What is that light at the end of tunnel that is coming?

In a fine and time-honored tradition, Arkansas football fans have always maintained a strict pecking order for blame when the fortunes don’t match expectations.

Whether Bret Bielema and Jeff Long are remotely aware of this, they are figuring it out. The assumption is they weren’t aware as neither appears to have much of a working knowledge of this fan base.

The Hogs Order of Blame:

1. The Coach … He’s always the first one that gets blamed. It has a long and rich history that dates back to Frank Broyles, who was under a lot of heat after subpar 1972-74 seasons.

He won the Cotton Bowl in 1975 after a threeway tie for the Southwest Conference championship (with Texas and Texas A&M) and when they appeared headed to another title in 1976, athletics director Broyles decided it was time to let the coach Broyles go.

By the time that decision became public when former Arkansas Gazette sports editor Orville Henry broke the story (and ruining what was shaping up to be a good night’s sleep for some newspaper people that had to be at work at 6 a.m.), that public was ready to revolt.

And that was Broyles, who put Arkansas football on the map. Fans were upset after a four-year winning percentage of 62 percent, helped by a 10-2 season following three years of winning at a 54 percent clip.

2. The Quarterback … Don’t bog the argument down with facts, please. It never has really mattered.

Which was why Bill Montgomery was rightfully a little offended in the 1970 opener against Stanford when Broyles put sophomore Joe Ferguson in the game to jump-start an offense that was backfiring.

When Ferguson got close to the goal-line, Broyles put Montgomery back in the game. The fans in Little Rock booed the decision.

Never mind that all Bill had done to that point had a 19-3 record over two seasons. The only losses were two to Texas’ best teams of all time and Ole Miss when they had Archie Manning’s best season ever.

It’s happened to just about every Hog quarterback at one time or another. Remember, we’re not talking fair here, just the facts.

3. The Athletic Director … People tend to forget Broyles was only athletic director for only three years while also the head football coach.

John Barnhill dealt with it for years. When the football team struggled (and it did with some hiring blunders … read about the Otis Douglas tenure … or Jack Mitchell), it came down on the athletic director.

When Broyles took over as athletic director, not just football coaches, but all sports knew the leash was short. Winning was the reason you played the games.

As Ken Hatfield said one time before he ever coached a game, he jokingly asked Broyles to tone down the expectations.

“Coach, if I only win four or five games, you won’t feel so good about me,” Hatfield said.

“And I’ll miss you,” was Broyles’ reply.

Long either doesn’t have the guts or care enough to adopt that position, apparently.

With Arkansas football sitting at 1-2 a quarter of the way through the current season with a coach that has a 26-28 overall record and now 10-23 in the SEC, you have to wonder if there is any pressure applied from above.

While both Long and Bielema tend to talk out of both sides of their mouth at times, the record is what it is.

The struggling part is, once again, following yet another loss to Texas A&M, we heard Bielema talk about how close yet another team is.

He didn’t say exactly say they were close, but he, well, got close.

“There’s nothing out there that is not correctable,” he said at one point.

He wrapped up the question-and-answer session with the media following the A&M loss with a “same song, different verse,” type of answer.

“So our breaks will come,” he said. “They’re going to come. I know it’s painful to live through and I know it’s hard as fans and loved ones and the kids involved, but it’s coming.”

Bielema at least get some new material. We’ve heard it before.

For going on five years now.

Some fans have come to the conclusion if it was coming it would already be here or maybe it has.

And that light at the end of the tunnel was an oncoming train.