UA fans sure to rap media vote in SEC
If Arkansas is about to embark upon a shock-the-world football season, which some of its fans maintain, apparently word hasn’t trickled down to the people who cover the Southeastern Conference.
Arkansas was picked third in the West Division and received not one vote to win the SEC championship at Media Days last week in Atlanta. Of 181 ballots cast, one media member had the temerity to slot Arkansas first in the West Division, behind Alabama and Texas A&M.
Sam Pittman’s Razorbacks got less respect than Vanderbilt, coming off a 2-8 season that went winless in the SEC. The Commodores, though picked last of seven in the East Division, had one first-place vote. (How did Shakespeare phrase it: Perchance to dream?)
If you were expecting a better forecast, draw whatever inferences you like. Arkansas is sure to play the respect card again, which it usually does when it feels slighted. Razorback Nation will have the last laugh if the Hogs duplicate or better their 9-4 record of last year, when they beat Penn State in the Outback Bowl.
“We don’t want to repeat last year. We want to be better,” Arkansas junior safety Jalen Catalon said at media days. “Last year was a great year, but I always say to the team that last year was last year. It’s 2022. Everybody is looking to start off right and try to make it to the top.”
Catalon, whom some compare to former Razorback and NFL star Steve Atwater, was named to the preseason ALL-SEC first-team defense. He’s capable of postseason honors and a high draft call if able to channel his aggression, specifically avoiding targeting penalties on some ferocious hits.
Senior center Ricky Stromberg represented Arkansas on the first-team preseason ALLSEC offense. Named to the Rimington Trophy watch list Friday, he started all 13 games last season for a unit that led all of Power Five with 227.8 rushing yards per game. Stromberg is an early manifestation of the work Pittman, who formerly coached the position at Arkansas and Georgia, has done with the offensive line, a sad-sack group under Sam’s immediate predecessor.
Senior linebacker Bumper Pool made the second-team defense and junior guard Brady Latham the third-team offense. That’s all, Razorback fans.
Sorry, if you were looking for KJ Jefferson. Along with Pittman, Catalon and Pool, the Mississippi-born quarterback (North Panola High, neighbor of longtime national power South Panola), represented Arkansas in Atlanta last week. To the chagrin of some fans, who expressed their outrage on social media, Jefferson was not one of the top three quarterbacks selected.
Heisman Trophy winner Bryce Young, of Alabama, was a no-brain choice on the first offense. The first Crimson Tide quarterback named the outstanding college football player, Young passed for 47 touchdowns against 7 interceptions in succeeding Mac Jones, who went to the New England Patriots after a perfect 2020 (pandemic) season. Young is the fourth Nick Saban-coached player to win the Heisman since 2009, another reason that the Tiders clean up in recruiting. They’re on TV about as often as that Geico lizard with Saban himself a pitch man for Aflac insurance.
The other quarterbacks tabbed at Media Days, both with considerably less fanfare than Young, were Tennessee’s Hendon Hooker and Kentucky’s Will Levis. Both teams are picked in the SEC East below defending national champion Georgia, where quarterbacks are seen more as caretakers in coach Kirby Smart’s scheme.
One was a little surprised not to see Mississippi State’s Will Rogers on the list.
Some well-meaning Arkansas fans think Jefferson second only to Young in the SEC. The media vote gives rise to the belief that the Hogs did it last year with the running game with Jefferson seen as a better runner (compared with Cam Newton) than thrower. At times, Jefferson just put the ball up there for Treylon Burks (now with the Tennessee Titans) to fetch. With Burks gone, KJ needs to find another goto receiver and hope that the defense improves enough so Arkansas can win big games without scoring in the 50s.
Try this on for size: Arkansas is not considered a major player in college football by the sport’s image-makers. Not many outside the state or otherwise connected with the program much care about the mythical national championship the 1964 team, with the mighty assistance of highly connected friends in the media, got in the mail after beating Nebraska in the Cotton Bowl on Jan. 1, 1965.
Arkansas has not won a conference championship since joining the SEC for the 1992 season, its last crown coming in 1989 when aligned with the soon-to-be defunct Southwest Conference. Arkansas couldn’t consolidate its gains often enough in the SWC, losing to Miami and UCLA one year after a rare !0-0 start and to Tennessee in the Cotton Bowl in what proved Ken Hatfield’s last game at his alma mater. Frank Broyles, athletic director and ex-football coach, was astute enough to recognize that the SWC, rife with cheaters, was cannibalizing itself and hitched Arkansas’ star to the safer SEC.
Arkansas has never had a Heisman winner and only one finalist, Darren Mcfadden second in 2006 and ‘07. The Razorbacks usually have topped out when blessed with overachievers, often able to beat inferior teams but 50-50 against the rest, worse against Alabama.
Unless your team’s name is in the news and the ESPN guys have a dialogue going with key players, getting noticed can be difficult. That is true even for Arkansas, a team in a powerhouse conference with some famous names in its history and at times cutting a national profile. This is one battle that the Vanderbilts — much less the Arkansas States — cannot win. Play the respect card until the joker goes blind but don’t expect much change.
Meantime, Arkansas, like a local high school says of its teams, tries harder.