Best guess for the coming season

If it is summer, it must be time for college basketball!

Okay, okay, I realize that probably only applies to me and the 21 sports information directors I’m currently harassing for Lindy’s College Basketball.

(Soon to be on newsstands in like months, so buy a copy and revel in my brilliance.)

Anyway, between that and the current mafia story* I’m covering for my real job, my mind drifts to college football in times like these and I’ve been thinking about Arkansas’s role in the world of college football.

Despite having lived in Arkansas for roughly 26 of my 40 years, I missed the Razorbacks kool-aid that was served at mighty Elgin B. Milton Elementary in Ozark.

So, somehow, I never became much of a fan of the Piggies. Then the downward spiral, at least to some, continued as I began to openly mock The Program. But it sure was fun flinging those FCA lollipops at TCU’s horny frog back in the day.

Life progressed, college football became a livelihood and the idea of being a fan, of any sports team, became repugnant to me.

With that out of the way, let’s examine Arkansas’s role in college football’s terra firma.

And without question, it isn’t where the Razorbacks fans think it is. Arkansas is, at best, a second-tier school, that to challenge in the conference, a team in the SEC West needs to be on probation and ineligible for the title.

The scenario for a national title usually involves something like 23 steps and lots of luck with better teams losing both early and late.

Here’s the thing, on the former, no team in the West is on probation (yet) for this season, and on the latter, even if Arkansas somehow runs the table and goes undefeated, the Razorbacks still won’t play for a national title.

Book it.

If Ohio State and Boise State go undefeated, a realistic possibility for both, they’ll play for the national championship.

Both are preseason top five schools and won’t have to climb the polls.

If Arkansas is ranked, and that’s a giant guess, it will be 18th to 25th. The cupcake con-conference schedule, really Tennessee Tech, won’t win them any points from pollsters.

So there you go. Too long a road and too many good teams to play in the conference.

Arkansas won’t go undefeated. Bobby Petrino has yet to win a road game in the SEC during his tenure, and that September game at Athens looks, well, it looks like Petrino’s streak will continue.

But it isn’t just that, Arkansas has to get some defense, and lots of it. Plus, a reliable place kicker to win the occasional close game.

At last report the kicker and the defense still haven’t reported to campus.

For next time: A look at the conference expansion and contraction and why Arkansas really isn’t in the South, but not really anywhere else either.

* Many thanks to regular Poolsville reader and D*G columnist Linda Calliouet (maybe, I can’t remember how to spell it but Word suggests "Calliope") for printing in her paper verbatim, and without any attribution, passages from my Arkansas mafia coverage.