From the Bench

Grades Are Mixed on Midterm Report Card for Razorback Football

Robert Shields

Your Arkansas Razorbacks have reached the halfway point in the season, and if the current trajectory holds with them being 5-1, the ending regular-season record will be 10-2. That mark will match last season’s numbers with Ryan Mallett. So what’s the midterm report look like? Like Run-DMC said, here we go...

Tyler Wilson (A)
I would give him an A+ but the interception return by Alabama was the turning point in that game. I don’t know if he was directly responsible for it, but it still goes on his stats. He is as durable as any quarterback that I have ever seen at Arkansas. Mallett could not have taken the beating Wilson has through the first six games, and as a matter of fact he didn’t leaving the Auburn game with a concussion. The stat that still sticks with me is all those record-setting passing yards against Texas A&M under duress -- and with no interceptions. The kid is a good decision maker and has also yet to make a stupid decision on Dickson Street. That’s a credit to good parenting. I hope his dad is reading this column.

Defense (B+)
The defense at times has been a little soft. Yet, it has come up with critical stops at key junctures during games. It’s also a beleaguered defense with injuries that have mounted. This has led to a few true freshmen playing, which usually spells doom for a team. Yet the freshmen have played very well at times. The mustachioed one, defensive coordinator Willy Robinson, is again thumbing his nose at the administrative suggestion for no facial hair, which I take as a great sign for the defense’s skill level.

Offensive Line (D)
I could almost go with an F, but Tyler Wilson is still alive. Early in the season, teams were living in the Arkansas backfield. I believe a couple of Alabama players actually had time to order a pizza. This has improved some as the games played out, but the running game has yet to get started and the backs are finding very little room. My advice to any of the running backs is to follow Kiero Small when he is in the game if you can ride on his back.

Running Backs (D)
I don’t include Joe Adams as a running back. See above.

Receivers (B)
At times, the receiving corps has looked slower than last year, but maybe I’m just remembering the Alabama linebackers running down the Hogs receivers like they were hyenas. The catching has been good, but they still have some key drops. Those have to stop if the team wants to finish 11-1. A dropped pass almost always sends a possession into a punt. All considered, though, the receivers have come up with some big plays in the first half of the season.

Special Teams (C-)
Alabama’s punt return for a touchdown and the fake field goal make this a bad grade just based on that game alone. Zach Hocker has also missed a field goal or two. Not good. This grade will have to improve for the Hogs to go 11-1 and not make themselves vulnerable to upsets on the road.

Coach (?)
I will give this grade at the end of the year. I am still scratching my head about the time the Razorbacks cut the Alabama lead to 17 and were on a drive to possibly cut it to 10, and on fourth and short the Hogs went to a power run formation when they had not had any success running all day. Surprise, the run failed. I still wonder if Petrino actually thought he was going to overpower them at the point of attack or if this was a play call one of the rich boosters won in yet another money-collecting scheme from the UA.

Arkansas will have to see some improvement in the second half of the season. There is no Missouri State, Troy, or New Mexico State on the schedule in the last half. It’s all SEC and we all know those games are never easy.

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NCAA Also ‘All in’

Regardless of how you feel about the latest NCAA exoneration of Auburn for any wrongdoing, Auburn still won a national championship and that won’t change. I think outside of Auburn, though, most people still aren’t buying it no matter what the NCAA now declares.

A little history is needed in these last words on the subject. Auburn had a ringer of a player last year in Cam Newton, who only played for one season. The press hounded him with stories of academic fraud at Florida and a stolen laptop being thrown out of a window. These stories painted him as anything but an angel.

Then the news broke of his dad shopping him to Mississippi State for money. Lots of money, according to reports. Based on the facts reported, the idea that Newton ended up at Auburn for free is something that most people outside of the Auburn family just don’t find plausible.

When the news finally was confirmed that his dad was indeed shopping him, he was ruled ineligible -- and then reinstated one day later by the NCAA based on no proof that Cam knew about it (You can see the enormous loop hole the NCAA created.)

At that point, the NCAA was all in, too. It could be no other way.

The NCAA reinstated him before his SEC and national championship games. The chance of Auburn winning without him was none. At that point, the NCAA was culpable in any Auburn win and created the perception to fans that they wanted to maintain the high ratings. This is paired with their ruling for Ohio State players being allowed to play in the Sugar Bowl even though they were also guilty of rules violations. The NCAA right now has an image problem and is being found less credible with each new finding.

The NCAA finding anything other than what it announced last week would have been shocking based on its recent pattern. The NCAA’s reinstatement of Newton was ex-ante. Even though Auburn is now cleared, the masses seem to balk.

Auburn is college football’s OJ Simpson. Yeah, they were found innocent, but nobody believes it.

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RSVP RIP?

Not everyone answered the call. In big SEC games at home, the program is still trying to hawk tickets for games that are not sold out. It is amazing to me that the UA has to put ads in the paper and send out a multitude of emails pushing tickets sales for premier SEC opponents such as South Carolina and Tennessee in a year when the Razorbacks are in the top 10.

So answer the call -- and make a bid on that signed football by Ryan Mallett while you’re at it. The last bid I saw was $650. And if you’re really into bidding, I will entertain offers on signatures that I have of Frank Broyles, Nolan Richardson, Ron Calcagni, Kevin Scanlon, Joe Johnson, Marvin Delph, Sidney Moncrief, and Ron Brewer. I might even have a Roland Sales.

The starting bid for any of the signature items I have is $650. Included will be the history of how I got their autograph, which is what I’m wondering about regarding all these auction balls from the UA. What’s the autograph history for these balls? Did the UA get the players to sign while in school with the plan to sell the item down the road? I have been against paying players, but maybe they should get paid for their autographs. But, you can also see the enormous loop hole in that idea also.


Send your bids to fromthebench@yahoo.com

You can follow me on Twitter @rsfromthebench

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