Reality may not be close to perception for Razorbacks

In college football, it’s not unusual for perception and reality to seldom collide over the course of a season.

This has been interesting during the summer listening to the speculation about Arkansas what’s expected. Most of it simply isn’t digging very deep.

What kind of offense the Hogs were

Bret Bielema made no secret of his desire to ground-and-pound offensively. He even went with the team in black shoes because it looked more “down in the dirt” than the white shoes where the Razorbacks started 1-2 in 2015 and the black shoes suddenly came back.

That was the perception he tried to establish.

Reality was startling different when you look at the numbers. The numbers show that when Jim Chaney was shouldered out the door so was the running game.

In 2013, the Hogs had 58 percent of their offense on the ground, 54 percent in 2014.

When Dan Enos took over the offense, the rushing game dropped to 42 percent in 2015, then 38 percent and 45 percent.

Yet the perception continued this was a team being built to run the ball, control the clock and impose the Hogs’ will on the other team.

Reality was they were running spread formation plays out of a pro-style set. At times they looked good. Most of the time, though, nothing seemed to look right and it all fell apart towards the end of last season.

Players for Bielema’s offense can’t adapt to new one

This is the biggest mistake people are making.

Bielema recruited fairly decent players for the most part. But they didn’t play HIS style in high school. They played Chad Morris’ style.

It almost appeared Bielema’s style was to get these spread players on campus, bulk ’em up and then be mystified when they couldn’t do what they were wanting to do.

Compound that with players were were quick and faster before getting to Fayetteville now were about a step slower and linemen were a half-step behind making the key block in pass protection.

That’s why Morris’ first move was to get the extra weight off and it’s had an effect. Brian Wallace said in the spring he was now starting to move like he did when he was in high school getting the excess weight off.

Wallace is a great example. He was a four-star offensive tackle in high school, the top-rated offensive tackle in Missouri playing at 305 pounds (he’s 6-6, by the way). The Hogs bulked him up to 340 pounds and then wondered why he couldn’t play like he did before.

Wallace told us in the spring he’s at his best around 315 pounds. It made a difference in the way they looked in basic drills compared to last year.

The perception that Morris has to turn over the roster to fit his style isn’t close to the reality the roster was full of guys that played his style until coming to Arkansas.

For most of the players, especially on offense, is the spring was a refresher course and that’s what we’re hearing about the summer workouts and things are moving much faster.

Add a couple of quarterbacks who spent their high school years basically playing Morris’ identical offense and, well, what we see in August is likely going to be light years ahead of what we saw in March.

Arkansas’ schedule is built for success

Thank you, Michigan, for cancelling the home-and-home series. None of the Razorbacks’ non-conference opponents should be favored when they play.

Certainly not Colorado State, who has one of the most inexperienced teams in college football this year.

The Hogs should start the year 3-0. It’ll get a little dicey from there.

A road trip to Auburn may not be as bad as it seems. They open in Atlanta against Washington, then played Alabama State and LSU the week before Arkansas hits town. Gus Malzahn is going to have to do a heckuva job keeping the Tigers up for two of those big games, then the Hogs.

After Auburn comes Texas A&M and new coach Jimbo Fisher. It’s the Aggies.

Arkansas has shown they can play with A&M with three of the last five games going to overtime before the Hogs collapsed.

After a home date with Alabama the next week, the Hogs will play three straight games against teams they should beat in Ole Miss, Tulsa and Vanderbilt.

Then they get a week off before the LSU game while the Tigers play Alabama. The next week they get Mississippi State a week after they play Alabama. Either way those games turn out, a letdown can be expected.

History tells us teams do not play that well after being rolled by the Crimson Tide. Right now I’m not willing to put either of those games in the L column.

Then Arkansas finishes against Missouri where new offensive coordinator Derek Dooley is replacing one of the highest-flying offenses in the league with a pro-style passing game.

We’ll know how well that’s working before that game comes up, but teams going from a wide open spread to a pro-style usually don’t put up points like they did before and it’s almost always a struggle.

I put that game in the W column, along with four nonconference games, Ole Miss and Vandy. There’s seven wins.

Auburn, Texas A&M, LSU and Mississippi State are wildcards right now, in my opinion.

Reality will be how the Hogs do in those four games.

The perception about this team is it’s going to struggle to be bowl eligible, which means winning six games.

The reality is some breaks could put this team at nine or 10 wins on the season.

And, in case you’re wondering, that’s still not the level Morris keeps talking about when he says this team is a long way from reaching.

He’s talking higher than that.