Depressing fact of the day, we've only had 3 defenses average less than 20 points a game since 2000. - 2006: 18.3 points per game - 2004: 19.2 points per game - 2002: 19.8 pionts per game We won the SEC West 2 of those years. 2006 is arguably the best team since joining the SEC. The two 10/11 win seasons, we had averages of 2010 (23.4) and 2011 (22.2). Equally depressing fact, from 2000-2017, Bama has only had three years where they averaged more than 20 points per game (2000, 2003, 2007). Saban's numbers are insane in that period.
Absolutely I agree with this, he definitely had help. However he was able to get us to a BCS bowl game. That takes more than "help". Yes Mallet dropped in his lap and he had a ton of instate talent, but JLS took essentially the same team (minus Mallett) and ran it into the ground. So to clarify, my expectations are that we can make a BCS bowl game every now and then when we get help with a shitload of instate talent and a down SEC. When the gods aren't smiling on us, I expect 7-8 wins minimum. Basically Bert's ceiling is what I expect to be our floor. I am not expecting a Saban Style dynasty for Arkansas. I am expecting that when the stars align, we make a serious run at a playoff spot or BCS bowl game. Lastly, if you think there will be 1-2 changes, I respect your opinion, but I think that there will be a minimum of 3 with a possibility of more. LSU can't fire O as they have a Jeff Long style buyout of 12 mil. No clue what Mizzou is going to do but A&M is seriously talking about moving on from Sumlin, Bert should be gone, Auburn is talking about changing and their schedule isn't helpful for Gus, Ole Miss is an interesting one with Luke as an interim coach. I doubt he stays. Barry at Missouri is definitely on the hot seat. So while it might be only two coaches getting fired, it sure as hell could be 3-5 in just the WEST.
my expectations aren't really we need to win x games per year, but we should not be getting blown the fuck out 56-3 by an 8-4 team ever.
1-2 changes in the West. I think the East is about to get racked. Unless Auburn falls apart, I don't see them moving on from Gus just yet. A&M is one of those, they want to move on but maybe we don't. The drama at College Station is what I love watching. Don't get me wrong, I think 2010 is either our best or second best (depending on how much coffee I've had on a given day) team since we joined the SEC. 2006 and 2010 are 1a/1b for me since 1992. Both were talented teams that had the ability to win championships and neither did. Both were loaded with in-state talent though. I think our floor is just slightly lower than what you're saying only because we play in the West. Hell, even Frank Broyles had some 4/5 win seasons thrown in there and he had the greatest run for a coach in our entire history. A lot of it revolves around the West. We tend to have our better years when someone else is having a down year. When Saban finally retires, there will be a slippage depending on who they hire. Agree with you that when the stars align we make a run for it. Agree with Gallant Knight too. We shouldn't be losing by 3 or 4 touchdowns to teams not ranked at the top of polls. Even then, we should still be competitive. Like I said, find me a coach that wants to play tough nose defense and have an offense that scores touchdowns instead of field goals, then I'm all for it. I disagree with those who say we have to run a video game level offense to be successful at Arkansas and pray we outscore them. All it takes is some actual recruiters to be hired. Put those attributes together in a coach and hire him tomorrow and I'll support him in a milisecond.
One thing to consider too on the win column is we're starting to schedule better OOC competition. Frankly, I'm happy for that because watching us beat Tenn-Martin 77-7 is fun for about 5 seconds and then it's time to switch the channel. People were going nuts when we lost to TCU earlier in the year but turns out they're a pretty good team. I know we want to pick on the loss to Toledo in 2016 but that team went on to win 10 games that year and was coached by Matt Campbell. Who is Matt Campbell you might say? He happens to be the second year coach at Iowa State who is currently sitting atop of the Big-12 after big wins over Oklahoma and TCU this year. The point is we're going to lose some of those games as we're scheduling better competition. We've got Notre Dame and Texas at a minimum in the next 8 years.
Yea sorry but these don't seem to be unreal expectations when we are paying top of the line SEC money for a coach to deliver this.
And every other SEC West team is paying the same thing for the same results. It isn't about the money. I mean Ole Miss has more of a recruiting advantage than we do. We probably sit at the bottom of the West when it comes to in-state talent and recruiting classes year in and year out. That is the rub. We have to constantly get over that hump. It's not to say that we can't but we're not fighting on an even playing field with the rest of our division. I can agree that I would love for us to never dip below 7/8 games a year but at the same time recognize we play in arguably the toughest division in college football where every school is trying to outspend the other to win 1 more game.
Well we can either keep outworking them, or give up. I am not the quitting type. I don't give a shit about recruiting bases, A&M has one of the best and they are peaking at 9 wins with their coach. Recruiting is sales, you go in and close the deal. Distance isn't as big of a factor for as many as we think. Hell are you telling me that Bama is signing only kids from Bama? Not a fucking chance. Saban is simply outworking us. Prior to Saban, they were easily even with us as far as how good we were. No one is going to convince me that if we had hired Saban, he couldn't have done the same thing here or at least close to what he has built there. So I am tired of being told to stop trying to get better and "be happy with middle of the pack" by people like Ned who are satisfied with the status quo. I am not built that way, and if we were to work our asses off and never get better, that is fine with me, at least we tried and weren't happy with just being a participant.
can we agree that we want blowout losses, 0fers, train wreck special teams, inability to adjust during a game, soft ass team pscy, zero confidence in over coming adversity, knowing we will 99% lose a game if not ahead at the half and soft ass defenses to stop being our hallmark?
Not sure I believe that. Then the argument would be "close isn't cutting it, we need someone that can get us over the hump" and the goal posts would constantly be shifting. Bert isn't the guy for the job, I think we can all agree on that. But losing by less isn't satisfactory for our moronic fanbase either.
2 SEC title game appearances in 10 seasons; four 9-10 win seasons; two 8 win seasons. isn't that what everyone is saying they want? or am i confused.
I think it is more about showing forward progress. Its like the comment about what is indecent. When the Supreme Court said, they don't want to define it but they know it when they see it. I am of the similar mindset. I won't try and define the forward progress but I think we will all know it when we see it. Of course there are the fringe idiots who will never be happy, but for the majority, being competitive in the conference is all we ask.
I don't think you and I are actually disagreeing here. I want what you want but I can recognize that we have to overcome more odds than others to accomplish it. That doesn't mean we stop trying. My problem is we have some fans that want to fire a coach after one season that is down when in reality we're going to face those types of years. Our fanbase has had hard-ons for Gus and Petrino for 15 years. I think both coaches are a bit overrated and would be faced with the same problems every other coach here faces. The issue with recruiting is all the SEC West teams, save for us have better in-state crops to pick from to serve as a basis for their classes. Their "filler" players are better than ours. That doesn't mean we can't go out of state and get players. Some of our best in the last 20 years didn't come from Arkansas. I'm not a believer that we can't "sell" a kid on coming to Fayetteville. I truly believe we can. The problem is LSU, the Alabama schools, the Mississippi schools and A&M can all bring in local talent year end and year out that is better than what Arkansas has available to it. Now, there is an entire philosophical argument about the need to combine many of those tiny ass school districts throughout the state to make them more competitive but I don't care to have it and it is never going to happen. I think the only thing I'm saying that we might disagree on is those who believe we can win 9/10 games a year every year are living in a pipe dream. As long as the SEC West continues on its current track, that is just going to be hard to do for all of them not named Alabama.
we are down because there is such a low ceiling. he doesn't have 8,9, 10 win seasons to fall back on. when that is possible he shits the bed with 1,2 or 3 wtf losses
ok. i'm not saying he was perfect. but we fired him after winning 18 games over his last two years because he had an affair and was sort of goofy. he for sure as shit wasn't getting blown out by anyone except maybe the best USC team of the last 20 years with multiple heisman winners and pete carrol as coach.
2014 was Bret's best year on defense. He also played one the toughest schedules in the country. Losses: @ #6 Neutral Site vs #6 Home #7 Home #10 @ #1 @ #17 Wins: Home #20 Home #8 The first loss was the largest of the year (24 points). The rest was by 7, 1, 13, 7, and 7. We won the two games 17-0, 30-0. This is probably the best example of why Bret won't get us over the hump at Arkansas. Despite having one of the best defenses we've put on the field in the last 20 years, he still lost 6 games. Yeah, we beat the shit out of Texas in a bowl game which was really fun but we had every opportunity to win 8-10 games that year. Now, I can stomach a year like that because we all know sometimes you just get bad breaks in games but it really didn't improve from there. The next year the defense went from allowing 19.2 points per game to 27.4 points per game. Yeah, we won one more game but it wasn't really an improvement. We didn't get blown out any that year but again, we could have won 10-11 games that year. 2016 we regressed which wasn't surprising because we were due a regression. Same with 2017. 2017 is as much of a bad luck year as any. The amount of injuries on an already young team just spells disaster waiting to happen. However, if we had good 2014/15 years, we would all be a lot more understanding. Since we didn't, I totally agree with the frustration and share it.
My problem with the Nutt firing largely had to do with the Gus crowd and how it was done. Fire the guy because you want to take the team in a different direction. Teams do that all the damn time. However, the Gus crowd felt some type of higher calling to avenge him and I just don't fall into that crowd. The shit people started doing in 2007 to push him out was also ridiculous and why we get branded as a bunch of irrational crazies. Again, you want to fire him, fire him but don't get stupid while you're doing it.
Just to further echo my Bret post on not getting it done. He is 7-13 in games decided by 10 points or less. That is 11 conference losses and 2 out of conference losses from 2013 to the present. That is more frustrating to me than losing a game 52-0 to Bama.
One correction to this, Bret is 8-13 not 7-13. I was curious about other coaches in the SEC era and decided to see how they did in games decided by 10 points or less. Overall since 1992, Arkansas is 61-63-2 in games decided by 10 points or less. By coach: Bielema: 8-13 Smith: 1-4 Petrino 14-7 Nutt: 23-22 Ford: 14-14-1 Kines: 3-2-1 Crowe: 0-1 Overall, Arkansas has lost 22 games by 30 or more points since 1992. They have won 41 games by the same margin in the same timeframe. Of the losses, 18 were against SEC foes and 2 each against Pac-12 and Big-12 foes. Of the wins, 15 were against SEC foes and none against other big 5 conferences. Bielema and Nutt tie for the worst loss at 53 points. Bielema has the biggest win at 66 points. By coach, Wins 30 points or more: Bielema: 8 Smith: 1 Petrino: 9 Nutt: 20 Ford: 2 Kines: 1 Losses 30 points or more: Bielema: 5 Smith: 3 Petrino: 3 Nutt: 5 Ford: 5 Herring: 1
And since I'm bored and it's almost 2 hours until the game starts, here are all 314 games played since we joined the SEC broken out by coach.
First Arkansas head coach to finish last in the SEC West (x2) First Arkansas head coach to lose to Mississippi State in Arkansas (x2) First non interim Arkansas head coach since Broyles that will leave with a losing record to aTm (0-5) First Arkansas head coach to not win a single conference game for an entire season First Arkansas head coach to lose a conference game by 53 points First SEC head coach to surrender 543 yards rushing in a conference game
Last year from Bleacher Report "It's Year 4 of our program, Bielema said. "I've always felt that Year 5 would be the measuring point. If we can get one a year early, I'd like that as well."
So fun data facts for today. There was some discussion about the strength of the SEC during different periods of time. This chart should put that to rest with regards to the SEC West. This looks at the SEC West teams records by Season. As you can see Nutt coached in the softest period for the SEC West. Starting in 2009, you begin to see the Saban effect and how the division has continuously gotten better. 2010 was the best year with a 0.744 winning percentage. 2015 was second with a 0.707 winning percentage. Petrino and Bielema have easily coached during the most difficult periods of the SEC West. It just goes to the point that winning the SEC West is never easy and the next coach has to bring their A game on offense, defense and recruiting to be continuously successful. The chart looks at the SEC West W/L records by year and if they won the SEC/BCS Game/National Championship. It also looks at how many 10+ win teams there were in the SEC West. The break out by coach below is what the SEC West during their tenures.
Two more days of vacation so I figure I'll spend it in an alcoholic haze outside of going to see the new Thor movie tomorrow morning.
That last play of the first half was a perfect analogy for our season. Close but always coming up short somewhere. The defense has been horrible yet again. Still no ability to tackle in space or put much pressure on the QB. I knew changing from the 4-3 to 3-4 would come with its own shares of bumps in the road but this has just been painful at times. The offense is honestly exactly what I expected considering all of the injuries we've sustained this year. I still think Kelley will end up being a pretty good QB but he's very rough around the edges. Wallace on the OL has about 4000 big play killing penalties this season and he needs to run laps. Penalties this game have just killed us. It kept two of their drives alive and hurt us as well. That had been something we had been pretty good on all year really until today. I go back to my original point. If Bret gets another year he needs to fire the entire defensive staff. If he is fired, Long better hire someone that understands the performance the last few years on defense will never win anything in the SEC and it doesn't matter what coach you have or offense you run. The last two years have been the two worst defensive years I've seen in my lifetime and I'm including 1992 and 2008 which were horrible as well.
I'm not sure I've ever watched a worse defense play in my lifetime. Jesus this is just bad. I mean every section of it is bad. DL is horrible and gets no penetration. The LBs are largely ineffective. The DBs are some of the worst I've ever seen and Arkansas has had some bad DBs over the years so that is saying a lot.
Again, how do you give up 38 points to a team like CC. That is why I disagree with folks when they criticize Bret and point to his offense. It isn't his offense. It is the abomination that is his defense. If you score 39 points and 523 yards of offense, you figure you have a high percentage of winning a football game. This defense let that team have 8/15 and 1/2 on 3rd and 4th downs today. That is just not acceptable against any team.
Point to his offense? Who the fuck is doing that? He sucks all over the field. Don’t forget he coaches special teams. He is awful. TJ Hammons is just one example and the OL musical chairs is another of how horrible his offense is.
No the "Bret's offense can't win in the SEC" argument. I'm not saying the offense doesn't have problems this year. Frankly, with newcomers and injuries, it was almost expected. We're not looking bad though because of the offense. It is the defense that can't stop a wet paper bag, week in and week out.
Oh absolutely. It is the defense in the last two years that has been the killer for us though. Inability to tackle in space or at all for that matter. Inability to get off the field on 3rd down. Giving up so many big plays (more last year than this year). The last two years have statistically been some of the worse defenses since we've been in the SEC. You could run any offense on the planet and you're still going to lose games. Again, we should never give up 38 points and 359 total yards to a team like this ever.