Bret Bielema will be in front of the media Wednesday morning for the first time since a brief post-mortem following Arkansas’ loss to TCU last Saturday.
How he handles it will be the next news cycle.
But the guess here is he will avoid the mess Jeff Long created by dumping it all in the laps of the Board of Trustees.
When Long said “we are not a win-at-all-cost program,” it blew up on social media the websites.
HitThatLine.com had over 10,000 views of that single story in less than a day. Considering we just launched the site about 3 weeks ago, that’s pretty rapid growth considering there hasn’t been a lot of advertising bought.
Bielema could jump in with both feet, however. Let’s face it, that would not be totally out of character for him.
The only way he could win the fan base back before going to Arlington is say the not having an emphasis on winning hurts the football program. It has a trickle-down effect and does affect recruiting.
If you’re a top recruit you really interested in going somewhere that doesn’t consider winning that big of a deal? You can get that at several other places.
As I said, though, I doubt he will want to venture into those waters. He might come out and say he agrees with that philosophy, but that is either what he feels he has to say to keep his job or he truly agrees with it.
If it is the latter, the volume of discontent in the fan base will rise.
But it is the only way he can truly have a believable excuse for the mess this football program has become.
While some would content it’s not a mess, there is the argument to the contrary.
All offseason, Bielema kept repeating this was his fifth year and he knows that’s when the full responsibility of the program falls to him.
We were told since the start of fall camp how the offensive line was making improvement and the young wide receivers were going to be in great shape.
I didn’t believe it then after seeing a couple of scrimmages. Derek Ruscin and I began wondering if we were the only two people that saw an offensive line that was, at best, not an improvement over last year and often appeared to take a step back.
And I knew the receivers had a problem when they kept lining up offsides with officials telling them to get back. Then offsetting big catches with equally impressive drops.
Florida A&M, an FCS school that plays in a very weak league, pressured quarterback Austin Allen on numerous occasions. The Razorbacks had a big win because, well, their second and third teams are better than the Rattlers.
In the spin control after the TCU game, several in the media have projected the Horned Frogs as title contenders in the Big 12 along with Oklahoma.
No, they’re not. TCU will likely finish no higher than third in that league.
After wins and losses, coaches talk about how good the previous opponent was and how great the next one is.
Bielema won’t have the luxury of that second one at Wednesday’s press conference.
With an open date before the Texas A&M game, this one will be all about TCU and the status of this football team now.
Here’s a primer on what we’ll hear:
• The coaching staff has to self-assess everything they are doing.
• They will have asked if they are trying to get players to do things they can’t do. That’s coach-speak for we seriously over-estimated their talent.
• The players have had at least one meeting to address concerns about their play.
• They are working hard to be the most improved team in the country before playing the Aggies. One of the truisms in football is the most improvement a team makes is between the first and second games so this should be interesting.
• They are holding open tryouts at kicker. Bielema said after the TCU game you expect to get in a game what you see in practice, so there’s another trend that will have to be broken. At this point they’re going on by-guess and by-golly.
To summarize, the guess here is we’re going to get a great deal of coach-speak.
And, honestly, that’s probably the only thing he can do at this point.
