Texas-San Antonio coach Steven Henson talked after the game about Arkansas’ strengths with Daniel Gafford, Isaiah Joe and Jalen Harris that created problems for the Roadrunners.
CFP won’t be adding teams anytime soon … whether they should or not
As the latest round of wailing about the number of teams that make the College Football Playoff continues, it really doesn’t matter what coaches, athletic directors, media or fans really think.
It’s not going to change until after 2026 … if it changes then.
What should change, however, is completely in the hands of the conferences. Bill Hancock or anybody else has never publicly said it, but the playoff was originally a culmination of how the conferences settled things.
Again, whether you, me or anybody else likes it or not that’s the way it is.
It’s not the playoff that should change, but the way conferences decide their champions each year. Don’t throw Central Florida out there, either.
They’ve beaten one real team in two years and that was Auburn in the Peach Bowl last year, who really wasn’t too interested in playing the game. Okay, they won a bowl game over the most dysfunctional program in college football that had just blown a conference championship game against a team they stomped a month earlier.
If you’re not in a Power 5 conference you aren’t good enough to be in the playoff.
The Big 10 and the Big 12 play nine conference games each season. Every other conference should play that many games … minimum.
Alabama’s Nick Saban agreed with that, by the way, plus he added that SEC teams shouldn’t be allowed to play teams from non-Power 5 leagues.
If every Power 5 league adopted that, then the entire college football season would be a much better season-long playoff than it is now. Yes, every week matters in college football, which is part of the intrigue over the season.
To be honest, part of what made college football increase in interest over the last 50 years was the bowl system that produced legitimate multiple champions at times.
It wasn’t that complicated.
Alabama’s Bear Bryant decided where he was taking the Crimson Tide and everything else fell into place.
The Big 10 and Pac 8 had the Rose Bowl, the Southwest Conference champion hosted the Cotton Bowl, and it was lobbying and jockeying for the best bid to increase your chances of winning the championship.
Things changed a little in the mid-1970’s when the SEC locked up a spot in the Sugar Bowl and the Big 8 made a deal with the Orange Bowl.
That setup worked over and above all of the wailing and screaming for a college football playoff (see, this isn’t new). In a way it was a playoff and there were a lot of people that thought having people arguing an entire off-season over the final poll results was good for college football … and it’s hard to argue the results, both in interest and money.
Then came the Bowl Championship Series in 1998, which lasted until 2014. There were years where fans of certain schools thought they were jobbed in the final polls, so you had six months of arguing again.
Now we have a four-team playoff.
And, once again, there is caterwalling among fans and the media that they need to expand from four teams, which means you reduce conference championship games to the point of being exhibitions.
If you have an eight-team playoff without requiring any sort of conference championships, then you’re going to see teams basically playing like NFL teams that have locked up home field throughout those playoffs.
No, college football doesn’t need more teams in the playoffs. It certainly doesn’t need teams from non-Power 5 leagues there. All that will do is dilute the product because there are reasons they aren’t in the big boy conferences.
Lowering standards lowers the quality of the entire product.
If the Power 5 conferences decide to go to a nine-game schedule and not schedule the junior varsity teams, then you’ll see a 14-week playoff with two bye dates.
The television money will go up because viewership increases. If you don’t believe that go look at the television ratings for games against junior varsity teams and it’s so low they can’t give away advertising on it (they bonus advertisers from the highly-viewed games).
Expanding the college football playoff won’t be happening soon. Look at the history and the guess is nothing is going to change there until at least 2027.
A better way is improve the regular season schedule and quit playing games against the junior varsity schools in non-Power 5 leagues.
It’s all a numbers game.
With dollar signs in front.
???? Friday Halftime Pod
Phil & Tye discuss Dee Walker’s arrest, FOMO Friday, and more!
???? Highlights from Hogs’ matchup with UTSA in 2014
Game highlights: Arkansas vs. UTSA via ArkansasRazorbacks
Neighbors on busy schedule after finals for Hogs this week
Arkansas will be busy starting Sunday with three games in five days next week and how teams always make a move during this time of the year … one way or the other.
Anderson enjoys Hogs playing games in North Little Rock
Razorbacks coach Mike Anderson talked Thursday about how much he enjoys taking the team to Central Arkansas once a year for a game and how important it is to his program.
Gafford looks back at loss to Hilltoppers, game with UTSA
Arkansas center Daniel Gafford talked with the media Thursday about the loss last week to Western Kentucky and the upcoming matchup with Texas-San Antonio in North Little Rock.
Hogs’ Walker ‘suspended indefinitely’ after arrest on drugs, weapons charges
Arkansas sophomore linebacker Demetrius Walker was arrested Tuesday night by Fayetteville police and charged with a variety of felonies including having a firearm along with illegal drugs.
The university’s athletic department issued a release Wednesday:
“We are aware of charges involving Demetrius Walker, a student-athlete on our football team. The student-athlete has been suspended from our football program indefinitely, and we will continue to monitor the situation and cooperate fully with any related legal and campus processes. Our continued expectation is that our student-athletes conduct themselves and represent the University of Arkansas in an appropriate manner at all times.”
Walker was arrested and taken to the Washington County Detention Center in Fayetteville and was booked into the jail about 10:50 p.m. Tuesday.
He is scheduled for a hearing at 12:45 p.m. on Friday.
According to Fayetteville police, Walker’s is charged with delivering marijuana, being in possession of marijuana and Xanax in addition to being in simultaneous possession of drugs and firearms.
A preliminary report shows police found 95.8 grams of marijuana, 40 Xanax pills, several individual and sandwich baggies, a digital scale and a DPMS Panther Arms model AR-15 Rifle with a loaded magazine in the residence at 1399 N. Futrall Drive in Fayetteville.
Police said an undercover operation purchased marijuana from Walker with the assistance of a confidential informant over the last four months.
A search warrant was executed Tuesday and police said detectives found 56 grams of marijuana, then 6 more grams of marijuana with baggies and a digital scale in a kitchen cabinet. They also found 40 Xanax pills and sandwich baggies on the kitchen counter.
Police found an AR-15 rifle with a loaded magazine next to his bedroom door, according to the report.
Walker was a sophomore linebacker with the Hogs this past season and played in all 12 games.
Bud Light Morning Rush Podcast: Thursday
John, Tommy, & Nick Mason talk Ben Hicks, interview Richard Davenport, plus Is It Ever Okay Thursday!
Former SMU quarterback has fans’ interest, but some questions there
With SMU quarterback Ben Hicks’ announcement Wednesday he’s leaving SMU on the graduate transfer path, Arkansas fans, naturally, have started beating the drum.
Hicks was the first quarterback Chad Morris signed at SMU in the 2015 recruiting class and he ended up starting 11 games as a redshirt freshman in 2016 and every game in 2017-18, becoming the Mustangs’ career passing leader.
But Razorback fans might just want to look at the numbers a little.
In his third year starting last year, his numbers dropped off from the year before, 2017, which was Morris’ last year there.
But, maybe more importantly, it was the last year for a group of Trey Quinn, James Proche and Courtland Sutton at receiver in addition to a strong running game. That year he threw for 3,569 yards, 33 touchdowns and 12 interceptions. Without those guys, Hicks’ numbers dropped off to 2,582 yards, 19 touchdowns with just seven interceptions.
Think having three quality receivers made a difference?
Sutton was a first-round pick of the Denver Broncos, Quinn has played in three games for the Washington Redskins this year and Proche was the best target for Hicks this past season.
The Hogs have some highly-touted freshmen committed to sign with them. That hasn’t happened yet, so let’s not start making projections until they sign but they should provide a major upgrade over a group that performed far below expectations last year.
It is interesting, though, Hicks would choose to leave a school where he became the career passing leader with a year of eligibility left.
“You got to make some tough decisions sometimes and this was one I felt like I needed to make,” Hicks told PonyStampede.com this week.
As I said, interesting.
Hog fans have been on a rollercoaster concerning the quarterback position since former Clemson quarterback Kelly Bryant came on the market. They sweated out that decision and many were completely deflated when he chose Missouri.
Now there’s Hicks.
He’s not Bryant and the advantages he has over the current quarterbacks on campus is taking a team coached by Morris with Joe Craddock as offensive coordinator to a seven-win regular season … with a pair of NFL-caliber wide receivers and another one who may get a shot next season.
Hicks does know what Morris and Craddock expect. But we also know his numbers dropped off considerably when he lost some really good receivers at SMU.
With a week before the first signing date, the Hogs are lining up some offensive line commitments. They have a quarterback commitment, but nobody knows what KJ Jefferson will be able to do as a freshman (and anybody that thinks they do is guessing to even themselves).
As we suspected, while Arkansas is putting together a signing class that will be among the best since they started ranking recruiting, it is still the SEC.
In the 247Sports.com composite ranking of all the services, the Hogs are at No. 18 in the nation.
The naysayers among the lunatic fringe and the sociopathic internet trolls will point out that’s eighth in the league … and sixth in the SEC West.
All of that is true, but don’t read a whole lot into that.
While Alabama, Texas A&M and LSU are in the top four right now (along with Georgia), in the national rankings, five SEC teams are in the 12-20 spots.
Ignore the negatives, that’s within the numbers to be competitive. There isn’t the huge gap there has been in previous years.
Which is just one of the positives.
Remember, the Hogs still have five more players to get committed and that should make their ranking climb a little.
It will be an interesting week to start an interesting two months before the final signing day in February.
And this time the Hogs are at least in the discussion for a Top 20 finish.
Which hasn’t happened in a long, long time.
