The greatest Razorback of all time Darren McFadden joined The Morning Rush for an exclusive interview! Check it out!
No rush to decide fate of sports as we don’t know what we don’t know
With “corona fatigue” starting to sweep across the country, predictions about our fate seem to change multiple times daily and sports fans are almost at the point of desperation to find out something.
That’s probably not going to happen anytime soon.
“We just gotta wait and see what happens,” WatchStadium.com college football analyst Brett McMurphy said Thursday afternoon with Derek Ruscin and Zach Arns (Ruscin & Zach) on ESPN Arkansas.
In other words, sports fans, none of us really have a clue what’s going to happen or when it’s going to happen.
Granted, in Arkansas we haven’t had mandatory shut-down orders. There’s been some suggestions and guidance but by and large the good citizens have been allowed to decide what risk is comfortable for them.
McMurphy doesn’t know, either, but he’s been talking with everybody in the world of college football and there’s hope.
“It’s very realistic to have a full 12-game schedule this year,” he said about college football, but he didn’t mention any specific timetable for that schedule to start. “(Commissioners and athletic directors) stress anything and everything is on the table.”
SEC presidents and chancellors are scheduled to vote May 22 on whether to allow their schools to open athletic facilities to athletes for voluntary workouts in June, according to a story at ESPN.com from college football writer Sam Khan, Jr.
In March, the league voted to suspend things through May and SEC commissioner Greg Sankey was confirming or denying anything Thursday.
Again, we don’t know what we don’t know.
Around the SEC the total number of positive tests for the combined states in the league is far below that of New York. Testing is a hot-button topic, although the leaders on the whole coronavirus mess testified before the U.S. Senate this week that it’s not really that accurate.
You could take the test that’s negative and be positive 10 minutes later when you go to the first door outside the doctor’s office. That comes from the top scientist in the country on the national task force.
What are the real numbers? We have no idea.
The numbers show a staggeringly low number of deaths among healthy young people. Even testing positive the odds are you won’t get sick, much less die.
There won’t be a vaccine by football season and that’s a little misleading. According to the top scientist in the country on the nation’s task force again, out of every 100 people that get the vaccine 40 are still going to get it. The numbers say 2 of those people will, unfortunately, pass away.
That’s if they duplicate the results of the most successful vaccine in history on viral infections (the flu). Treatments are improving daily, which is why the death rate percentage is dropping and likely why we’ll see college football start on time.
You can’t look at the daily numbers without looking at the overall context. We will likely never really know what the exact number actually is and there will likely be positive results for a while.
In the end, though, the guess is economic necessity will bring college sports back.
Which is what McMurphy sounds like he expects the powers that be to do.
“They want to try to start Sept. 5,” he said Thursday afternoon. “The one thing to count on is how critical the money is … they’ll figure out a way to play.”
Nobody has a clue what that’s going to look like, though.
And making a decision (or even predictions) now is a little silly.
“I don’t see the big rush out west to cancel stuff that far off,” McMurphy said. “We need to wait a little bit more. We’ve got until we have more information. It looks like the country progressing better. What will it look like in a month?”
Well, we don’t know because we don’t know what’s going to happen in the next month.
Pittman lands another walk-on from Arkansas, which is what he wants
After several years of coaching staffs apparently interested in watching some of the best players in Arkansas go elsewhere, Sam Pittman told us he wanted to keep ’em home and that’s what he’s doing.
Shiloh Christian wide receiver Beau Cason (6-5, 190) chose to walk-on with the Razorbacks on Thursday, announcing it via Twitter:
After a lot of thought and prayer I’ve decided to stay home and commit to The University of Arkansas! #WPS pic.twitter.com/6m1VyYABxP
— Beau Cason (@Beau_Cason) May 14, 2020
Pittman told us he wanted to focus more on getting a lot of in-state walk-ons and Cason is the 12th from inside the state to go with a couple from surrounding states.
“We have an opportunity with our university with how we can get kids in that Arkansas needs to go heavy on preferred walk-ons and walk-ons in their program,” Pittman told us earlier.”
It’s why he has all 10 assistant coaches recruiting within the state. Yes, it pays dividends in various areas.
“If you do that, there’s a lot of good things that can come out of that, but one of them is I think your walk-on program is going to be much better,” Pittman said. “The relationships with the high school coaches are going to be better, relationship with the state of Arkansas is going to be better.”
Here are the walk-ons committed to the Hogs right now:
• Braden Bratcher, QB, Little Rock Pulaski Academy
• Donte Buckner, RB, White Hall
• Chris Harris, ATH, Dumas
• Kevin Compton, ATH, Watson Chapel
• Truitt Tollett, WR, Springdale Shiloh Christian
• Beau Cason, WR, Springdale Shiloh Christian
• Jonas Higson, TE, Bentonville West
• Brooks Both, LB, Harrison
• Caleb Fields, LB, Fayetteville
• Chandler McIntosh, LB, Little Rock Joe T. Robinson
• Jackson Woodard, LB, Little Rock Christian
• Rhett Thurman, K, Cabot
• Vito Calvaruso, K, Jefferson City (Mo.) Helias Catholic
• Eli Chism, LS, Shreveport (La.) Calvary Baptist
Nutt hasn’t lost touch in talking up Hogs; how Gazzola praised Pittman years ago
Houston Nutt doesn’t know Sam Pittman at all, but he got a ringing endorsement years ago and it’s something he remembers well about the new Arkansas coach.
It came from the late Pat Gazzola, the owner of The Catfish Hole, several years ago when Pittman was an assistant under Bret Bielema.
“He couldn’t say enough about coach Pittman,” Nutt said Wednesday afternoon to Derek Ruscin and Zach Arns (Ruscin & Zach) on ESPN Arkansas.
Nutt, now working with the CBS Sports Network as a college football analyst, has heard about Pittman and had nothing but praise.
“When I listen to him talk he just embraces it,” Nutt said about Pittman’s genuine love for the state and the team. “That comes through.”
It’s something that’s been missing over a string of coaches that have basically run the football program into the ground.
Nutt was 75-49 (60.5 percent) over a decade with two SEC Championship Game appearances. Since then, the Hogs have gone 71-79 (47.3 percent) that includes a two-year run of 21-5.
Don’t bring the excuse it would have continued if there hadn’t been a motorcycle in the ditch near Elkins because it wasn’t. Bobby Petrino never sustained success anywhere he has landed and the talent level (especially on defense) was running low in a hurry.
Nutt didn’t talk about any of that, but nobody since then has truly embraced the unique situation that is Razorback football (and it is whether you believe it or not).
“When you go corner to corner in this state, go into a restaurant and somewhere in there is a Razorback,” Nutt said. “I remember growing up in Little Rock and coming across channel 7 KATV and they start calling the Hogs.
“It gives you the chills when you’re 7 or 8 years old. That’s big when you have a state that gets behind your team.”
Things have changed over the last 50 years. Mostly the number of wins.
Arkansas has tried it several different ways over 12 seasons since Nutt departed Fayetteville but there hasn’t been much consistency.
Petrino was all offense and not much defense at a time when he won over 10 games two seasons in a row and still finished third in the SEC West. He never could win the games you had to win to get to Atlanta.
Don’t ask me what the other guys were trying to do because it appeared they didn’t really have a clue. None really understood Arkansas and tried to re-create successful programs elsewhere … which has never worked.
Even Frank Broyles discovered that. His first season he tried running the offense that was the hot item at the time (the Delaware Wing-T) but gave up at the halfway point of the season and went back to what he knew.
Broyles even dabbled with the Wishbone and won one game that counted (1974 over USC in Little Rock) before committing to the Veer and reaching the Cotton Bowl.
Nutt won with a dropback passer in Clint Stoerner, a scrambler in Matt Jones and a running attack with Darren McFadden and Felix Jones. It was crazy to do anything but run D-Mac and Felix, in my opinion unless you wanted to try a pass to let them catch their breath.
Nutt knew how to win at Arkansas and Broyles was the only one with more wins.
And he offered some encouraging words for fans.
“It can turn in a minute,” he said.
Which is what fans are hoping happens.
Nutt’s almost perfect impression of Lou Holtz on Matt Jones’ finally graduating
Arkansas coach Houston Nutt was on Ruscin & Zach on Wednesday afternoon and talked about Lou Holtz meeting him at midfield and asking when quarterback Matt Jones as finally going to graduate.
Musselman: ‘It’s nonsense’ for basketball to not have uniform rules for all levels
Arkansas coach Eric Musselman had a good point Wednesday afternoon.
“College basketball keeps doing the same thing,” he he told Phil Elson, Matt Jenkins and Matt Travis (Halftime) on ESPN Arkansas. “So now, all of a sudden, the NBA and the G-League have become in some people’s eyes as competition for college basketball.”
With the announcement of the G-League Special League it allows players to make the leap straight to the professional level without getting lost in the shuffle of trying to play in the NBA.
“Obviously the money is astronomical with some of the salaries they’re getting,” Musselman said. “My thought process is we need to sell our game to all the great high school players. We have to be adaptable
“We need more rules like the NBA because that’s where these players want to get to.”
Talking like that may cause some folks to faint. Men’s college basketball has always been a little different with two halves while nearly everything else has four quarters like women’s basketball and high school.
Women’s college basketball even lets you take the ball at half court after a dead ball late in halves.
“When I go watch coach (Mike) Neighbors’ team play they have four quarters, the NBA has four quarters,” Musselman said. “Why does college basketball not have four quarters? I wish all of us could get as close as possible.”
Part of the problem is high school basketball nationwide that has a knack for making it up a little different from state to state.
“Even the high schools are reluctant to change,” he said. “The more uniform we can be the easier it is to attract fans and not confuse them. We should all have the same rules.”
There is a disconnect within the overall sport of basketball which requires almost a complete set of rules books every time you go to a different level.
“It’s crazy,” Musselman said. “The people that are making the rules are not talking to people that have played both rules. You can’t go talk to a college coach that’s been coaching at an institution for 25 years and ask him about advancing the ball.
“I can already tell you what they’re going to say. You need to go to talk the coaches who have coached under both umbrellas. Go ask coach Neighbors what he likes best. Go talk to coaches who have coached both college and the NBA.”
Getting the ball at midcourt late in games would completely change what a lot of coaches have done with strategy and they don’t like change.
“It gives the offense a better chance to score,” Musselman said. “The defense now has to guard closer to the rim and there’s more strategy than inbounding the ball with four seconds to go and then going the length of the floor.
“It really just turns into luck as opposed to being able to get your team in a huddle, diagram something with two or three different options. It’s nonsense we don’t have a uniform set of rules.”
Hopefully he won’t hold his breath waiting on that.
