Letters to Ramon: State of Hog football

Lonesome Traveler provides a glimpse of the decaying interest in Razorback football that should concern the Powers That Be on the Hill...

As I was standing there this morning listening to Ed bemoan a team that once meant everything to him, I glanced over at you and wondered if you were thinking the same thing I was. About that time Ed said he had laughed with glee when Arkansas' quarterback threw an interception on the way to its trouncing last Saturday.

Here were two guys standing before you, whose hearts and souls had bled and wept for the so-called program. One had snuck in as a boy and hid under the stands with other like interlopers to watch his beloved Lance Alworth dance to touchdowns. The other in the past had reminded me of a Rick Schaffer clone. Never wavering in his support and allegiance no matter how idiotic his homer's argument was.

Yet on this morning, here were the same two. One who already has the LSU game tickets in the Rock for sale, and who made it only through eight minutes of the second quarter of the recent Little Rock game. The other, who laughed at the team in red's mistakes and pulled against them, only to get upset later when Ole Miss got beat in the last minute by a stripped fumble at the goal line.

I wondered if you were thinking how improbable and unprecedented the conversation would have been not so very long ago. I wondered if you were thinking, "If these two guys think this way, it must be bad!"

Improbable I suppose yet it seems there are a lot of conversations like that now, and funny too.... I hear more and more that start by, "How 'bout those ASU Indians!", or "How 'bout those UCA Bears!" At least in Central Arkansas I do.


And D Romeo chimes in about his experience at the game against Alabama last Saturday...

Left the BAMA game at halftime... mad that I stayed past the first quarter. On my way out of the stadium, you would have thought the game had ended (it was already over) with all the folks exiting the stadium. There was a fan carrying a sign that read, "Long live Houston!" The defense should not be this bad...........