Will the game against Texas A&M in Arlington be the game where the loser leaves town?
At least Aggies coach Kevin Sumlin likely will have a pair of wins.
All Bret Bielema is going to have is two weeks of a fan base screaming for him to be run out of town … on a rail or not is optional.
The interesting thing is going to be the attendance.
Razorback fans started leaving the stadium at halftime. By the start of the second half, one entire section of the upper deck was empty. Those folks decided facing the sun and watching a boring game wasn’t worth it.
While the Hogs were only down a touchdown, only completely diehard fans had much hope of pulling anything out.
Let’s face it, Bielema may have used up a career of miracles down in Oxford in 2015.
On the surface, that contract extension athletics director Jeff Long handed Bielema after the Texas Bowl win at the end of 2014 (well, the extension was actually done in February 2015) makes it impossible to fire him.
The buyout due is $15.4 million this year, $11.7 million next year, $7.9 million in 2019 and $4 million in 2020.
Unless there’s a turnaround of eipic proportions, Bielema won’t last that long.
The real question is for Long and, quite frankly, why would he have agreed to such a ridiculously one-sided agreement after a 7-6 season (6-6 regular season)?
At the time I thought it was a bad, bad move. I said on a radio show at the time that it would, in my opinion, set the football program back several years down the road because in my opinion there was no way to recruit the quality of players needed for what Bielema wants to do.
Now if he wants to change what he wants to do to match the type personnel he can get, he might make it work a little better.
But to play his style at the level many fans expect, he’s got to recruit at a much, much higher level. I don’t know if that’s possible.
Since the meltdown in the Belk Bowl last December, Bielema has said repeatedly this is his fifth year and that’s when fans should see what to expect.
Think he might want to take that comment back?
He’s also said it’s time to “raise the bar” on expectations. Many fans did.
Following the third fourth-quarter meltdown in the last four games, a lot of the fans that bought into what Bielema was saying for five years are starting to ask questions.
Last week Long said he was “100 percent behind Coach Bielema,” which is what he has to say at that point.
He said nobody wants to win more than Bielema, which I have no doubt is a true statement.
I also believe nobody wanted to make two field goals Saturday more than Cole Hedlund.
It’s becoming clear what many Razorback fans want today.
And it’s not want-to, it’s results.
