Is Long on ice as thin as Bielema? He likely could be
Arkansas football fans made their voices heard Saturday.
The absence of live, breathing people at the game and tailgating outside was startling. That’s how the fans make their opinion known … they simply don’t show up.
And the two guys responsible, Jeff Long and Bret Bielema, appear oblivious to what would be a hilarious run to the gallows for both at just about every other school in the SEC.
Shoot, there are some schools where a board meeting likely would have been held in one of the luxury boxes after the 39-38 debacle Saturday night. The fact that the Razorbacks won the game and we’re still calling it a debacle should be telling by itself.
The pressure has been mounting around both since the September Swoon when the Hogs were “close” against TCU and Texas A&M in losses that realistically should not have happened.
It didn’t help that neither Long or Bielema have enough respect for Arkansas fans to just step up and tell the truth. Apparently, they think Razorback fans are dumb enough to believe anything they say.
Long, who talked in Little Rock about Bielema needing to win just a few more games to be a great coach and how Arkansas is “not a win at all cost program,” let the perception hang out there that the buyout was over $15 million.
When that didn’t work, all of a sudden lawyers start pointing out that, well, by golly, maybe that buyout was more in the order of something like just north of $5 million. While that sounds like a fortune to the common Razorback fan, in the world of college athletics that’s not a big deal.
This is the East stands at Razorback Stadium at the start of the fourth quarter Saturday.
Then the powers that be allowed attendance at home games against New Mexico State and Coastal Carolina to be announced at hilariously inflated numbers.
There were large gaps of empty seats on the West side at Razorback Stadium as the fourth quarter started Saturday against Coastal Carolina.
All of it may add up to a problem for Long, who is wrapping up his 10th season in charge of Razorback football. It’s been a 10-year run of being #uncommon for a program where common was seven or eight wins a year with a nine or even 10-win season thrown in every four years or so.
It’s been now six years since that 11-2 run that finished No. 5 in the country. Long steered the program towards the ditch by making a hire with little research, ignored the warning signs a couple of years ago and now is watching it wobble towards a cliff.
Bielema isn’t to blame for taking the job. Just the financial aspect of it alone made him want it, plus the chance to see if he could duplicate in the SEC what his mentor, Barry Alvarez, did at Wisconsin.
You suspected the first year he wouldn’t. By the midway point of his third season you knew he couldn’t. As the end of his fifth season approaches, everyone is wondering who’s next.
While some saw progress in that little run in 2015, they were overlooking it was a run to mediocrity. Losing home games to Toledo and Texas Tech were proof positive of that. The finish simply delayed what was becoming the obvious inevitable.
Losing the best playmakers to the NFL at the end of the 2015 season, combined with some lackluster recruiting, made the future look grim to those paying attention. When the rest of the playmakers were gone after the 2016 season, which collapsed at the end, pointed up every single problem the Bielema Era has.
Average coaching of average players yields average results until everyone gets tired of it. Then you have, well, a season where you’re trying to convince what’s left of your fan base that beating very bad teams by a single point with fourth-quarter comebacks is a positive sign.
Nobody believes it.
Particularly the fan base, who left the Auburn game in droves in the third quarter, then didn’t bother to even show up for a game against Coastal Carolina a week after another miracle win at Ole Miss.
There is zero confidence in the direction of Razorback football.
And it goes above Bielema’s head. Let’s face it, even if the Hogs manage to pull out a couple of wins here at the end nobody has any hope it will be better down the road.
Being 29-31 overall in your fifth year and 11-26 in the SEC makes it difficult for even the most hardcore fan. Having a constant dazed and confused look on the sideline followed by rambling, incoherent statements after the game just completes the circle.
Of course, Long, who has made statements that he doesn’t like making changes during a season, preferring to wait and let things play out, simply isn’t saying anything.
By doing that now — to some — it is showing he has less of a clue than his football coach apparently has.
Long has said the football program is more than wins and losses. Some say the athletic director’s job is more than the football program.
Both are wrong.
Football is the biggest marketing platform the entire university has.
And wins and losses, ultimately, are all that matter there.
In the SEC there are no participation trophies.
Which is why Long may be more worried about saving his own backside than what to do with Bielema.
Things I think I know: Week 10
It was a win.
It was not a victory.
The latest in a long line of embarrassing Razorback football performances came on Saturday when Arkansas squeaked past Coastal Carolina by one point on homecoming.
I think the Bielema era is over, its all up to the lawyers now. He is the wrong man for this job and fans are furious.
Fans own the Razorbacks and deserve much better then this.
I don’t blame the players, it is mostly the fault of the group of buffoons that are in charge of the players. The team is put in a position to fail week after week after week and somehow, they have overcome their coaching and won the last two games.
Players deserve all the credit for that and the grownups deserve none of it.
The biggest example of this coaching staff’s indescribable incompetence is the case for T.J. Hammonds. He is the most explosive athlete on the entire roster and he hardly gets off the bench.
Bielema was quick to puff his burly chest out saying that he wanted him to get the ball more but why did it take so long to get him back in the game?
If T.J. Hammonds had been in the 2nd half sooner, Arkansas would have blown the doors off Coastal and we would not be as torqued off as we are today.
But when people who do not know what they are doing are in charge of the organization, this is what you get.
It also should be pointed out that the fact that Austin Allen did not come into that ballgame when it wasn’t going well should be a sign that he will not play again. If the offense was struggling, why not pull Cole Kelley and bring in the experienced vet who could save the day?
When people who do not know what they are doing are in charge of the organization, this is what you get.
Arkansas football looked unprepared, lazy, sloppy and slow against one of the worst football teams in FBS.
It’s nothing new. Bielema’s group has looked that way since last year.
When people who do not know what they are doing are in charge of the organization, this is what you get.
Ever since he got that TV show, he has not been the same guy. I do not know if one thing had anything to do with the other, but it is the crystal clear line of demarcation from when this program was doing pretty good to the septic tank the football program is living in right now.
What is Jeff Long going to do next year when his fancy remodeled stadium is half empty?
(Except for those fancy new seats in the north end zone that are sold out.)
There are a lot of other things that happened this weekend that I would normally write about in this space each week, but I just don’t have the zeal for it today.
I am so furious about the health and well being of the football program that is owned by me, you and all the fine fans across this state.
Bielema and his amazing coaching staff ruined homecoming.
Do you know how impossible that is to do?
There was a wrestler that had a catch phrase that is more then fitting for where this football program is today.
“Enough is enough and it’s time for a change.”
Goins’ equalizer not enough to stop Aggies for title
ORANGE BEACH, Ala. — Arkansas its amazing run come to an end Sunday afternoon as No. 11 Texas A&M scored a go-ahead goal in the 88th minute to win the 2017 SEC Tournament title.
After Arkansas (11-10-2) fell behind in the first half on an own goal, freshman Parker Goins equalized her team in the 81st minute with her ninth goal of the year, possibly sending the match to overtime. Unfortunately, the Aggies took the lead for good in the 88th minute on an individual effort score by Emily Bates, sealing the championship for Texas A&M.
“There’s two ways to look at this game,” Arkansas coach Colby Hale said. “We’ve played five games in 11 days and played well enough to win today, but we’re not a moral victory team. It stinks. This is probably one we’ll need a day or two to recover from, but obviously there were a lot of positives. The work they’ve put in is superhuman and I’m very impressed with that.”
The loss to the Aggies ended an improbable run by the Razorbacks, who were the eight-seed coming into the tournament, but still reached the final for the second-consecutive year.
Arkansas was the lowest-seeded team to ever make the final and was playing in its fourth game in eight days.
Arkansas played Texas A&M tough, taking seven shots in 90 minutes with two going on target. The team even had its chances with set pieces as it won the corners game, 5-4.
Of the four goals scored throughout the tournament, two had come off of either a corner kick or a free kick.
The defense of the Razorbacks was on full display, as well, on Sunday. Even though the Aggies put 11 shots up, only five actually hit the target.
Redshirt junior goalkeeper Jordan Harris made four saves, one away from tying her season high.
For the tournament, the New Mexico native made 14 saves, leading all goalkeepers in the field, and allowed three goals in 380 minutes for a 0.71 goals against average, the second lowest for any keeper in the tournament.
For her strong play, Harris was named to the all-tournament team along with freshmen Taylor Malham and Haley VanFossen.
Both Malham and VanFossen was key components of getting Arkansas to the championship game.
Malham scored the game-winner in the first round against nine-seed Ole Miss, while VanFossen had the game-winning assist in the 1-0 shutout to take out top-seeded South Carolina.
For much of the first half, Arkansas and Texas A&M traded possession balls at midfield, getting multiple looks in each attacking side, but neither team getting a very good look at the net.
A great chance for Arkansas came in the 36th minute when Reid Sibley received a great through ball from Stefani Doyle and just had to beat the keeper on the right side.
Texas A&M goalkeeper Cosette Morche came off her line and disrupted Sibley just enough to not allow a strong shot at the goal.
One minute later, A&M scored the game’s first goal as a cross came in from the right side, but the clearance attempt by Tori Cannata deflected the ball into the right side of Arkansas’ net.
Texas A&M took that 1-0 lead at halftime, but Arkansas came out as the aggressors in the second half. All five of the Razorbacks’ shot attempts went on target, including Goins’ long-range strike from 15 yards out.
With just 10 minutes remaining in regulation, Goins corralled a ball that pinballed around after a throw in and one-timed it past the keeper on the far post to tie the match at 1-1. Goins continues to lead the team in points (25) and goals (9) this season and ranks fourth and fifth in the conference, respectively, in those categories.
Goins’ rocket wasn’t enough as Texas A&M scored its second goal just seven minutes later to re-take the lead for good.
Even with the gut-wrenching loss to end the tournament, Hale believes his team has many more memories to make as the postseason continues next week.
“We came together as a team this week,” Hale said. “We peaked at the right time, got some performances that were pretty good, and I can’t imagine anyone is going to watch that game and say ‘Dear god, I hope we get the Razorbacks.’”
Arkansas sets its sights on what’s to come, as the NCAA Tournament will begin next week. The selection show for the national tournament is set for tomorrow at 3:30 p.m. CT and will be televised on NCAA.com.
Bielema’s won a couple of battles, but not the war
FAYETTEVILLE — For the second straight week, Bret Bielema got a win he didn’t deserve.
At one point the television cameras caught Bielema with that sort of dazed and confused look he has at times in close games.
“That’s your interpretation,” he said. “I didn’t want them to see the word I was going to say. If you’re good at interpreting my facial reactions, I’m all for you.”
Well, of course, everybody’s getting good at it.
Especially when his teams tend to come out and stumble around against teams they should be handling.
Oh, the 39-38 squeaker over Coastal Carolina will go into the victory column, giving Arkansas a 4-5 record that looks better on paper than it actually is. That comes on the heels of a 39-38 win over Ole Miss last week.
Yeah, they are wins and nobody will dispute it beats a loss, but they don’t pass the eye test and more and more Bielema isn’t passing the eye test.
Just to give you a quick perspective, Arkansas has now won back-to-back one-point games where it had to come from behind against the worst team in the SEC West and a team that lost to Arkansas State, 51-17.
Bielema is starting to look like the guy that gets a beer poured over his head and he asks if it’s raining. He was in full spin control.
“Obviously, it was a game that our guys battled through,” he said later. “In the first half, anything that could go wrong did go wrong.”
Whether he intended to or not, Bielema more or less pointed the finger at himself and the coaching staff when asked about playing down to the level of a 1-7 opponent.
“Well, there’s no doubt in my mind we didn’t play as clean as we wanted to,” he said. “But we had a good week of preparation. I thought our guys were engaged.”
To interpret the coach-speak there, that means one of two things:
• The talent level isn’t there if they did have a good week preparing.
• The motivation isn’t there.
“The think I learned in this business a long time ago is anybody can beat anybody on either side,” he said, which is the standard fallback line when coaches don’t win a game the way they should.
Even LSU has had that problems. Bielema tried to point that out, I think. He had one of those half-sentence moments where the thought doesn’t make it to the finish line.
“LSU, they beat earlier by somebody they didn’t think — or the outside world thought that,” he said.
Don’t worry. You get used to figuring it out.
“Football is football, man,” he said. “You get a couple of big plays, it goes against you, you don’t catch a break, bad things can happen.”
Yeah, they can. It’s kinda like a war, which is made up of a lot of individual battles.
The win over Coastal Carolina one wasn’t as close as the one at Ole Miss, mainly because the Chanticleers panicked after Cole Kelley’s 1-yard run finally put the Razorbacks ahead, 39-38, with 1:55 to play.
“They got the momentum and we couldn’t get it back,” interim Coastal Carolina coach Jamey Chadwell said later. “We were trying to make a play.”
That was when the Hogs fumbled the ball on the 1-yard line when Austin Cantrell dropped it, but Johnny Gibson was able to fall on it.
Were there chances for Arkansas to put this one away? Yes.
Kelley came within inches of completing a 54-yard Hail Mary pass to Jonathan Nance at the end of the first half, but replay ruled the ball never crossed the goal, despite initially being ruled a touchdown.
That left the Hogs ahead 17-14 at the half.
Then Coastal Carolina proceeded to win the second half. Yes, a Sun Belt team won the third and fourth quarters against an Arkansas team that apparently still hasn’t gotten the hang of handling things after halftime.
Arkansas won the game because, simply, they had much better players.
And T.J. Hammonds.
After the Chanticleers had gone up 38-25 early in the final period, Hammonds took a simple handoff to the left, found a hole big enough for Bielema to run through and out-raced everyone 88 yards for the socre with 10:09 to play.
Coastal Carolina folded at that point.
Arkansas won this battle the same way they won the one at Ole Miss.
The Hogs had a little better luck against a team with lesser talent both weeks.
More than luck may be needed the rest of the way.
LSU has more players who are bigger, faster and stronger.
“It should be a fun week of preparation and we don’t have many of these left,” Bielema said.
We’ll see if he feels that way next Saturday evening.
Even though he’s won these last two battles, he hasn’t done a whole lot of convincing anyone he can win the war, which has three big obstacles left.
And if he doubts that, all he had to do Saturday was look in the stands.
By the end of the game, the 35,000 that started out (ignore the 61,476 announced attendance, which was an outright lie) had dwindled to less than 20,000.
When the fans don’t care how you do in the battle, they’ve already given up hope in the war.
Which may be Bielema’s biggest November battle.
Bielema on getting needed win over Coastal Carolina
Arkansas coach Bret Bielema talked with the media after the Razorbacks’ nail-biting 39-38 win over Coastal Carolina on homecoming.
Hammonds on run that got Arkansas going in fourth
Arkansas running back T.J. Hammonds talked about the 88-yard run he had in the final period, getting the Hogs back from a two-score deficit.
