Pound of Cure - From the Bench

A Pound of Cure for the Dismal and Abysmal

Robert Shields

Last week, I mentioned that an ounce of prevention could have saved Razorback basketball fans the pound of cure they are currently living. The firing of Nolan Richardson was handled about as poorly as it could have been done, and there is a lot of blame to spread around for that entire episode.

The moment Nolan headed out the door, the basketball program went into a tailspin that it is yet to get out of. Fans are about to finish up what has been a dismal and abysmal decade of Razorback basketball. It is hard to find a highlight in that entire time period – maybe the victory over a beleaguered Indiana team in the NCAA tournament. But that’s it unless you want to count the time the coach with the thin mustache showed up to do a half-hearted Hog call and then told Frank I don’t think so.

Since 1985 when he was hired, Nolan had only two losing seasons – the first as he was trying to coach a team with a litany of problems while an illustrious panel of experts in the media and stands proclaimed he was the worst coach in the history of basketball, and the last season in which he was fired.

In between? One national championship, another national championship game appearance, a total of three Final Fours, another Elite Eight, another two Sweet Sixteens, four 30-win seasons, 13 NCAA tournament appearances, and oh yeah, all the while revolutionizing the game in the SWC and SEC with the much-emulated 40 Minutes of Hell style of play. He fed the monster like no coach in any sport in Razorback history other than John McDonnell’s legendary run in track.

So we fired him. And in the haste to back out the car, the program ran over itself.

The basketball team has been so poor that the media people are hardly even writing about it. I dare say that if John Robert Starr were alive today, he’d be writing about another trip to Louisiana to see brother Joe and not even care about trying to get another coach fired.

I keep waiting for others to write something interesting about Razorback basketball, but it never comes. Jim Harris from Arkansas Sports 360, where are you on basketball (not that I blame you)? Even for me in the last few years, it has been better to mostly skip basketball and write about football during these winter months because no one, including all the virulent Nolan haters who couldn’t wait to run him out of town, cares about basketball or has any idea when the next game is.

What is most painful is that the SEC in basketball is dreadful. Even Nolan’s worst teams in the past would have dominated this conference at the level that it currently rests. Brandon Dean, Teddy Gipson, and Jannero Pargo would be the best backcourt in the West this season.

The problems run much deeper now than in 2002 when the fans, boosters, and administrators decided Nolan was no longer good enough for them. People don’t even care anymore. They have found other things to do and other things to spend their time and money on. A culture change has occurred over the last decade for fans in Razorback Nation, and it is not good. If you go to a wedding reception these days during basketball season, not only will there not be a TV with the game on somewhere, but the groomsmen won’t even know there is a game on.

The first thing that I would do is fire the coach. The right hire will make a difference. I think John Pelphrey is a good coach, but he provides no hope to the fans now that he has several seasons of baggage. They have lost faith in him. You hire a new coach if for no other reason than to provide what fans are left the illusion that there might be hope. You have to start somewhere. ASU does it all the time.

The difference is that the UA has something that ASU does not. It has tradition. Even though many fans of today thumb their nose at tradition, it matters. When you fall back on tradition, it’s like going home. The Hogs need to go home and regroup for a little while.

Where’s home? Home is Barnhill Arena. The team that won the national championship was recruited out of the Barn before Bud Walton existed. The Hogs were formidable in Barnhill even in shaky years. In Nolan’s second year, a bad team with “old man” Tim Scott beat a good Kansas team with Danny Manning. That’s not ever going to happen in Bud Walton again with these bad teams. Conversely, pick a team (my favorite was Coastal Carolina) that bused over and came into Bud Walton and stomped the Hogs. That ever happening in Barnhill? No chance.

A really bad Razorback team had to meet a really good ASU team in 1987. The Hogs fell down in the game by almost 20 points in the second half. The game was over, but the fans in the Barn would not allow it to happen. Cannon Whitby hit a three, another Razorback player jacked up an ASU star, the game went into overtime, and the Hogs won. Had they lost, odds are Frank Broyles would have fired Nolan and we would have been deprived of all those glorious years.

If ASU took this team into overtime at Bud Walton Arena, I’m not so sure of the outcome or what happens to the program in the wake.

When your foundation has been destroyed, you have to start building a new one somewhere. Bud Walton is nicer and bigger, but that is not always better for now. Duke still plays at smaller Cameron Indoor. You cannot generate enthusiasm in a two-thirds empty building for your program. I know that they have won all their home games this year, but that is really an anomaly, and does it really matter when your team is not so great and very few people care?

In 1993, Jim Robken filled a glass bowl in Barnhill after a win over LSU with what was supposed to be the spirit of Barnhill. When I look in that glass bowl that is now residing in Bud Walton, I see nothing but emptiness, just like the seats in the arena.


Send your Revolutionary comments to fromthebench@yahoo.com


P.S. Don’t send me notes that Arkansas had just beaten No. 19 Vanderbilt. One win does not erase a decade of bad basketball since the departure of Nolan.

Next Season is Tyler Wilson's Time to Shine - From the Bench

Next Season is Tyler Wilson’s Time to Shine

Robert Shields

Coaches will tell you that every year stands on its own merit, but what the Razorback football accomplished this season is only an indication of what the team is capable of next season. The question that looms heading into spring practice is who will be the starting quarterback.

I made a bold proclamation two years ago that Ryan Mallett would be the starter over Tyler Wilson. It was not genius on my part. The evidence was empirical. As a result of this easy prediction, I received a lot of hate mail from Wilson’s loyal supporters, including a close relative who took issue with what I said. As I stated back then, it was never meant as a dig – I was only stating the facts as to who would be the starter and it was quite obvious when you looked at the two of them side by side on the cover of Arkansas Sports 360 that summer.

I now make the bold proclamation again that Wilson will finally get his turn next season. Again, I expect hate mail from those who think someone else deserves it. Jacoby Walker has the potential to be a great one, but it’s not his time yet. He also needs time to heal from the injury coming out of last year’s Red-White game (sorry, UA athletic department, I have forgotten the sponsors that I am supposed to list as part of the title). Walker has some catching up to do, as did Wilson at the same stage in his career.

Wilson has come light years from two years ago. If you remember, he struggled even taking a snap from under center thanks to the offense he ran in high school and the habits picked up from the 7-on-7 touch football tournaments in the summer. I have a hard time remembering even a single time Mallett botched the exchange from center to quarterback. This season, that ailment seemed to leave Wilson when he entered the game.

Wilson also looked spectacular running the offense against Auburn. Sure, he threw two interceptions at the end of the game, but those came after the Hogs had fallen behind and were forced out of the offense and into throwing every down to catch up to the points being scored by the ineligible player.

Wilson led the Hogs in a victory over much-hated Ole Miss. He looked very sharp in that game, which was also the game that seemed to really begin the emergence of Knile Davis. Was it coincidental or causation based? I will let you debate on the Internet.

When Wilson was in the game, he seemed to always see the field even better than Mallett. Make no mistake, there are just some throws Wilson cannot make that Mallet could. On some of the throws in that category, his receivers might actually be glad. Mallett has an exceptional arm.

Sometimes when you have the big star quarterback, you can’t win it all. John Elway, Dan Marino, even the great Peyton Manning could not win it all. Sometimes at quarterback you need a leader who understands how to play the position to win, not necessarily a star with freakish ability to throw the long ball.

Tennessee won it all the year after Manning left with a guy who was that kind of player in Tee Martin. Nobody mistakes Greg McElroy at Alabama as a first-round draft pick in the NFL. But he is a winner. Sometimes, you just need the guy to get the snap and run the play correctly.

In his two games when he played when it mattered, Wilson showed that he could run the play. His decision making seems solid and there is no doubt of his understanding of the offense.

Coach Bobby Petrino recruited Wilson out of Greenwood in his first recruiting class. Next season Wilson will be a four-year junior with playing time. It’s his time.

I will leave you with a question that I have posed to several people when we talk about the Sugar Bowl. At the end of the game when the Hogs have recovered the blocked punt and are set up for the game-winning touchdown, does Wilson throw the interception?

***

After the drubbing of the Razorback basketball team by Florida, the traditionally fire-the-coach campaign is under way. I offer an ounce of prevention that could have saved the pound of cure. The ounce was simply handling the departure of Nolan Richardson better. In sending him packing, those responsible took a wrecking ball to the program’s foundation. It wasn’t as easy to lay a new one as they thought. Next week you get the pound of cure.


Send your answers to fromthebench@yahoo.com.

From the Bench - Petrino makes the Grade

Annual Report Card: Petrino Makes the Grade
Robert ShieldsAnytime the Razorbacks lose a bowl game, the faithful will have some trepidation and second guessing. Regardless, it was a great season for the Hogs. Time now to let the grades roll as I have done for the past decade so that Athletic Director Jeff Long will have additional information to use when he meets with Bobby Petrino for his annual review.
Player Development: A
(Last year: B)
Several players improved over last year including Ryan Mallet. Even though very slow unless chasing after co-eds, Mallet improved his mobility. Knile Davis and Cobi Hamilton also improved at their positions. The defense as a whole improved. Why is this not an “A+”? The defensive line never improved throughout the season and a dominating defensive lineman never emerged.

Fundamentals: A-
(Last year: B)
This grade would be higher if you could throw out the special teams. Just like in 2009, the special teams haunted this team all season in the return game. The Hogs’ kickoff returns were hampered severely when Dennis Johnson went down for the season. The kickoff coverage was almost non-existent at times, but there was significant improvement on punts, punt coverage, and especially in field goals. The offensive line continued to get motion penalties all season at what seemed to be at the worst time possible in killing drives. The more I type the lower I think this grade should be, so I’ll stop on this one now.

Play Calling: B+
(Last year: B+)
This would have been an “A” but for a few areas. Petrino seemed to usually dial up the right play, but not always. This is the most difficult subject to get an “A” in. What is the one thing all fans complain about? Play calling. Is it the coach’s fault when the quarterback throws an interception, or the players fault because of his bad judgment? Ultimately, it ends up in this category because if the coach made a different call the interception probably does not happen. Also, the coach is the one being paid millions. The Hogs’ three losses all came at the end of the game against great teams when the quarterback threw interceptions. In all those occasions, the defensive coordinators guessed right. The good defensive coordinators know Petrino, for better or worse, is a pass-first coach when the game is on the line. It’s the reason Ohio State gambled and dropped its defensive line on the last interception of the season. You can argue that Mallett should not have thrown the ball. If you don’t want him throwing it, though, don’t call the play.
Image: A
(Last year: B)
The team went to its first ever BCS bowl game and its first Sugar Bowl in 30 years and were on national television virtually every conference game thanks to the SEC television contract. Off-the-field incidents were trivial, keeping the negative publicity off the local news.
Success: A-
(Last year: C+)
As mentioned earlier, it is always a good year for the Hogs when they win their bowl game. Still, this cannot be an “A” unless you at least finish in the top 10 even if you were close to winning your bowl game. I have not asked Petrino, but I doubt he would give himself anything above an “A-” in this category.
Management of the Athletic Director: A
(Last year: A)
In the days of Frank Broyles, this was a very important category. I am not sure that it means that much anymore and may be discontinued in the future. Petrino seems to have a good relationship with Jeff Long. In fact, he doesn’t seem like he takes orders from anybody, fans included. Petrino orders things and they get done. When he says he wants to tear up the beautiful grass in favor of lame artificial turf, the athletic director runs out to the field and tears up the grass. When Petrino says he wants new facilities, the athletic director puts together a campaign to raise seat donations and squeeze more money out of fan wallets. That’s good management of your athletic director.
Hiring Assistant Coaches: B+
(Last year: C)
The hires last season seemed to work well with the team and brought newer and fresher ideas to the coaching staff. He sticks by his defensive coordinator even as fans call for his head and is rewarded with a much-improved defense that seemed to materialize out of nowhere.


Leadership: A
(Last year: B)
Disciplinary actions that had to be taken seemed few and uneventful this season. Mallett did not get busted for drinking on Dickson or sexting anybody like Bret Favre. Players supposedly went to class. All in all, the players seemed to represent the university and state well throughout the season, so there’s not much to dock Petrino on here.

Overall grade: A-
(Last year: B-)
This is actually a 92.5 rounded up to an A based on the Catholic High School for Boys scale of grading when a 93 is needed for an A. Some may want this grade higher. No doubt when you make a BCS bowl you have done your job. But what if he makes another one next year and wins it? There is still room for improvement. He could also be a little more enthusiastic at times other than when cursing the referees.

Send your grades to fromthebench@yahoo.com

end

Season Finale Haiku

Since Auburn won the National Champoinship, it will be the season finale of haiku:

Auburn fans gloating
Won't be happening next year
Only won by luck

Sugar not So Sweet - From the Bench

Sugar not so Sweet for Hogs

Robert Shields

Many Razorback fans had the time of their lives going to the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans right up until the very end. Even those watching on television got the treat. The Razorbacks were on the very cusp of delivering the greatest comeback in Razorback history -- a comeback that was improbable at halftime.

Yet the team and the fans did not accept that. The game ended unexpectedly and tragically on a Ryan Mallett interception. The loss was so bitter; it will not soon be forgotten. Much like the game against Texas, it will take decades to get this out of our system when almost all of us are gone that could remember it.

When the Hogs received the invitation to the Sugar Bowl, I wrote in this space that they could not have drawn a tougher opponent in the BCS bowls outside the championship game. Ohio State was ranked No. 1 earlier in the season for a reason. One bad night in Madison against Wisconsin kept them out of the championship game. The Hogs' losses oddly were against teams that at one point or another during the season were ranked No. 1. Make no mistake; the Hogs were never the best team in the nation. But what they did prove time and again in those losses was that they were close.

The Hogs had so many chances that the second guessing will go on for some time. The Hogs had four possessions on Ohio State’s side of the field in the fourth quarter and only managed three points -- the blocked punt that should have been scooped and scored, the interception that never should have been thrown following the blocked punt -- those are all things the Hog fans will lament forever.

In the fourth quarter, the sequence that stuck out the most to me was after Ohio State in sure desperation went for it on fourth down inside their own 40-yard line. In that instant, they put the game on the line and risked everything. They failed on the conversion and the Hogs were set up to take the lead with a little more than five minutes in the game.

The Hogs ran a sweep to Ronnie Wingo that went for eight yards, and the Hogs looked as if they would roll into the end zone for the win. Yet, it was negated by a holding penalty. Make no mistake, it was a holding penalty. Both teams held each other all night, so why the flag was thrown then is anybody’s guess, but the penalty gave the Hogs a first and 20 and it killed the drive forcing the Hogs to punt.

The 14-point swing at the beginning of the game made the comeback difficult. The Hogs should have been up 7-0 after Mallett threw a strike to Joe Adams that was dropped. The Hogs should have covered an Ohio State fumble, but instead it was recovered by the Buckeyes for a touchdown and all of a sudden they were up 7-0.

Also right before halftime, the Hogs could have had seven more points as another easy catch for a touchdown in the end zone was dropped. The Hogs had to settle for a field goal.
All of this will ache for some time in the heart of Hog fans. In the end, when it was all played, the obvious differences were the catches. You can put everything else aside. Ohio State made two spectacular catches for touchdowns. Both seemed improbable, yet their receivers made the play. Conversely, the Hogs dropped easy passes to receivers who were wide open that would have lead to numerous points. At the end of the night, the count was six dropped passes. They all hurt because the receiver were wide open and the ball was on target. It doesn’t get any easier. Neither will the memories of this game.

- Bowls in Retrospect

Funniest moment of the bowl season: At the Alabama versus Michigan State game, a fan holding a sign that read, “Cam… What’s in your wallet?” A clever play on words from the Visa commercial.

Mark this down, 2010 was the year the NCAA put behind the pretense that it exists for collegiate academics and their member institutions. You should even laugh the next time someone uses the term student athlete. They’re athletes who don’t get paid working for a multi-billion dollar corporation. You would have to believe such a system that exploits labor would create widespread corruption of the rules. This was the year the NCAA decided not to let the rules get in the way of making money.

Send your Sugar memories to fromthebench@yahoo.com


You can Read Daphne and Her No. 2 Ticonderoga at www.secretgirlsociety.com


The entire book is available on Kindle, nook, Createspace and Amazon.


End

I ain't calling Wally a liar ...

Reading Wally Hall is occasionally like dabbling in FanFic, that weird subset of writing on the Internet about people's favorite TV shows, just reimagined.

Generally speaking FanFic pieces have Kirk and Spock as boyfriends, or David Duchovny in real life or his "character" from Californication but set in X-Files land.

In a column from Jan. 7, Hall seems set on doing a little FanFic dabbling when he wrote of a chance encounter in New Orleans with a female Alabama fan, who was rooting for Arkansas to win the Sugar Bowl that night.

The start was a sweet moment, one almost impossible to verify, much like Clay Travis's twitter feed that said after the fight on Bourbon Street between an Arkansas fan and an Ohio State fan, a brawl the Arkansas fan won, people who had been watching, began chanting "SEC, SEC."

So is it entirely possible that sitting on a trolley, Hall met someone cheering for Arkansas?

Yes, absolutely.

Then Hall makes a turn into FanFic when he wrote that the same woman, that same Alabama fan, is a United States Attorney and federal prosecutor with working knowledge of a government investigation into the Auburn football program and a pay for play scheme generated by Cam Newton's father?

Umm, no.

For the last six months I've worked as a reporter covering a federal investigation. A very real and multiple state an operation that resulted in lots of plea bargains and convictions in federal court with more trials coming.

An assistant U.S. Attorney isn't authorized to speak to the press without the U.S. Attorney for that district present. And, as a matter of fact, an Assistant U.S. Attorney is much more like to turn and walk the other way when they see a reporter. Trust me, I've seen it happen. Oh Laura Hoey, all I wanted was to talk about Notre Dame football.

But not just that, telling a random stranger, who seems to have identified himself as a member of the press, that she works as a federal prosecutor and is working on an Auburn investigation. It just defies factual description.

FanFic.

pre bowl haiku

Its been a few weeks since I've done a haiku, with the hogs playing in the Sugar Bowl, I had to come up with a new one:
Big ten is winless
Go Hogs beat Ohio St.
Big ten, not all that.