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ANDY’S NOTES: Hogs losing skid; Saints threw away chances to win
Many Hog fans are not handling the current four-game losing streak very well and, as usual, it’s all put in Mike Anderson’s lap, but don’t expect a change … regardless how it plays out.
Many Arkansas fans are not handling the current four-game losing streak very well and, as usual, it’s all put in Mike Anderson’s lap.
That goes with the territory in any sport involving the Razorbacks because it’s always the coach’s fault … regardless of the sport.
Yeah, nobody is really happy with the way things are going right now and even borderline Lunatic Fringe members are ready to send Anderson packing.
So, once again, I’ll ask who do you think you’re going to get that’s better?
Go ahead. Remember, you have to be able to actually get the coach and keep him in town a lot longer than 24 hours (which has happened in the past in case you don’t remember Dana Altman).
If you’ve been paying attention, even though a four-game losing skid is a first for Anderson with the Hogs, his teams have generally started conference play slow.
And every year fans get antsy.
They tend to pick it up the last six weeks of the season and we’re getting into that time of the year.
Either the Hogs will get better … or they won’t.
But many of us saw a season that wasn’t going to be a banner year. This team has problems scoring at times and now teams are just sagging inside and Daniel Gafford’s scoring is sliding downhill at a rapid rate.
Too often a zone defense will shut this team down cold. It’s not a lack of coaching where this team can’t get shots to fall at a high rate.
If you’ve got the solution, I’m all ears.
But you might as well let the season play out before having a stroke. History says that will likely swing things in the other direction sooner or later.
And if you were basing this year on a big NCAA run, you might have expectations that were based on hope more than fact.
Regardless how it plays out, though, there likely won’t be any coaching change.
There shouldn’t be, either.
Saints’ fans can’t see forest due to a single tree
New Orleans fans have lost it after losing in overtime to the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday afternoon in the NFC Championship … and, as usual, some rather interesting lawsuits have resulted.
Yes, lawsuits. Saints Nation has decided to have a court overturn a non-call on an obvious pass interference call late in the game.
Naturally, it won’t make any difference.
And, also naturally, they haven’t mentioned the non-calls on New Orleans’ facemask penalties or stomping a player.
If there is a culprit, it’s the orchestrated effort to reduce calls on everything in the playoff games. They didn’t call much this past weekend in either of the two games (and don’t bore me with the calls that were made).
After a season where the complaints were about excessive flags, the officials kept them in their pocket in the league championship games and, well, there is just no winning for the league.
There were enough missed calls on both sides for everybody to have a complaint, but the Saints had their chances and basically threw it away in overtime when they got the ball first.
Then threw it to the Rams.
Which leads us to …
NFL’s overtime better than college
Some will take exception to that, but it really is.
Supporters of the college overtime, which is basically a short-field practice that comes down to a contest of wills more than anything else, claim the NFL’s system is not fair. Somehow they think both teams should get a chance with the ball.
On Sunday, both NFL games went into overtime. Some say the problem with that is the team that wins the toss wins the game.
The Saints won the toss … and Drew Brees threw an interception. New England won the toss and put together a masterpiece drive to win the game.
Statistics show the team winning the toss only has a 52 percent shot at winning the game, according to STATS. In the NFL there was only one game this past season, I believe, where the team who lost the overtime toss didn’t get an offensive possession this past season (Falcons over the Saints in week three).
It’s all subjective, but everybody cries fairness when, hey, it’s 50-50 on the coin toss and the team winning the toss doesn’t win an overwhelming amount of the games.
What could be more fair? All giving both teams a guaranteed offensive possession does is equivalent to a participation trophy.
And it does penalize a team that does what the Patriots did against the Chiefs.
