Former standout RB Rawleigh Williams III discusses taking on new roles with the NFL and Razorbacks after retiring from football.
Hogs should beat Aggies, but how many will see it?
Don’t get caught up in all the negativity of the past week around Arkansas football when looking at this week’s game.
The Razorbacks will beat New Mexico State rather handily.
While this team may have some issues when it comes to matching up with the better teams in the SEC, this is a Sun Belt team?
The Aggies, deep down, know they are going to get beat.
And it should be pretty bad. If the Razorbacks aren’t up by at least 21 points at halftime, then maybe we have a problem, but this shouldn’t even be close at halftime.
Yes, that is what should happen in this game.
If it does, the question is how many people will be in Razorback Stadium to see it?
To be honest, I don’t know. You hear about a lot of people who say they are done with it. They are tired of the mediocrity and losing to Texas A&M for six years in a row.
But the guess here is they will be in the stands Saturday morning … at least for awhile.
If you look back through Bret Bielema’s time at Arkansas, he has typically had problems with teams like this. Remember the first year when the Hogs had to fight to get past Samford in Little Rock.
No, New Mexico State isn’t Toledo, but I know everyone remembers that one from 2015. Arkansas should be able to handle this one with relative ease.
Arkansas 52, New Mexico State 21
In other games around the SEC as we start to get more league games now and less of the yawning non-conference affairs.
Vanderbilt at No. 21 Florida
11 a.m., ESPN
The Commodores have been fairly quiet after getting the anchor dropped on their heads by Alabama last week.
We haven’t heard much squawking out of them as they go in against what is now looking like the second best team in the East.
The Gators continue their quarterback rotation this week with Luke Del Rio back as the starting quarterback to try and jumpstart an offense that seems to do just enough to win most weeks.
But how long can that continue?
It will for this week, anyway.
Florida 20, Vanderbilt 6
No. 7 Georgia at Tennessee
2:30 p.m., CBS
This could be the beginning of the end for Butch Jones in Knoxville.
While Vols fans sometimes have unrealistic expectations, the constant game mismanagement combined with rather hokey comments has grown old.
Not winning enough of these big games isn’t helping either.
Georgia — with Jim Chaney as offensive coordinator and Sam Pittman coaching the offensive line, former Arkansas asistants — is being discussed as a possible challenger to Alabama for SEC power.
While the brakes probably need to be pumped on that, the Bulldogs appear to be the most stable program in the East.
They may not be ready to dethrone the Tide, but they should beat Tennessee.
Georgia 31, Tennessee 21
Eastern Michigan at Kentucky
3 p.m., SEC Network
Unless the Wildcats have a hangover after blowing what could have been a milestone win over Florida last week, they should handle this one.
Kentucky 35, Eastern Michigan 10
No. 24 Mississippi State at No. 13 Auburn
5 p.m., ESPN
The first sorting of the pretenders from the contenders will happen on The Plains. Tiger fans welcome it consider an assistant basketball coach was arrested earlier this week.
The Bulldogs simply didn’t show up against Georgia last week while Jarrett Stidham had the highest quarterback rating of anybody in the league in a win over Missouri.
If Auburn’s offensive woes are semi-straightened out, this will be a good one.
The question is if Dan Mullen’s can get Nick Fitzgerald back to the form he had against LSU and can they move the ball enough on Auburn’s defense, which did limit Clemson unlike anybody else has in a couple of years.
Auburn 21, Mississippi State 17
Troy at No. 25 LSU
6 p.m., ESPNU
While the Tigers are not looking as sharp as anyone expected, they should have more than enough to win this one, but the guess here is it won’t please the players, coaches or fans.
Troy tends to do that to LSU.
LSU 35, Troy 21
South Carolina at Texas A&M
6:30 p.m., SEC Network
Which Aggie team will show up?
Which Gamecocks team shows up?
Texas A&M may have found itself a little last week with the overtime win over Arkansas while South Carolina took a step back the last couple of weeks losing to Kentucky, then squeaking past Louisiana Tech last week.
Texas A&M 35, South Carolina 31
Ole Miss at No. 1 Alabama
8 p.m., ESPN
The Rebels have had a week off to get ready for this one and it is the game of the year for a team that won’t be in a bowl game.
After back-to-back wins over the Crimson Tide, the Rebels nearly pulled off a threepeat last year in Oxford, but a lot has changed since then.
Alabama’s secondary will be tested unlike at any other time thus far this season.
But that’s about all.
Look for Jalen Hurts and the Tide’s running attack to slice and dice the Rebels’ defense almost at will and this one may be high scoring, but not really close.
Alabama 45, Ole Miss 31
Bielema as bad as Ford? Numbers startingly similar
For those wondering why Bret Bielema is starting to catch some heat from Arkansas fans, here are the problems:
• His overall winning percentage of 48.15 percent is less than the SEC-only percentage of the Bobby Petrino and Houston Nutt years.
• To equal Danny Ford’s tenure in the SEC (40 percent), the Hogs will have to win six of the seven remaining SEC games. To match Ford’s overall winning percentage, the Hogs will have to win all nine of their remaining games.
Those supporting Bielema will argue that he inherited a program beset with problems on and off the field that required a major rebuild.
While I don’t agree with that, it’s the argument that is made.
Even if he did inherit a dumpster fire, he didn’t inherit a program beset with NCAA scholarship limitations or restrictions, a massive amount of transfers or a rash of career-ending injuries.
No, he inherited a program that had 12 or so players arrested on one thing or another over the previous couple of years and their grade point averages weren’t very good.
In my opinion, there was more talent on the team in 2013 than he has now. It was young and inexperienced, but it was better.
The coaching staff in 2013 was better than the present staff, too, in my opinion.
No, Bielema was coming to a program and a culture where a traditional ground-and-pound style of offense has never been very popular with the fan base, but he was going to do it his way because he had “won” three Big 10 championships doing that.
His former boss at Wisconsin, Barry Alvarez, said Monday at the Little Rock Touchdown Club that’s what Bielema wanted to do.
“I think I know what Bret wants to do,” Alvarez said. “Bret’s gonna be very similar to what we’ve done. I see his lines, big lines, physical teams, but you have to evaluate what’s coming out.”
That last part is critical. The part about evaluating what you can recruit.
And that is where Bielema has created his own problems.
In Texas, where Arkansas has traditionally had success recruiting, they aren’t doing nearly as well.
In an area of the country where speed is favored over size and bulk, Bielema has tried to get what he can, but his style hasn’t exactly been something the better players are lining up to play in.
His comments to the Texas High School coaches a few years ago didn’t help either.
Dismissing teams that didn’t huddle, didn’t use a fullback or tight end probably wasn’t the best way to sell his programs to some of the most influential people in the recruiting process.
In college football today, teams that don’t have a quarterback who is a running threat aren’t winning anything.
Look at the College Football Playoff for all three years.
One team, Alabama, has won it (in 2015) with a pro-style quarterback … barely. It was too close for comfort for the Tide’s Nick Saban, who put Jalen Hurts in the next season.
In fact, Alabama in 2014 and 2015 were the only two of the 12 teams in the history of the playoff to even make the playoffs with a true dropback style, called pro style, quarterback.
And now even the Crimson Tide have gone with much more up-tempo style on offense, spreading it out and Saban stressing all offseason and in the early games they have to improve their passing attack.
It’s never been my belief that schemes win ballgames. It’s players.
But, as Saban pointed out in the offseason, the players want to play in an up-tempo style and it’s what gives his team the most trouble.
Was Bielema a good hire back in December of 2012 for athletics director Jeff Long?
Actually, it was probably the best he could, whether he would admit it or not. I didn’t think his style was a good fit then and said so.
But Long, who totally mismanaged the situation after being forced to fire Bobby Petrino, doubled down on the screwup by having to turn to Bielema after missing out on the A list.
Yes, Bielema had three straight Rose Bowl teams, but only one had an outright championship game title they backed into.
• In 2010, the Badgers finished in a three-way tie with Ohio State and Michigan State, but got to the Rose Bowl after beating the Buckeyes, but losing to the Spartans. They finished ranked behind Ohio State in the final polls.
• In 2011, Wisconsin finished tied with Penn State, but the Nittany Lions were in NCAA jail after the Jerry Sandusky firestorm. After losing in the Rose Bowl, the Badgers finished 10th in one poll, 11th in another.
• In 2012, the Badgers finished third in the Big 10 West with a 4-4 conference record, but both Ohio State and Penn State couldn’t go anywhere because of NCAA issues and they backed into the title game, where they destroyed Nebraska.
For context, to match what he accomplished at Wisconsin, the Hogs would have to repeat their 2015 season and have Alabama and Ole Miss both be on probation that year.
But the bottom line remains that Bielema hasn’t recruited particularly well in a style where speed trumps size every year these days.
Don’t look back five or six years and say it worked then, because college football has changed and what worked then doesn’t work today.
Recent history has shown it doesn’t take more than three years to know what you have in a coach with a new system.
Go look at Colorado last season for the most comparable example.
No, it appears that Bielema is stubbornly going to continue to do it his way, which is cause to examine some more recent history.
Les Miles kept trying to do it his way at LSU, which obviously wasn’t working.
Except Bielema doesn’t have any national titles to ride for an extra year or two.
Ramirez on Hogs working on ‘not beating ourselves’
Arkansas safety Santos Ramirez talking about the Hogs can’t beat themselves on defense like they have done against TCU and Texas A&M.
Hargreaves on busted assignments, LB tandem
Razorbacks linebackers coach Vernon Hargreaves talked about the tandem of Dre Greenlaw and Scoota Harris and broken plays.
Richardson over injuries, ready to see more action
Arkansas cornerback Kevin Richardson says he’s healthy now and good to go for game against New Mexico State this weekend.











