Returning Arkansas catcher Casey Opitz Monday afternoon told Phil Elson, Matt Jenkins and Matt Travis (Halftime) on ESPN Arkansas that he’s looking forward to a fun year with a talent-laden roster next season.
Green re-living big plays while playing for Hogs, looking ahead to a coaching career
Former Razorback running back Broderick Green will always have at least a tie for longest run in program history and he talked Monday morning with Tye Richardson and Tommy Craft (The Morning Rush) on ESPN Arkansas.
Green talked about the decision to get into coaching and he is now on the staff at Central Junior High in Springdale.
Will Razorback fans and media finally quit making excuses for coaches’ failures?
Sam Pittman has a long list of possible preseason excuses for his first year as Arkansas football coach, maybe the most obvious being he’s been on the job for half a year and hasn’t coached a practice.
That will change in about three weeks.
Fans and many in the media have spent years coming up with one excuse after another for a dismal football program.
Some, including the top of the entire UA system, were leading the charge along with many media people to try and talk themselves into believing a 6-6 record in 2014 followed by 7-5 was somehow justification to allow an inept athletics director to give a doofus coach a new contract to hamstring an entire program.
Nothing is more dangerous than providing people a good excuse for their own failure.
“We look at what we can do moving forward,” Pittman said in a Zoom press conference last month.
Arkansas football has had that by the bunches from fans and media for several years.
Pittman hasn’t made a single excuse. He knows the situation he walked into and, in fact, he sold the folks doing the hiring he wanted the job and could do it better than anybody else.
Whether he can follow through on that or not won’t be known for awhile, but now the common theme for low expectations is a low talent level.
It’s not that low.
The staff together now would have won at least seven games the last two seasons in my opinion primarily because the head coach started confused and never got much help from an offensive coordinator with no experience and a defensive coordinator that probably retired a few years before and just didn’t tell anybody.
About the only positive is the number of freshmen he kept the redshirt on last season. Add in what Pittman has added with graduate transfers and his first recruiting class and, yes, there’s talent on the roster.
Maybe not enough to sweep through Alabama, Auburn or LSU but enough to get a win over some other teams on the schedule.
Coaching is important. If nothing else, Arkansas fans have seen that over the previous eight seasons, going all the way from 11-2 in 2011 to 4-20 over the past two seasons.
Maybe the most glaring things over the last two seasons has been eight quarterbacks over two years, you can’t get the ball into the hands of your biggest playmakers at the right time and a defense that couldn’t stop far lesser teams.
The problems the last three seasons haven’t been about not having players. Don’t tell me Colorado State, San Jose or Western Kentucky had better players top to bottom. Coaching cost them multiple SEC games over two years.
Now Pittman just has to show he can put together a staff that can coach teams to win.
If he can’t, well, there shouldn’t be excuses and there probably won’t be from Pittman.
And, hopefully, nobody else.
Neighbors on music choices, television shows, ‘AAU Summer League Bingo’ cards
It’s summer and Hogs women’s basketball coach Mike Neighbors is working on his music list, television shows but broke down what qualifies for the “AAU Summer League Bingo” cards he and some buddies do every year.
While staying negative through several tests, Neighbors on Friday told Derek Ruscin and Zach Arns (Ruscin & Zach) on ESPN Arkansas about what he’s been doing to stay busy.
Pagnozzi on ESPN special about McGwire’s record-setting 1998 season
Former Arkansas and major league Tom Pagnozzi was with St. Louis for much of the 1998 season when Mark McGwire was chasing Roger Marris’ record and he talked about that and other baseball issues Friday afternoon with Derek Ruscin and Zach Arns (Ruscin & Zach) on ESPN Arkansas.
Bud Light Seltzer Morning Rush Podcast — Father’s Day Special
Tye & Tommy reflect on some of the best father/son duos, shares stories about their dads and more!
Father’s Day for Musselmans likely centering on (what else?) basketball
In a basketball family that is now going into the third generation of coaching with son Michael on Eric Musselman’s staff at Arkansas, Father’s Day on Sunday will usually have the same story line.
“We’ll probably end up talking about recruiting and our depth chart,” Eric said Friday Morning to Tye Richardson and Tommy Craft (The Morning Rush) on ESPN Arkansas. “Maybe we can get out on Beaver Lake and go for a little boat ride and enjoy some sunshine.”
Eric grew up with his father, Bill Musselman, coaching at the college level, the NBA and just about everything in between.
Now Michael is the director of recruiting with the Razorbacks. It creates a different dynamic growing up for coaches’ kids.
“When I came down the breakfast table, for most kids it was cartoons, for me it was game tape,” Eric said. “It was normal for my mom to pick me up from school and drop me off at practice for me to hang out with my dad, watch practice and dribble on the sideline, then go up to his office and watch game film.”
Michael has done pretty much the same thing, but Eric at least had a little experience being in the son’s role before.
“He does a really good job of separating work and family life,” Michael said. “When I go over to his house we talk a little about recruiting or this, that and the other, but it’s really family time. We’ll go to dinner or lunch every day and that’s just family talk.
“In the office it’s just down to business as usual.”
No other coach in any sport with the Hogs has really managed social media the way Eric has and it’s an area Michael has to deal with in terms of dealing with the recruits.
Eric has done some social media videos that are, well, entertaining and different to say the least. Sometimes the son disagrees, other times he’s suggesting things but it’s clear who has the final vote.
“At the end of the day he is my dad so at the end of the day if he wants to put out a silly or goofy idea, I may want to nix it but he’s got a pretty good feel for what people think is funny,” Michael said. “There’s just a little bit that goes both ways and we’re able to settle on a pretty happy medium.”
The videos are apparently not dun on the spur of the moment. Call it a mini-version of a TV show that almost has a script.
“We have a little think tank every day where support staff and I sit around and we throw ideas,” Eric said. “We put a lot of videos that are funny out on social media, but we have a pretty good library of stuff that never gets put out.
“We’re just try to do stuff that’s a little bit different.”
Eric does have an assistant spot he’s got to fill after Chris Crutchfield left for the head coaching spot at East Central Oklahoma.
He’s not rushing to fill it,.
“No. 1, we just want to have patience,” he said. “We’re kind of in a unique time frame right now where we’re not allowed to work with our guys. We have guys that are in town that are doing voluntary weight-lifting, but the gym lights have been off for three months.
“From a recruiting standpoint, the group we have in here right now has done as good of a job as anybody in the entire country doing virtual presentations.”
Anthony Ruta, the director of basketball operations, has taken over Crutchfield’s role.
“We feel like we have a guy on staff that understands what an assistant coach would need to do right now,” Eric said. “Putting together our playbook, putting together offensive and defensive schemes, breaking down film of NBA teams.”
Then he talked about a change in the Hogs’ offensive approach that may provide a different look this season.
“We’re trying to mirror a little bit of what the Milwaukee Bucks have done,” Eric said. “We’re trying to study how they utilize their spacing and their personnel.”
He’s not going to get in a hurry in June to fill the spot.
“We certainly want to try and find the right fit to blend in with myself, coach Corey Williams and coach Clay Moser,” Eric said.
But for this weekend, it’s Father’s Day, getting out on the lake … and probably talking basketball.
Eric and Michael Musselman joins The Morning Rush
Razorback Head Coach Eric Musselman and Michael Musselman, Director of Recruiting, joins the Morning Rush, as they discussed the father-son dynamic of working together, Michael’s memories of Eric as a father outside of basketball, and so much more! Check out the full interview here!
ESPN’s Burns on Pittman’s reputation as great recruiter across college football
ESPN college football analyst Peter Burns on Thursday afternoon talked with Derek Ruscin and Zach Arns (Ruscin & Zach) on ESPN Arkansas about how people across college football view new Hogs coach Sam Pittman.
