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Chad, perception is important offensively for Hog fans
Historically, it has often appeared Arkansas football fans would rather lose by having the offense pass the football as opposed to winning games by running over and over.
One of the old sayings in football that has more or less held true over the years is defense wins championships.
That was actually true at one point in time. You could win a championship with a shutdown defense. Arkansas actually won in 1964 with a defense that simply didn’t give up many points (they shut out their last five regular-season opponents). For the entire 11-game season (including the Cotton Bowl), they averaged allowing less than six points a game.
Quite simply, that world doesn’t exist anymore.
And it’s not because of the hurry-up, no-huddle spread offenses teams are going to. Nope. The rules changes are the biggest reason why offenses score points in bunches.
Shoot, in my day offensive linemen were taught to block with their hands on their chest with elbows extended. Any time the hands came out wide a flag was soon to follow.
Defensive backs could basically jump on a receiver’s back and take a ride until the ball was in the air. It was all fair game until the quarterback turned loose of the ball.
But Arkansas fans have always loved passing.
And it’s not that there’s necessarily a lot of passing, but the perception counts more than actions.
Don’t believe it? In 1968 when Frank Broyles was coming back from a horrendous 4-5-1 campaign in 1967, he started a ton of sophomores (which was the first year they were eligible back then) and went to a pro-style offense.
On the first play of the 1968 season, quarterback Bill Montgomery dropped back in War Memorial Stadium and fired a bomb to a streaking Max Peacock. Montgomery overthrew the pass. The stadium went wild over an incompletion.
Broyles admitted years later they weren’t changing that much, but it was about the perception for recruiting purposes. The Hogs actually ran more in 1968 than they did in 1967.
It’s ALWAYS about perception.
And Chad Morris, who focuses on the details and appears to be fairly public-relations adept, would do well to take note of the Hogs’ history.
When Lou Holtz was off and running with a 30-5-1 record over his first three seasons and people were all excited about the offense and the thrilling passing game. In truth, Holtz was about running the Veer option.
After Lou came Ken Hatfield with the Wishbone. In 1987, the Hogs were 9-4 and everybody was jumping up and down mad as daylights. A Little Rock columnist pointed out that it took Hatfield something like eight hours to make the normal four-hour drive to Fayetteville because he wouldn’t pass.
Never mind that senior quarterback Greg Thomas had an injured shoulder the entire year and still managed to hit some key passes (and had some big-time drops … like the first play against Texas when Derek Russell flat dropped a perfectly-thrown bomb).
Fast-forward to the Houston Nutt era and fans were smoking hot when the Hogs were 10-4 because they didn’t pass enough. With Darren McFadden, Felix Jones and Peyton Hillis in the backfield the only reason they should have passed was to give those running backs a chance to catch their breath.
Bobby Petrino came in and he admitted he didn’t have the patience to move the ball downfield running it. Fans loved it.
They loved it so much when he flew through the handlebars on his Harley on April 1, 2012, many were quite willing to overlook the facts that came out as a result of that. Just keep flingin’ it.
Never mind that Petrino’s teams lost a couple of games by double digits when they scored over 40 points. In 2011, they only lost two games — to Alabama and LSU, who played in the national title game that year — by a combined 79-31 score. Neither game was close.
The Hogs finished fifth in the nation after the bowl games, so losing to two teams in your own division isn’t the end of the world in terms of having a great season … if that’s the only two games you lose.
And you’re flingin’ the ball all over the field.
Now Morris comes in with an offense that is really a combination of the Wing-T, Veer and Pro-Style passing game. It just comes with a different look and a very different pace.
And, pay close attention Hog fans, every single play has a passing option built into the offense.
As I was talking with another media member Wednesday after Morris’ clinic, we were discussing Razorback fans’ fascination with passing and wide open offenses.
We agreed it’s very easy to reach an almost inescapable conclusion: It often appears Razorback fans would rather lose passing than win running the ball.
But, as Broyles said years ago, it’s all about the perception.
