Statements of fact about Razorback football

[Biggus Piggus]

Petrino was another Holtz. That is all. Didn't last as long, but that was his own fault. Would have ended in similar fashion.

[Torqued pork]

the state did just so happen to produce the greatest class in history.  I mean seriously that is what all of this about.

What did the state of Arkansas produce? if Dmac was born in Lincoln, NB Hooten Nutt woulda been fired long before 10 years.

It is an absolute fact that the AR football program goes as the state of AR high school player production goes.  You want 10+ win seasons and NC opportunities? well you better start hoping for that "once in a life time" AR High school recruiting class.  Otherwise you get the "8-4 at least we have been winning our bowl games" classes from this state.

It was a well average class, but calling it the best in Arkansas history is debatable especially if you go back to Little Rock's heyday for producing talent. Like everything else in the Bielema vs. Petrino pee matches, things get exaggerated.

[311Hog]

It was a well average class, but calling it the best in Arkansas history is debatable especially if you go back to Little Rock's heyday for producing talent. Like everything else in the Bielema vs. Petrino pee matches, things get exaggerated.

btw i was just "quoting" without quoting so the Easter would know i was replying to him and others.  of course "greatest ever" is ALWAYS debatable in any conversation.  More to the point being that class was perfect for the coach we hired.

Generally if AR gets a gift from the football gods "DMac for example" AR has no say in position or duration they just get to enjoy and hope for the best.  I mean in the Dmac example Nutt had him do everything except play defense and some say he should have done that to.

Petrino NEEDED a QB and WR to do what he wanted and he walked into a pile of them the likes of which this state may never produce at the same time again.

Finding D1 OL and Rbs in AR is really not to hard, but an entire group of skill players it just to lucky.

[hogsanity]

It was a well average class, but calling it the best in Arkansas history is debatable especially if you go back to Little Rock's heyday for producing talent. Like everything else in the Bielema vs. Petrino pee matches, things get exaggerated.

3 nfl draft picks in one class in one Ar town with a population of 4000. That alone would have made it a WAY ABOVE average class.

[Pork Twain]

CBB's first class at Arkansas

[Jim Harris]

So...how many years did Petrino coach at Arkansas?  Four?  How was he able to go 6-2 and 6-2 in the SEC in his third and fourth seasons? 

For starters, maybe because he had Vanderbilt on the schedule both years. Other than 1994 and 2005, when Ford/Nutt were rebuilding their talent, Arkansas has had some pretty good fortune with Vanderbilt on the schedule: 1995 and 2006 SEC West Titles, for instance.

Ole Miss was in the Nutt dumpster fire 2010-11. Mississippi State couldn't beat anybody but Ole Miss in the West. South Carolina didn't have a RB by the time it played Arkansas either season and was weak on D, so Spurrier couldn't outscore Petrino. Georgia had a freshman QB in 2010 and no AJ Green, a shaky D, a great time to play them even in Athens. Tennessee in 2011 was a dumpster fire with Dooley.

The above accounts for 5 of the 6 wins both of those years. UA beat a talented but defensively beat-up LSU in 2010 in LR and a much weaker Auburn in 2011 in Fayetteville to account for the 6th wins.

This is not written to say Petrino didn't accomplish great things going 6-2 both of those years. Only the two best teams in the country could beat his 2011 team, though they both beat the darn out of the Hogs (like Houston over UL last night). And he lost to an awfully talented Bama and the national champ Auburn in 2010 as well. He beat all the others, and that's saying plenty no matter the circumstances. If you can't stop his offense, you probably aren't going to outscore him, and he doesn't have to have the most talent, not by a longshot.

Bielema is a good, not great, Big Ten-style coach. He can go a long way to making folks feel a lot better by winning these last two SEC games. Then you're looking at 5-3 and 4-4 in the toughest division in CFB. It's good to be playing Missouri right now. I'm not sure he'll go 6-2 though without catching some of the opponents at better times than he's getting them now, though he missed a chance to get 6-2 if not 7-1 last year if they just could kick a friggin' field goal. Petrino lost two games in 2009 (and won the bowl game) because of his FG kicker, but he didn't lose a game in 2010 with anyone saying 'If only Arkansas could kick a clutch field goal."

[Pork Twain]

CBB's 2nd Class

[Jim Harris]

Danny Ford was the last coach before Bielema who was not negligent in recruiting. And He didn't understand Texas as a recruiting asset.

Danny Ford told us that when he was growing up before playing for Alabama, and Alabama and Arkansas and Texas had led the nation in wins in the 1960s, he thought Arkansas was producing most if not all of its talent in state. He had no idea until he arrived how much Texas recruits mattered all those years, but at least he did something about it and in 2-3 years was bringing in the guys that would go 17-7 in two seasons for Houston Nutt and tie for a SEC West in 1998. He also hit Mississippi as hard as he could, harder than any UA coach, picked some overlooked talent out of Alabama, and he was getting some talent from the I-20 corridor in Louisiana.

[BRHogfan]

I was wondering the same thing about how did we have so much success in 2010 and 2011. In both of those seasons we lost to Alabama and one of the Tigers.  We also had the advantage of playing Mike Sherman Texas A&M teams instead of the wildly successful September Texas A&M teams we've dealt with lately.  2010 benefited from playing a 6-7 Georgia team and 2011 got to play a 5-7 Tennessee team in addition to the Vanderbilt teams. 

I can't imagine 2010 and 2011 Arkansas having much success against the teams we lost to this season. 

[Pork Twain]

CBB's 3rd class

[BRHogfan]

CBB's first class at Arkansas

So at worst 14/24 contributed for 58%

CBB's 2nd Class

At worst 13/25 contributed for 52%

CBB's 3rd class

At worst 10/25 contributed for 40%

Compared to 38.7% in the aforementioned CBP time.

[Pork Twain]

It is not about who is or is not contributing from CBB's classes that is so significant.  It is his amazingly low miss rate and how many of his players actually stick on the roster.  You are comparing how many of CBB's players contributed to how many of CBP's players actually stuck on the roster and those are significantly different things.

[colbs]

For starters, maybe because he had Vanderbilt on the schedule both years. Other than 1994 and 2005, when Ford/Nutt were rebuilding their talent, Arkansas has had some pretty good fortune with Vanderbilt on the schedule: 1995 and 2006 SEC West Titles, for instance.

Ole Miss was in the Nutt dumpster fire 2010-11. Mississippi State couldn't beat anybody but Ole Miss in the West. South Carolina didn't have a RB by the time it played Arkansas either season and was weak on D, so Spurrier couldn't outscore Petrino. Georgia had a freshman QB in 2010 and no AJ Green, a shaky D, a great time to play them even in Athens. Tennessee in 2011 was a dumpster fire with Dooley.

The above accounts for 5 of the 6 wins both of those years. UA beat a talented but defensively beat-up LSU in 2010 in LR and a much weaker Auburn in 2011 in Fayetteville to account for the 6th wins.

This is not written to say Petrino didn't accomplish great things going 6-2 both of those years. Only the two best teams in the country could beat his 2011 team, though they both beat the darn out of the Hogs (like Houston over UL last night). And he lost to an awfully talented Bama and the national champ Auburn in 2010 as well. He beat all the others, and that's saying plenty no matter the circumstances. If you can't stop his offense, you probably aren't going to outscore him, and he doesn't have to have the most talent, not by a longshot.

Bielema is a good, not great, Big Ten-style coach. He can go a long way to making folks feel a lot better by winning these last two SEC games. Then you're looking at 5-3 and 4-4 in the toughest division in CFB. It's good to be playing Missouri right now. I'm not sure he'll go 6-2 though without catching some of the opponents at better times than he's getting them now, though he missed a chance to get 6-2 if not 7-1 last year if they just could kick a friggin' field goal. Petrino lost two games in 2009 (and won the bowl game) because of his FG kicker, but he didn't lose a game in 2010 with anyone saying 'If only Arkansas could kick a clutch field goal."

I couldn't agree more.  BP is a really good coach but he did benefit from the schedule and the 2008 instate class.  I think some don't use prospective when comparing coaches at Arkansas.  HDN and CBP had similar records after 4 years(keep in mind that HDN had one less OCC game, which would probably have equaled 3-4 additional wins) but that doesn't mean that HDN was as good as CBP.  The East was really good and the west not so much.

[Biggus Piggus]

It is not about who is or is not contributing from CBB's classes that is so significant.  It is his amazingly low miss rate and how many of his players actually stick on the roster.  You are comparing how many of CBB's players contributed to how many of CBP's players actually stuck on the roster and those are significantly different things.

This. The above calculations are not comparable. Some current players will not last to the end. No way to compare those yet, except in one way - the initial miss rate (ineligibility, first-year departures/ejections) under Bielema has been far better than Petrino's and Nutt's.

[Jim Harris]

I couldn't agree more.  BP is a really good coach but he did benefit from the schedule and the 2008 instate class.  I think some don't use prospective when comparing coaches at Arkansas.  HDN and CBP had similar records after 4 years(keep in mind that HDN had one less OCC game, which would probably have equaled 3-4 additional wins) but that doesn't mean that HDN was as good as CBP.  The East was really good and the west not so much.

And imagine what Danny Ford had to deal with. While Ole Miss was down because of probation from Billy Brewer doings, Mississippi State in its worst years was easily as stout as it's been under Mullen, with Jackie recruiting; Auburn was tremendously talented with NFL prospects; Bama was, if not was Saban has created, as least the Bama its fans expected it to be under Stallings; and LSU had talent if not coaching (UA whipped them in years 1-2 in the SEC). You played one rotating SEC East team plus Tennessee, who was on top of its game, and South Carolina every year (Ok, SC was often a break then, like Missouri now, but Tennessee in the 90s was like playing Bama at its best). Florida was probably better than all of them, and they showed up on the schedule in '96 (national title) and '97, Ford's last year, not to mention in his one SEC title appearance.
Now that was some serious darn. Arkansas played six SEC opponents ranked in the Top 20 in 1997. Hogs went 4-7 for the year.
And the big cry was that Danny couldn't beat lowly SMU in '95-96-97, for whatever reason, and that may have gotten him fired more than all the other losses. He sure set a nice table for Nutt in 1998, though.

[Biggus Piggus]

I was talking about Arkansas fans' tendency to overlook changes in schedule strength. The Hogs lost in 1997 to

SMU (6-5)
Florida (10-2)
South Carolina (5-6)
Auburn (10-3)
Ole Miss (8-4)
Tennessee (11-2)
LSU (9-3)

Typical that we would draw both Tennessee and Florida near their peak.

Ford did not do enough to help his own cause. He lost two QBs who were on the bench behind Barry Lunney, arrived to 1996 without a usable QB. Due to injuries and inadequate recruiting, kept running out of RBs. Fix those two problems, he would have lasted much longer as Arkansas coach.

The losses to SMU were nothing but awful. Not acceptable in the least. The amazingly clueless coaching effort against SMU in Shreveport (1997) was viewed as proof he was overmatched. But the '95 game was just as bad a blunder.

[Oklahawg]

And imagine what Danny Ford had to deal with. While Ole Miss was down because of probation from Billy Brewer doings, Mississippi State in its worst years was easily as stout as it's been under Mullen, with Jackie recruiting; Auburn was tremendously talented with NFL prospects; Bama was, if not was Saban has created, as least the Bama its fans expected it to be under Stallings; and LSU had talent if not coaching (UA whipped them in years 1-2 in the SEC). You played one rotating SEC East team plus Tennessee, who was on top of its game, and South Carolina every year (Ok, SC was often a break then, like Missouri now, but Tennessee in the 90s was like playing Bama at its best). Florida was probably better than all of them, and they showed up on the schedule in '96 (national title) and '97, Ford's last year, not to mention in his one SEC title appearance.
Now that was some serious darn. Arkansas played six SEC opponents ranked in the Top 20 in 1997. Hogs went 4-7 for the year.
And the big cry was that Danny couldn't beat lowly SMU in '95-96-97, for whatever reason, and that may have gotten him fired more than all the other losses. He sure set a nice table for Nutt in 1998, though.

He did set up Nutt nicely! And, he reached into SEC territory to recruit where we haven't since - MS, SC. That was my recruiting comment about TX - Ford was going into different conference territory, and I failed to recall the nice collection of bodies from TX that he handed to Nutt.

[DeltaBoy]

And people complain the we talk about Recruiting.  Good job BP!