It’s summer, but football talk picks up
When the last firecracker exploded on the Fourth of July, sportswriters in football-centric states heard the traditional call to the post.
Indeed, on the first weekend after America’s 241st national birthday, it will soon be 50 days until the first Razorback game.
As expressed here, a newspaper is obliged to offer a datebook of events of reader interest. No Arkansas newspaper sports section, for instance, would be complete without a schedule of Razorback games including date and site, and, if known, starting time and TV network. That is enough to please most readers, some liking a Las Vegas estimate of the outcome.
Years ago, a former colleague in northwest Arkansas said this about that: “We’ll tell you the ticket price — and also if it’s overpriced.”
Last time we checked, the football Razorbacks of Bret Bielema had become unwatchable. Arkansas finished the 2016 season with second-half collapses against Missouri and Virginia Tech, not scoring in the second half of either game. Losing the Belk Bowl to Virginia Tech pegged Arkansas’ final record at 7-6, a 56-3 massacre by Auburn included.
It’s understandable then that you may be hearing little talk on the street about Razorback football. When the Southeastern Conference Media Days preseason poll comes out this week, expect Arkansas to rank fourth or fifth of seven teams in the league’s West Division.
The SEC West is the gated community of college football, the state of Alabama alone producing four national-championship teams in this decade. Arkansas last played for the SEC championship in 2006, the year that the Razorbacks last beat the Alabama Crimson Tide. Nick Saban came to Tuscaloosa in 2007 and took the Crimson Tide to a national championship in his third season. Alabama just missed a fifth national title under Saban — it would have been the coach’s sixth — this past January after going
14-0.
Saban can use that rare loss
(35-31 to Clemson, which Alabama beat in the previous year’s national-title game) as a motivational tool this season. The Crimson Tide looms as the No. 1 team in the polls entering its Sept. 2 Atlanta opener against Florida State, 10-3 last year and with nine starters back on defense. After that, Alabama’s biggest games are at home before a Thanksgiving Saturday visit to Auburn for the Iron Bowl.
Arkansas, you ask? The Razorbacks are ranked No. 35 nationally in Hooten’s Arkansas Football magazine, panning out to fourth in the SEC West. Arkansas has road games against No. 1 Alabama and No. 11 LSU, both big winners in Fayetteville last year. Auburn, ranked 14th by Hooten’s, is Arkansas’ only home opponent in an October schedule that includes No. 48 South Carolina before Alabama and No. 51 Ole Miss after Auburn.
A lot could be known about the Razorbacks after two September games against Texas teams. No. 40 TCU lost a wild game to Arkansas in double overtime last year at Fort Worth — the return match Sept. 9 is in Fayetteville. After a week off comes No. 37 Texas A&M, never quite as good late in the season as against Arkansas early. After three straight
8-5 seasons, Kevin Sumlin is clearly under fire in College Station. A sixth-straight loss to the Aggies, Sept. 23 in Arlington, Texas, may not augur well for Bielema’s future at Arkansas, especially if it follows a defeat to TCU.
Estimates vary about the Razorbacks’ won-lost record, which should be a hot topic on sportstalk radio leading up to the Aug.
31 (Thursday night) Little Rock opener against Florida A&M. South Point Sportsbook sees the Hogs fifth in the SEC West (behind A&M) with an over-under of 7.5 victories. Looked at from a distance, Arkansas needs to do well against three projected 5-7 teams — in order, South Carolina, Ole Miss and Mississippi State.
SBNation.com calls A&M “this decade’s Arkansas: a former Southwest Conference program with no compass for its place in the SEC.” Gus Malzahn could be in trouble at Auburn, according to the same online report, if he doesn’t turn a transfer quarterback “into a death machine and the Tigers push double-digit wins.” Who knows what happens to Hugh Freeze at Ole Miss after impending NCAA sanctions including loss of scholarships and a bowl ban?
Meanwhile, sit back and enjoy quarterback Austin Allen’s senior year at Arkansas and think wistfully of a Music City Bowl matchup, as SBNation.com projects, against Iowa — pitting Bielema against his alma mater. Put me down for a Predators game at Bridgestone Arena and I’ll see you in Nashville.