Big season seen for UA, though sked no cakewalk
Wally Hall has spoken about the Arkansas Razorbacks. Tell all far and near that the graybeard from Little Rock, who had a pressbox seat long before me, sees a many-splendored 2022 season for your heroes.
Readers of the statewide newspaper on Sunday sampled Hall’s predictions for all 12 games, which Wally sees resulting in a 10-2 record for Sam Pittman’s forces. He did not include the bowl game that would come with such a mark, last year’s final 9-4 slate including an Outback Bowl triumph over Penn State in their first meeting. Pittman can join Bret Bielema as the only Razorback coaches to win their first two bowls, the COVID-19 pandemic scrubbing a 2020 postseason date against TCU for Pittman’s first Razorbacks.
Not knocking his prediction, but Wally’s readership is composed mainly of Razorback fans. He is not fearful of ruffling feathers when appropriate, but since people generally like Pittman and athletic director Hunter Yurachek, why bother? The foolishness of the 2010s that attended Razorback athletics is mercifully over.
A 10-2 season likely would peg Arkansas second in the Southeastern Conference West Division. Hall sees the Razorbacks’ only SEC loss coming to Alabama, 42-31 on Oct. 1 in a game sure to pack Fayetteville’s Reynolds Razorback Stadium and, if both teams are highly ranked, possibly will host ESPN’s College Football Gameday — the network’s first such visit to the UA campus since Houston Nutt’s Hogs beat Tennessee in 2006.
If you follow Razorback football, you surely know the series history with Alabama. Their first two meetings came in the Sugar Bowl, Alabams’s 1961 and 1979 teams winning national championships for Arkansas-born coach Paul William Bryant. The 1992 Crimson Tide, producing for Gene Stallins the school’s first national title since Bryant’s time, beat Arkansas in the latter’s first SEC game in Little Rock. Alabama has won the last 15 meetings, though last year’s game in Tuscaloosa was tingling and, in perhaps Bobby Petrino’s peak effort at Arkansas, the Razorbacks scored on their second play (wheel route to Ronnie Wingo Jr.) and led into the fourth quarter at Fayetteville in 2010.
Alabama coach Nick Saban, using the press to send a message, said recently the Crimson Tide were ahead of schedule last year winning the SEC title and dropping a rematch with Georgia in the national final. Saban lost to two former Tide assistants for the first time (Georgia’s Kirby Smart and Texas A&M’s Jimbo Fisher), his tiff with Fisher over recruiting in a day that players can trade in on their name, image and likeness going public in the offseason.
Hall noted in his column that “Saban didn’t like finishing second in the country last year, and he intends to stay No. 1.” Doesn’t hurt that Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Bryce Young threw 47 touchdown passes in his first Tide season and linebacker Will Anderson Jr. packs equal punch on defense. Since bringing aboard Lane Kiffin as offensive coordinator in 2014, a successful union but one not destined to last, Alabama has had three Heisman winners (Mark Ingram the school’s first in 2009), including
DeVonta Smith and Young in succession.
Suffice it to say that an Arkansas win over Alabama would be the CFB story of the day, perhaps of the season, and shine more light than ever on Pittman’s grassroots program.
Hall also sees the Hogs coming up short in an October visit to Provo, Utah, with the 4,551-foot elevation as a 12th Man in the Cougars’ 38-30 victory.
The Fayetteville opener Sept. 3 brings Cincinnati, a 13-1 team last year that won at Notre Dame and lost to Alabama in the College Football Playoff semifinals. Hall sees a balanced offense led by KJ Jefferson pulling the Hogs through, 35-30.
Most games Hall sees decided by a touchdown or less with Arkansas winning 56-54 at Mississippi State and 49-42 (avenging last year’s one-point loss at Oxford) to Ole Miss.
Though not picked among the top three quarterbacks in the SEC media’s preseason survey, Jefferson is seen as the difference in Arkansas’ 2022 season. All bets are off if he goes down or is in any way slowed.
Arkansas’ defense, while considered on an upswing, is sure to see top quarterbacks all year and must bring pressure front and back. And, with so many close games expected, the kicking game will be key and the Hogs need to avoid stupid pen- alties.
But you probably already knew that. What’s puzzling you is whether the final record is 10-2 — asking more is unreasonable — or something like 8-4, my pick. I just have trouble accepting that over-achieving Arkansas can have two charm-filled seasons back-to-back. We’ll get an early line on that three weeks from Saturday.