FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — About the only way Arkansas’ namthe e will even be mentioned is in passing. Or when Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin takes to the podium Monday afternoon on the first day at the SEC Media Daze in Dallas.
The Razorbacks won’t arrive until Thursday, the final day of the event that annually draws scores of media types. Their primary function is to interview each other these days. Most of the questions are boringly predictable with “what do you think” topping the list.
There probably will be a bang Monday, but it will be from Kiffin. The Hogs might get mentioned when he’s inevitably be asked about his father, Monte, passing away last week. He, of course, was the defensive coordinator on the Razorbacks’ best team in history that came within a fluke pass (of all things) to Earl Campbell in 1977.
That loss may have kept them from their only national championship in football, but Kiffin will be dealing with a more serious question Monday. Colorado State coach Jay Norvell implied the Rebels were tampering with a wide receiver from the Rams. Since that’s the only thing left for anyone to complain about in this era of NIL, it’s like red meat thrown to a pack of dogs at an event this big.
For Arkansas, don’t expect them to be picked anywhere near even discussion much beyond winning enough games to qualify for one of those bowl games like Memphis. That hasn’t always been as horrible as predictions. I’m not going through every instance, but it’s a pattern old enough that John Barnhill said one time back in 1960’s that Arkansas wins the most in times of austerity, not prosperity. That simply means the Hogs don’t have a track record of maintaining success.
This is another one of those seasons. Right now, the Razorbacks have a lot of hope and everyone expecting them to repeat that success of winning the most when the least is expected is basing a lot of that on offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino. Many expect him to be the head coach by December, but there’s no evidence he would even be interested in the job if it suddenly became open.
No one seems to recall even he can’t coach the way he did over a decade ago in any way. Recruiting is different and the players can leave now when they get tired of how they perceive being treated by the coach. While it worked to some extent at the FCS level, nobody knows how he can handle a program in this day and age. He’s never had to coach with these rules.
Tampering with another team’s players was extremely rare when he was a head coach at the big boy level. Now it may be a dominant theme at the first day of media days, but none of thata will involve the Razorbacks.
Another thing Sam Pittman will probably breathe a deep sigh of relief over.
