From the Bench Quiz Time!
Robert T. Shields
Who likes trivia? I know I do. Test your sports knowledge with this From the Bench quiz.
The most important accomplishment for this year’s Razorback football team was?
A) Getting Troy on the schedule
B) Driving a car without getting arrested
C) Making cards big enough to cover Petrino’s entire mouth on the sideline
D) Winning 10 games two years in a row for the first time since 1988-89
From the Bench’s most covered topic this season was?
A) Books by me
B) My trip to the Flora-Bama Lounge
C) The sociological impact of Sponge Bob
D) Who is Robert Shields?
From the Bench is afraid of?
A) Gimmick infringement
B) Someone besides an SEC team winning the national title if such a thing exists
C) Drunk Auburn fans
D) The other Robert Shields who is the mime
Kansas State used to drive Eddie Sutton’s basketball team crazy with what defense?
A) 2-3 zone
B) 2-1-2 zone
C) 1-3-1 zone
D) Keep fouling Darrell Walker until he loses it
Where do I keep my certificate for being the UA’s “Outstanding Student in Economics”?
A) Under my desk
B) On my wall
C) I didn’t really win the award
D) In a box in my garage next to the lawn mower
What player did not play for Kansas State’s basketball team?
A) Mitch Richmond
B) Rolando Blackmon
C) Michael Beasley
D) Robert Shields
Kansas State went undefeated through its regular season in 1998. Its marquee matchup against what team upstaged the undefeated matchup between Arkansas and Tennessee that same year?
A) Nebraska
B) Oklahoma
C) Texas
D) Kansas in basketball
Kansas State went to the Big 12 Championship in 1998 but lost to what team?
A) Texas A&M
B) Nebraska
C) Oklahoma
D) The team of bowl executives who did not want them in the BCS
Who was the MVP of the 2000 Cotton Bowl?
A) Roy Kramer
B) Gus Malzahn
C) Cedric Cobbs
D) Nobody is a valuable player at 10 a.m.
Merry Christmas from fromthbench@yahoo.com
Robert Shields is the bestselling author of “Scarlet Fever: A Razorback House Divided” and “The Economics of Sex” and has written the weekly “From the Bench” sports column for the last 14 years. His newest novel, “Daphne and The Mysterious Girls Secret Bathroom Society” is part one in the series. The book is available on Kindle, the Barnes and Noble nook, and Lulu for $4.99.
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Thursday, December 22, 2011
Monday, December 19, 2011
From the Bench
Razorback Defense Set the Tone in Best Moments of the Year
Robert Shields
For the Razorback football team and its fans, it was a fantastic year -- the Hogs went 10-2 with both losses coming to the team ranked No. 1 at the time.
You would think the most important moment of the season might have come in one of those games against Alabama and LSU, but my nomination for the biggest moment was when Vanderbilt missed its field goal to tie the game and instead lost 31-28. In overtime, Arkansas probably wins, but we don’t know. If the Razorbacks had lost that game, suddenly we are talking about a season that would have been extremely disappointing. The win was a reminder of just how difficult it can be to win on the road in the SEC.
The runner-up for most important moment was at Oxford against Ole Miss when Tramain Thomas intercepted a pass to end the game. Arkansas struggled all day against the Rebels and had to come back from being down double digits. Houston Nutt pulled out all the stops, and in the end his team almost came up with a miracle comeback after a successful onside kick. Ole Miss was driving for the game-winning touchdown when Thomas came up with the game-saving and season-saving interception that again proved life on the road in the SEC is tough. There is no telling where the Hogs go if they had actually lost this game.
Honorable mention for most important moment was in Dallas against Texas A&M after the Razorbacks fell down by 18 points at 35-17. Arkansas stormed back in the second half to take the lead. A&M leveled one last challenge as it began its game-winning drive, which stalled and came down to a fourth and short. The Razorback defense stopped the run on the fourth down and took possession and the game to win 42-38, which probably set the tone to ruin the remainder of the Aggies’ season.
One other moment deserves mentioning, but it will be lost in history because the Razorbacks lost the game badly. The Arkansas defense made one of the most impressive goal-line stands in the school’s history against Alabama at Tuscaloosa when it held for four downs at the goal line to deny a Tide touchdown. This was all the more impressive considering the Hogs were without their two starting defensive tackles and Alabama had the best running back in the country in Trent Richardson.
Odd how all these very significant plays were on the defensive side that really built the great season, yet the defensive coordinator was let go.
The offense also had its moments. The offensive explosion against Mississippi State was impressive with Tyler Wilson completing a school-record 32 passes. Chris Gragg was used extensively in this beat down. The offense amassed a whopping 539 yards. The offense also exploded on Texas A&M, and it was Wilson’s best game of the season as he threw for an incredible school record of 510 yards. Most of it was to Jarius Wright, who had 13 catches for an astonishing 281 yards. The Hogs scored in the A&M game with 1:41 to play, which was by far one of the most exciting games of the season. It was also the welcome game for the Aggies to the SEC.
The offensive play of the year to me was actually on special teams. It was Dennis Johnson’s 98-yard kickoff return against South Carolina. The return kept the Hogs close early in the game and made a big difference in giving the Razorbacks confidence to win what was a huge game in the first victory in a top 10 matchup in Fayetteville since 1965.
The unforgettable special team play of the year was the Joe Adams punt return against Tennessee. In the end, the punt return was meaningless as the Hogs pounded a helpless Volunteer team. The return, though, was spectacular as Adams ducked and dived through the entire Tennessee roster and essentially ran circles around them. The punt return was so spectacular it was replayed numerous times later on ESPN and ended up being the play of the week.
But not all that happened this past season was grand, so I end with three bad things.
The first was after holding Alabama on four downs at the goal line, the offense had a significant interception. Wilson’s pass was deflected and then snatched out of the air by the same defender and returned for a touchdown to make the game 17-7.
The second occurred with the Hogs winning 14-7 at LSU. After dropping a pass that would have been a first down to keep the drive alive, Arkansas instead had to punt. Tyrann Mathieu fielded the ball around his own three yard line and went the distance. The Hogs were never the same after that play.
Last was the heartbreaking news of the Razorback family losing Garrett Uekman on the Sunday after the Mississippi State game. As a graduate of Catholic High School, it really hit me. I had seen him play several times in high school. Catholic High has an alumni dinner each year, and at the dinner they read the names of the alumni who have died in the previous year in graduating class order. Unfortunately, I’m not getting any younger and this past year three names of my classmates were read. Garret Uekman’s name will be read this coming October. Hopefully, and surely, his will be the last read.
Send your favorite memories of the season to fromthebench@yahoo.com.
Robert Shields is the bestselling author of “Scarlet Fever: A Razorback House Divided” and “The Economics of Sex” and has written the weekly “From the Bench” sports column for the last 14 years. His upcoming novel, “Daphne and The Mysterious Girls Secret Bathroom Society” will be part one in the series that will be released in January.
You can follow me on Twitter @rsfromthebench
Robert Shields
For the Razorback football team and its fans, it was a fantastic year -- the Hogs went 10-2 with both losses coming to the team ranked No. 1 at the time.
You would think the most important moment of the season might have come in one of those games against Alabama and LSU, but my nomination for the biggest moment was when Vanderbilt missed its field goal to tie the game and instead lost 31-28. In overtime, Arkansas probably wins, but we don’t know. If the Razorbacks had lost that game, suddenly we are talking about a season that would have been extremely disappointing. The win was a reminder of just how difficult it can be to win on the road in the SEC.
The runner-up for most important moment was at Oxford against Ole Miss when Tramain Thomas intercepted a pass to end the game. Arkansas struggled all day against the Rebels and had to come back from being down double digits. Houston Nutt pulled out all the stops, and in the end his team almost came up with a miracle comeback after a successful onside kick. Ole Miss was driving for the game-winning touchdown when Thomas came up with the game-saving and season-saving interception that again proved life on the road in the SEC is tough. There is no telling where the Hogs go if they had actually lost this game.
Honorable mention for most important moment was in Dallas against Texas A&M after the Razorbacks fell down by 18 points at 35-17. Arkansas stormed back in the second half to take the lead. A&M leveled one last challenge as it began its game-winning drive, which stalled and came down to a fourth and short. The Razorback defense stopped the run on the fourth down and took possession and the game to win 42-38, which probably set the tone to ruin the remainder of the Aggies’ season.
One other moment deserves mentioning, but it will be lost in history because the Razorbacks lost the game badly. The Arkansas defense made one of the most impressive goal-line stands in the school’s history against Alabama at Tuscaloosa when it held for four downs at the goal line to deny a Tide touchdown. This was all the more impressive considering the Hogs were without their two starting defensive tackles and Alabama had the best running back in the country in Trent Richardson.
Odd how all these very significant plays were on the defensive side that really built the great season, yet the defensive coordinator was let go.
The offense also had its moments. The offensive explosion against Mississippi State was impressive with Tyler Wilson completing a school-record 32 passes. Chris Gragg was used extensively in this beat down. The offense amassed a whopping 539 yards. The offense also exploded on Texas A&M, and it was Wilson’s best game of the season as he threw for an incredible school record of 510 yards. Most of it was to Jarius Wright, who had 13 catches for an astonishing 281 yards. The Hogs scored in the A&M game with 1:41 to play, which was by far one of the most exciting games of the season. It was also the welcome game for the Aggies to the SEC.
The offensive play of the year to me was actually on special teams. It was Dennis Johnson’s 98-yard kickoff return against South Carolina. The return kept the Hogs close early in the game and made a big difference in giving the Razorbacks confidence to win what was a huge game in the first victory in a top 10 matchup in Fayetteville since 1965.
The unforgettable special team play of the year was the Joe Adams punt return against Tennessee. In the end, the punt return was meaningless as the Hogs pounded a helpless Volunteer team. The return, though, was spectacular as Adams ducked and dived through the entire Tennessee roster and essentially ran circles around them. The punt return was so spectacular it was replayed numerous times later on ESPN and ended up being the play of the week.
But not all that happened this past season was grand, so I end with three bad things.
The first was after holding Alabama on four downs at the goal line, the offense had a significant interception. Wilson’s pass was deflected and then snatched out of the air by the same defender and returned for a touchdown to make the game 17-7.
The second occurred with the Hogs winning 14-7 at LSU. After dropping a pass that would have been a first down to keep the drive alive, Arkansas instead had to punt. Tyrann Mathieu fielded the ball around his own three yard line and went the distance. The Hogs were never the same after that play.
Last was the heartbreaking news of the Razorback family losing Garrett Uekman on the Sunday after the Mississippi State game. As a graduate of Catholic High School, it really hit me. I had seen him play several times in high school. Catholic High has an alumni dinner each year, and at the dinner they read the names of the alumni who have died in the previous year in graduating class order. Unfortunately, I’m not getting any younger and this past year three names of my classmates were read. Garret Uekman’s name will be read this coming October. Hopefully, and surely, his will be the last read.
Send your favorite memories of the season to fromthebench@yahoo.com.
Robert Shields is the bestselling author of “Scarlet Fever: A Razorback House Divided” and “The Economics of Sex” and has written the weekly “From the Bench” sports column for the last 14 years. His upcoming novel, “Daphne and The Mysterious Girls Secret Bathroom Society” will be part one in the series that will be released in January.
You can follow me on Twitter @rsfromthebench
Monday, December 12, 2011
From the Bench
Coaching ‘Carousel’ Taking on Whole New Meaning in BCS Era
Robert Shields
In the futuristic ‘70s movie “Logan’s Run,” people were allowed to live only to 30 years of age before they were terminated. When an individual’s time was up, they were sent to the “Carousel,” which systematically killed people and was also a form of entertainment for those who went as spectators.
In college football, we get to experience the Carousel in a different way. Let’s call it “Coach’s Run.” Coaches get fired or leave their schools this time every season at an ever-increasing rate. After a great season of winning 10 games, even Arkansas was lighter by three coaches who have all since been replaced.
Arkansas’ offensive coordinator left to become head coach at another school but was rapidly replaced by Brother Paul Petrino, who was also looking for a job because Illinois had fired its head coach. The reality these days in major college football is that if you’re not going to a BCS game or at least getting very close, then fans think the head coach should be sent to the Carousel.
A new head coach is not really given any time to turn things around at the program he inherits. To the fans, it has to be immediate. I wrote back at the end of the summer about my interactions with fans at the beach as I do every year. I won’t forget the conversation with the Florida fan who was already down on Will Muschamp even though the guy had not coached in a single game. I said then that if the sentiment was prevalent in Gator nation that Muschamp had very little time.
Make no mistake that after only winning six games this season he is already on the hot seat next year. Eight wins may not be enough to save his job. Let’s face it, Derek Dooley at Tennessee is also a short-timer if things do not improve next season.
Even the Georgia nation wanted to fire Mark Richt at the beginning of the season. Kudos to those fans who stuck by his side. He righted the ship and took the Bulldogs to the SEC championship game winning the SEC East. Not bad for a coach who just a few weeks before needed to be fired. Ironically, he is still on the hot seat among some Georgia fans.
The absolute pandemonium with coaching jobs and their stability is due to unrealistic expectations from fans and boosters. To a great extent, I blame this on the BCS.
I think the pressure on football coaches would be slightly reduced with a playoff format and proper conference realignment. It would bring some semblance of sanity to the sport.
The craziness engulfing college coaches makes me draw from a scene from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” The locals put a woman on trial for being a witch, and they go through a long thought process of how to determine if she is a witch. They come to the conclusion that witches float as do ducks. So they put her on a rigged scale with the duck on the other side. The result is what is demanded and therefore she is a witch.
I feel the same way regarding how some coaches are put on trial. It’s almost the same bizarre process. If you don’t like a coach and want him to be fired, you will find something to justify your case.
The firing of coaches has become so systemic in the game that little thought is given to the fact that you have a bowl game being played this year with neither team having their head coach because they were both fired. This also tells you all you need to know about the meaningless importance of bowl games.
I want to reiterate my bowl rules that should be adopted by the NCAA:
1) If you fire your head coach, your school can’t go to a bowl game.
2) If Hawaii goes to a bowl game, it must leave the island.
3) If you have to play Rice in a bowl game, you must forfeit.
It is hard to believe the number of coaching vacancies this year, and as one school fires a coach to date the new hot girl in the school, it creates a domino effect. Ole Miss, Penn State, Ohio State, Texas A&M, UCLA, Illinois, Arizona, Arizona State, and Kansas all come to mind. By hiring Houston’s hot name on the coaching board, Texas A&M made that domino fall so Houston now has to hire a new coach.
All this creates weird scenarios where these teams have to go to their bowl games without their head coach. Slap anyone who says the bowl games are about the players because that ship left a long time ago. A coach should stay with his team through a bowl game if the game was really about the players. The game right now is about the insatiable desire of college administrators to get a big check and the fans to win the big one. It drives everything.
I think with a playoff, coaches stick around until the playoff is done. It adds stability and a cooling-off period. You don’t see coaches in college basketball leaving while their team is playing in the NCAA tournament.
I say keep the 12-game seasons, get rid of the stupid conference championship games, and go to a 16-team playoff. Some teams already now play a 14-game season, and only two teams will have to play 16 games. The regular season has to stay at 12 because of the revenue generated by those games.
I’m also a realist and know the conference championship games are going nowhere because of all the television money that they generate. As a friend suggested to me, instead of playing the games, they should just have cheerleaders from each school jump in piles of money because that’s all the games are really about.
As long as the BCS exists, the coaching Carousel will continue to get worse. And maybe that is what the fans want because they enjoy going to Carousel to see the termination of coaches.
Send your techniques for sending coaches to the Carousel to fromthebench@yahoo.com.
If you’re searching for a last minute Christmas gift for your favorite Hog fan – Scarlet Fever: A Razorback House Divided is available on Kindle, Amazon, Barnes and Noble nook, and on ibooks.
Robert Shields
In the futuristic ‘70s movie “Logan’s Run,” people were allowed to live only to 30 years of age before they were terminated. When an individual’s time was up, they were sent to the “Carousel,” which systematically killed people and was also a form of entertainment for those who went as spectators.
In college football, we get to experience the Carousel in a different way. Let’s call it “Coach’s Run.” Coaches get fired or leave their schools this time every season at an ever-increasing rate. After a great season of winning 10 games, even Arkansas was lighter by three coaches who have all since been replaced.
Arkansas’ offensive coordinator left to become head coach at another school but was rapidly replaced by Brother Paul Petrino, who was also looking for a job because Illinois had fired its head coach. The reality these days in major college football is that if you’re not going to a BCS game or at least getting very close, then fans think the head coach should be sent to the Carousel.
A new head coach is not really given any time to turn things around at the program he inherits. To the fans, it has to be immediate. I wrote back at the end of the summer about my interactions with fans at the beach as I do every year. I won’t forget the conversation with the Florida fan who was already down on Will Muschamp even though the guy had not coached in a single game. I said then that if the sentiment was prevalent in Gator nation that Muschamp had very little time.
Make no mistake that after only winning six games this season he is already on the hot seat next year. Eight wins may not be enough to save his job. Let’s face it, Derek Dooley at Tennessee is also a short-timer if things do not improve next season.
Even the Georgia nation wanted to fire Mark Richt at the beginning of the season. Kudos to those fans who stuck by his side. He righted the ship and took the Bulldogs to the SEC championship game winning the SEC East. Not bad for a coach who just a few weeks before needed to be fired. Ironically, he is still on the hot seat among some Georgia fans.
The absolute pandemonium with coaching jobs and their stability is due to unrealistic expectations from fans and boosters. To a great extent, I blame this on the BCS.
I think the pressure on football coaches would be slightly reduced with a playoff format and proper conference realignment. It would bring some semblance of sanity to the sport.
The craziness engulfing college coaches makes me draw from a scene from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” The locals put a woman on trial for being a witch, and they go through a long thought process of how to determine if she is a witch. They come to the conclusion that witches float as do ducks. So they put her on a rigged scale with the duck on the other side. The result is what is demanded and therefore she is a witch.
I feel the same way regarding how some coaches are put on trial. It’s almost the same bizarre process. If you don’t like a coach and want him to be fired, you will find something to justify your case.
The firing of coaches has become so systemic in the game that little thought is given to the fact that you have a bowl game being played this year with neither team having their head coach because they were both fired. This also tells you all you need to know about the meaningless importance of bowl games.
I want to reiterate my bowl rules that should be adopted by the NCAA:
1) If you fire your head coach, your school can’t go to a bowl game.
2) If Hawaii goes to a bowl game, it must leave the island.
3) If you have to play Rice in a bowl game, you must forfeit.
It is hard to believe the number of coaching vacancies this year, and as one school fires a coach to date the new hot girl in the school, it creates a domino effect. Ole Miss, Penn State, Ohio State, Texas A&M, UCLA, Illinois, Arizona, Arizona State, and Kansas all come to mind. By hiring Houston’s hot name on the coaching board, Texas A&M made that domino fall so Houston now has to hire a new coach.
All this creates weird scenarios where these teams have to go to their bowl games without their head coach. Slap anyone who says the bowl games are about the players because that ship left a long time ago. A coach should stay with his team through a bowl game if the game was really about the players. The game right now is about the insatiable desire of college administrators to get a big check and the fans to win the big one. It drives everything.
I think with a playoff, coaches stick around until the playoff is done. It adds stability and a cooling-off period. You don’t see coaches in college basketball leaving while their team is playing in the NCAA tournament.
I say keep the 12-game seasons, get rid of the stupid conference championship games, and go to a 16-team playoff. Some teams already now play a 14-game season, and only two teams will have to play 16 games. The regular season has to stay at 12 because of the revenue generated by those games.
I’m also a realist and know the conference championship games are going nowhere because of all the television money that they generate. As a friend suggested to me, instead of playing the games, they should just have cheerleaders from each school jump in piles of money because that’s all the games are really about.
As long as the BCS exists, the coaching Carousel will continue to get worse. And maybe that is what the fans want because they enjoy going to Carousel to see the termination of coaches.
Send your techniques for sending coaches to the Carousel to fromthebench@yahoo.com.
If you’re searching for a last minute Christmas gift for your favorite Hog fan – Scarlet Fever: A Razorback House Divided is available on Kindle, Amazon, Barnes and Noble nook, and on ibooks.
Monday, December 05, 2011
From the Bench
Win #11 in Cotton Bowl Would Complete Best Razorback Season in 30 Years
Robert Shields
The Arkansas Razorback football team finished the regular season with 10 wins two years in a row. Every Razorback fan should be happy. Winning 10 games in the rugged SEC is always great, and now the team needs to win only one more game to make that very magical plateau of 11 wins. Very few teams reach 11, and the Hogs have not done it since 1977 with Lou Holtz’s Orange Bowl team that beat Oklahoma.
Winning 11 games in a season is an extremely tough task while playing in the SEC, which is by far the best football conference. You can just look at the players on the field and tell they are bigger, faster, and hit harder. The downside is that the SEC is becoming a product that is looking more and more like the NFL and less and less like college teams. I see Oklahoma State and I see a college team -- that would be killed by the professionals at LSU.
The really good teams in the SEC really are that good. Because of this, the SEC is actually very predictable unlike the Big Texas 12 whatever it’s called now. With a wealth of mediocre teams, the ACC is also extremely unpredictable. Just follow Clemson. The talent level at each of the schools in these conferences is very similar to each other. Even Baylor is beating Texas these days. Northwestern can occasionally win the Big Ten. But in the SEC, you just don’t have that year when Vanderbilt is good and beats Alabama. Vanderbilt will never win the SEC in football unless the whole conference goes on probation.
The downside to this is that the SEC is also becoming a product that is not as exciting because it is so predictable. Never do you see a team play the spoiler role in the SEC championship game. The SEC has had a hard time matching the excitement that has transpired in conferences like the Big Ten. Every time Wisconsin and Michigan State have played, it’s been extremely exciting. It’s been exciting every time Oklahoma State takes the field because they can’t play defense, which is how the Cowboys lose to teams like Iowa State. LSU and Alabama would beat Iowa State every time they played even if they only used the second-team offense.
It would be fun to have all the talk leading up to an Oklahoma State and LSU national-championship matchup, but the reality is that LSU would kill them. I promise you that an Oklahoma State receiver has never been hit as hard as he would the first time he caught the ball if these two teams matched up. Oklahoma State is better off watching the game at home.
That said, the BCS needs to disappear. This is the year that a playoff needs to be instituted, but it won’t happen because of 70 college presidents and athletic directors schools get payouts with the bowls. Slap any person who ever says that college football is great because every week is a playoff elimination. This season puts that argument to rest as we get to witness a rematch of LSU and Alabama. If it was really an elimination, then Alabama should have been eliminated when it lost to LSU. What does it prove if Alabama beats LSU? It proves they are equal. If LSU wins, we already knew that answer.
The bowls are not going away short of an act of Congress. Since we have to live with the bowls, I still hate the BCS system. The old system prior to the BCS was superior. Just send teams to their respective bowls and let things play out. This year would see LSU versus Stanford in the Sugar Bowl and Alabama versus Oklahoma State in the Orange Bowl. If you go back to the old system, this is where you can then have the “plus one” game if No. 1 is still in doubt -- and there will always be doubt.
Ranked at No. 7, Arkansas has been left out of the BCS bowls and is instead heading to the nearby Cotton Bowl Classic. For the last week, we’ve heard some fans on the Bo Mattingly show lamenting that the projections were showing the Hogs were going to the Cotton instead of the Capital One Bowl (old Tangerine Bowl to me). They were lamenting because the Capital One paid more money and supposedly is more prestigious. The same fans also mocked those wanting to go to the Cotton as being prehistoric and still stuck in the old SWC.
This is not true. The Cotton Bowl is coming back in status, and the move to the new Cowboys Stadium puts the game in the best venue in the nation. Last year, the Cotton Bowl drew more viewers than the Capital One Bowl by a good margin. It probably will again this year. It will feature the best matchup by rankings outside the BCS and as a bonus will have Gus Johnson on the mic on a Friday night on Fox.
The Cotton Bowl is the right game for the Razorbacks this year. Now they just need to win it.
Robert Shields is the bestselling author of “Scarlet Fever: A Razorback House Divided” and “The Economics of Sex” and has written the weekly “From the Bench” sports column for the last 14 years. His upcoming novel, “Daphne and Her No. 2 Ticonderoga,” will be part one in “The Mysterious Girls’ Secret Bathroom Society” series. He can be reached at fromthebench@yahoo.com.
You can also follow me on Twitter @rsfromthebench
end
Robert Shields
The Arkansas Razorback football team finished the regular season with 10 wins two years in a row. Every Razorback fan should be happy. Winning 10 games in the rugged SEC is always great, and now the team needs to win only one more game to make that very magical plateau of 11 wins. Very few teams reach 11, and the Hogs have not done it since 1977 with Lou Holtz’s Orange Bowl team that beat Oklahoma.
Winning 11 games in a season is an extremely tough task while playing in the SEC, which is by far the best football conference. You can just look at the players on the field and tell they are bigger, faster, and hit harder. The downside is that the SEC is becoming a product that is looking more and more like the NFL and less and less like college teams. I see Oklahoma State and I see a college team -- that would be killed by the professionals at LSU.
The really good teams in the SEC really are that good. Because of this, the SEC is actually very predictable unlike the Big Texas 12 whatever it’s called now. With a wealth of mediocre teams, the ACC is also extremely unpredictable. Just follow Clemson. The talent level at each of the schools in these conferences is very similar to each other. Even Baylor is beating Texas these days. Northwestern can occasionally win the Big Ten. But in the SEC, you just don’t have that year when Vanderbilt is good and beats Alabama. Vanderbilt will never win the SEC in football unless the whole conference goes on probation.
The downside to this is that the SEC is also becoming a product that is not as exciting because it is so predictable. Never do you see a team play the spoiler role in the SEC championship game. The SEC has had a hard time matching the excitement that has transpired in conferences like the Big Ten. Every time Wisconsin and Michigan State have played, it’s been extremely exciting. It’s been exciting every time Oklahoma State takes the field because they can’t play defense, which is how the Cowboys lose to teams like Iowa State. LSU and Alabama would beat Iowa State every time they played even if they only used the second-team offense.
It would be fun to have all the talk leading up to an Oklahoma State and LSU national-championship matchup, but the reality is that LSU would kill them. I promise you that an Oklahoma State receiver has never been hit as hard as he would the first time he caught the ball if these two teams matched up. Oklahoma State is better off watching the game at home.
That said, the BCS needs to disappear. This is the year that a playoff needs to be instituted, but it won’t happen because of 70 college presidents and athletic directors schools get payouts with the bowls. Slap any person who ever says that college football is great because every week is a playoff elimination. This season puts that argument to rest as we get to witness a rematch of LSU and Alabama. If it was really an elimination, then Alabama should have been eliminated when it lost to LSU. What does it prove if Alabama beats LSU? It proves they are equal. If LSU wins, we already knew that answer.
The bowls are not going away short of an act of Congress. Since we have to live with the bowls, I still hate the BCS system. The old system prior to the BCS was superior. Just send teams to their respective bowls and let things play out. This year would see LSU versus Stanford in the Sugar Bowl and Alabama versus Oklahoma State in the Orange Bowl. If you go back to the old system, this is where you can then have the “plus one” game if No. 1 is still in doubt -- and there will always be doubt.
Ranked at No. 7, Arkansas has been left out of the BCS bowls and is instead heading to the nearby Cotton Bowl Classic. For the last week, we’ve heard some fans on the Bo Mattingly show lamenting that the projections were showing the Hogs were going to the Cotton instead of the Capital One Bowl (old Tangerine Bowl to me). They were lamenting because the Capital One paid more money and supposedly is more prestigious. The same fans also mocked those wanting to go to the Cotton as being prehistoric and still stuck in the old SWC.
This is not true. The Cotton Bowl is coming back in status, and the move to the new Cowboys Stadium puts the game in the best venue in the nation. Last year, the Cotton Bowl drew more viewers than the Capital One Bowl by a good margin. It probably will again this year. It will feature the best matchup by rankings outside the BCS and as a bonus will have Gus Johnson on the mic on a Friday night on Fox.
The Cotton Bowl is the right game for the Razorbacks this year. Now they just need to win it.
Robert Shields is the bestselling author of “Scarlet Fever: A Razorback House Divided” and “The Economics of Sex” and has written the weekly “From the Bench” sports column for the last 14 years. His upcoming novel, “Daphne and Her No. 2 Ticonderoga,” will be part one in “The Mysterious Girls’ Secret Bathroom Society” series. He can be reached at fromthebench@yahoo.com.
You can also follow me on Twitter @rsfromthebench
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