Bielema: It’s time to ‘raise the bar’ on wins

Bret Bielema spoke to the Little Rock Touchdown Club today and didn’t deliver any bombshells.

He did have one comment, though, that should have gotten folks’ attention: “It’s time to raise the bar on what’s expected on the field,” he said.

Finally, somebody talked about wins being important.

He spoke before that on getting players to do the right things both on and off the field and the challenges that has created since he got the job in December 2012.

“Coming off 3-9 season when I got here, I knew I wanted to build things in a certain way,” he said. “I wanted to set a standard what I wanted off the field.”

He has accomplished that over his first four seasons.

“Eighty percent of players had over 3.0 during spring semester,” he said. “If I was playing, I wouldn’t be in that 80 percent. We had 29 new players come in and 25 of the 29 had a 3.0. Only one had a grade below a C. They have to have the desire to be successful.”

Now he’s got to produce wins.

“That’s the hardest thing to do,” he said about getting wins from players who are doing the off-field things well for the most part. “Sometimes the GPA doesn’t match the 40-yard dash time.”

This year, he’s hoping it gets closer.