LET’S GOOOOOOO! pic.twitter.com/FqlfDV5Tpb
— Razorback Football (@RazorbackFB) August 30, 2017
The Razorbacks released their hype video Wednesday for the season opener against Florida A&M.
Arkansas releases Week 1 hype video for FAMU
Hogs won’t get much information on TCU this weekend
While Arkansas is probably not going to show a whole lot against Florida A&M on Thursday night, they won’t see much in their first serious opponent, either.
That’s because TCU opens at home against Jackson State, a SWAC school.
Talk about planned scheduling. You can bet Gary Patterson or Bret Bielema looked at the other’s schedule and got someone similar. Whichever opener was scheduled first, the other mirrored it.
All of this means scouting won’t reveal much.
And it reminds one of the time Arkansas played LSU in the 1947 Cotton Bowl (no, I wasn’t there) and former athletic director told how he was “scouting” the line play during the game for coach John Barnhill.
“He sent me down to the end zone to try and get an idea what our line was doing against their line,” Cole related years later. “You could do that in those days. Well, the whole first half was played within 40 yards of where I was sitting, so I didn’t get to see anything of how they would do normally.”
At halftime, tied 0-0, on a field that closely resembled an ice rink, Barnhill asked Cole what he found out.
“Well, I can tell you all about our goal-line defense,” he said.
That one turned out to be a 0-0 tie in conditions that were beyond miserable for the time.
The Hogs may not find out much more about TCU than that this week.
Based on results from the first week of games, Florida A&M might hang 50 on Jackson State.
While the Rattlers were winning their opener against Texas Southern, the Tigers were being throttled by Alcorn State, 35-16.
So much for limiting access to practices.
Both Arkansas and TCU will be holding a scrimmage on national television. If so inclined, you can catch the thrilling warmup for the Horned Frogs on Saturday night at 7 p.m. on Fox.
Hogs superfan picks score of opening game against FAMU
Canaan Sandy has made his pick for Arkansas’ opening game Thursday night against Florida A&M. Watch the video to see who he picks.
Whaley’s family among those displaced by floods
The recent flooding in south Texas has had an affect on a few of the Arkansas football players getting ready for Thursday’s opener against Florida A&M.
Including starting running back Devwah Whaley.
“He’s assured me everything is good and he’s ready to rock and roll,” Bielema told Matt Jones of WholeHogSports.com earlier today. “He’ll do everything he can to honor his family by the way he plays, I’m sure.”
Other players from cities affected by the flooding include:
• Defensive end Brandon DePrato, Cypress
• Defensive back Ryder Lucas, The Woodlands
• Running back Connor McPherson, The Woodlands
• Defensive end Jonathan Marshall, Shepherd
“Our kids, their concerns are always with their loved ones,” Bielema told WholeHogSports.com. “It’s just a lot of things to navigate through. We’re working with the university to see if there is anything we can – and as a head coach, anything I can do, we’re going to do that.”
Parking, traffic information for War Memorial Stadium
Lot Times
- Reserved Tailgating, Large Grill, and Fraternity Row will open at 7:00 a.m. and close at 1:30 p.m.
- Scholarship Lots 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 12 will open at 8:00 a.m.
- Scholarship Lots 2, 9, and 10 will be available after 1:00 p.m.
- Ray Winder Lot will be available after 1:00 p.m.
- Rick’s Armory Lot will be available after 5:00 p.m.
- General Parking (Golf Course) opens at 9:00 a.m.
- Corporate Tailgating opens at 8:00 a.m.
- Handicap Accessible Parking opens after 1 p.m.
General Admission Parking
General admission parking is located on the Golf Course and should be accessed from Markham and Taylor or from I-630 and Fair Park.
Reserved Parking
- If you are parking in Scholarship Lots 1, 2 & 5, you should enter through Markham and Monroe.
- If you are parking in Scholarship Lots 6 and 9, you should enter from Seventh Street, coming west from Cedar.
- If you are parking in Scholarship Lots 4, 7, and 10 you should enter from 12th and Jonesboro.
- If you are parking in Scholarship Lots 3 and 8, you should enter from I-630 and Fair Park.
- If you are parking in Scholarship Lot 12, you should enter from Markham and Taylor.
Traffic is diverted around the Stadium in the following manner
Streets are closed for one-way traffic as follows:
Pregame
- Taylor from Markham is one-way south;
- Markham and Fair Park is closed to south bound traffic, with exceptions to Media and Medical;
- Monroe from Markham is one-way south;
- Palm from Markham is one-way south;
- Seventh Street from Hooper is one-way west;
- Jonesboro (both sides) is converted to one-way north from Twelfth;
- Fair Park south side is closed north bound to only game traffic, all other is diverted to I-630 eastbound.
Postgame
All streets listed above are converted to outward flow only.
Hurts says Alabama has something to prove
Jalen Hurts breaks down why he has a chip on his shoulder and how attending the Manning Passing Academy helped him grow as a quarterback.
Tyler Wilson on opener, quarterback setting tone
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Morning Rush Bud Light Podcast: Wednesday edition
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Segment of the Day: Predictions for 2017 season
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3 in The Lane with Nick Mason: Wednesday edition
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Why Arkansas needs to run up score on Rattlers
For years, I never have been one who worries a whole lot about “running up the score” on people.
That’s for other folks.
In my opinion it’s not one coach’s fault if the other one can’t stop him from scoring. Sorry, that’s just the way it is.
And, in case you’re wondering, I also think “participation trophies” are absolutely, stunningly ridiculous.
Thursday night Arkansas is going to be in trouble if they aren’t up by 35 points at halftime.
Forget what some knee-jerking nice guys say about winning by 39. If they aren’t up by five touchdowns at halftime there’s an issue. Preferably, that would be 35-0, but I’m allowing for a wild-card big play by Florida A&M.
The Rattlers may not be the worst team to ever be on the Hogs’ schedule, but they are certainly in the discussion. Don’t throw The Citadel fiasco from 1992 out there … that team would beat this FAMU team by four touchdowns.
It’s not a lack of effort or coaching. They simply don’t have enough players of sufficient quality to stay on the field for a quarter with an average SEC team.
But Bret Bielema has a different need.
With a fan base that is starting to grow restless, the Hogs have to make a statement early and often as fast as possible.
Let’s face it, most fans won’t particularly care that it’s against a team that I’m not sure a few Arkansas high schools would fare okay against.
They just want wins. Big wins with big margins.
After finishing last year with two faceplants on national television, Bielema needs something to show fans there is hope for this team.
To be honest, I’m not sure there won’t be questions with a 35-0 win.
And there should be.
Coming into the fifth year of his tenure on the hill, Bielema is in a position where he has to win this year. Every coach I’ve ever known has said you lose about 10 percent of the fan base every year you don’t win double digits (unless you’re at Vanderbilt where a coach will probably get tenure if he breaks double digits in wins).
Following that logic, that means Bret has lost about half of the fan support he had in 2013. Based on what you hear on talk radio that sounds about right.
This is a fan base that is starved for success.
While the numbers are diminishing of those of us that remember the mid-60’s when the Hogs were among the top teams in the nation, there are still a good number that remember 1977, the late 1980’s, 2006, 2010, 2011.
They don’t understand why Arkansas can’t play at that level.
It’s reduced some fans to making excuses for losing.
At least Jeff Long can be blamed for part of that. As the athletics director, he kinda has to and while I think that’s part of the problem it’s understandable that he has to.
No, when Frank Broyles (who’s image will be on the helmets this season) stepped down in 2007, it appears the commandment to win did, too.
There was hope in 2010 and 2011 with 10 and 11 wins, respectively, but that went flying through the handlebars between Fayetteville and Elkins.
The pressure should have been for Long to find a winner.
In fairness, he may have thought he had and on the surface, at least, Bielema’s resume was as good as any coach hired at Arkansas. It was better than Holtz’ at that stage of his career, even Broyles.
But it doesn’t take five years to build a program. Sorry, but it doesn’t.
No big-time winning program needs that long to get back to the big time.
You know what you have after three years.
After Bielema’s third year, you had a losing record overall and in the conference and coming off a season where you went 5-3 in the SEC, but balanced that with losses to Toledo and Texas Tech.
It was a season that some called progress, despite those two hiccups.
And it might have been if there hadn’t been a 7-6 backwards nosedive to follow it.
Which is why Bielema needs to win big Thursday night.
A big-time tone requires a big-time win.
Something like 63-0 with backups accounting for at least half of that.
Anything less will be disappointing.
