Interesting story from NOLA.com on LSU's policy of statue-building. Only Shaquille O'Neal has one on campus in Baton Rouge. Some schools have them for Heisman winners. Others for national title-winning coaches. It made me wonder if Arkansas should build more. There's one for Frank Broyles right in front of the Broyles Center in front of Broyles Field a few blocks away from Broyles Road, but that's it. Should someone else get one? Nolan Richardson? John McDonnell? Darren McFadden? Corliss Williamson? I'm a fan of statues. Lends a more artistic edge to campus than just naming a court or building or field after somebody. But it also costs quite a bit more. Thoughts?
Baseball Notes: Arkansas needs to win this series against Missouri and could really use a sweep. They might not have as much pressure if they hadn't choked away that last game against Texas A&M last week. Chris Murray at SportingLifeArkansas.com referred to the loss as "disastrous". I was a little bit nicer, but he's probably right. You just can't lose that game when your team is in the situation they're in.
