From the Rocking Chair - Things Are More Like They Are Now Than They Have Ever Been

[bphi11ips]

Like many of you, I've been frustrated at the impatient, petulant, irrational, unrealistic posts here of late by fickle fans.  This morning I spent a bit of time responding to one poster who has been relentless in his bashing of our new coach, but he is by no means the only one or the worst one.  My post was at the end of a very good thread, and since I was flattered by some favorable comments from some Hogvillians I respect, I recreated it below in the hope that more of you with Hog-colored glasses might enjoy reading it.

I have to first quote two posts to set up my "War and Peace" response: 


MuskogeeHogFan:

As much as I hate to say it, this season may actually work in our favor in the future if the Hogs can stand straight up, look adversity in the face and overcome it. As painful as this season may be to the team, the staff and the fan base, it has the potential to make this team a great deal more mentally tough going forward if they can get themselves turned around in these last four games.

Bowfishinghogfan:

I haven't read as many post as others on here but so far this is the dumbest one to date. Saying that this collapse and beat downs will help the team. I've heard it all now. Why didn't last year prepare this team then. I'm almost at a loss for words at this excuse. Losing breeds losing. The rah rah stuff sounds good but reality sets in when it's player vs player and coach vs coach . Sports is that simple. We are being out talented and about coached. Nothing more, nothing less. The making excuses for every little detail doesn't work in sports or life . Preform or someone else will. This is a hundred million dollar company per year. This isn't a lemonade stand on the side of the road.

War and Peace:

fick·le /ˈfikəl/ adjective - changing frequently, esp. as regards one's loyalties, interests, or affection.

synonyms: capricious, changeable, variable, volatile, mercurial

Nothing is worse than a fickle college football fan.  College football teams aren't businesses.  That's the difference between college football and the NFL.  College football teams generate revenue.  The management, marketing and promotion of the games is a business.  Fundraising and facilities management is a business.  The team itself is made up of student athletes in the process of obtaining a college education and preparing themselves for life. 

College football fans stay in their seats much longer than NFL fans.  They attend games even in bad seasons.  They are more likely than NFL fans to have a life-long loyalty to one team, because they are often invested personally in ways not common to NFL fans.  You sound like an NFL fan.  Pick a successful team this year and root for them on Sundays.  I recommend Kansas City at the moment.  If they lose twice to the Broncos there's still time to switch before the playoffs.  Forget Saturdays or go with the odds and invest your emotion in Oregon or Alabama. 

Muskogee makes a good point about adversity.  Jim Bailey and Orville Henry wrote a great history of the Razorbacks football team through 1995 called "A Story of Arkansas Football".  Chapter 24 focuses on Frank Broyles' first year.  It is entitled "The Lessons of Adversity".  The third paragraph closes with this sentence:  "The experience of six straight Arkansas defeats humbled him - and braced his chin-up squad for better things."

Yes.  Broyles lost his first six games at Arkansas after losing his last three the year before at Missouri.  But he would win his last four that first season and lead the 1959 squad to a 9-1 regular season finish and a January 1 berth against Georgia Tech in the Gator Bowl.  In 1960 the Hogs would go 8-2 and play in the Cotton Bowl.  1961? 8-2 and the Sugar Bowl.  1962?  9-1 and the Sugar Bowl.  etc., etc. 

Broyles' first class included a highly recruited player from Mississippi named Lance Alworth - a future All-American and NFL Hall of Famer.  Maybe Alex Collins will be Bielema's Alworth. 

Nothing repeats itself like history.  Maybe Bielema won't duplicate Broyles' success.  Maybe times are different.  Maybe players are different.  Maybe the SEC is different than the SWC in the '50's and 60's (but not as different as many of you may think).  But there are other similarities between where Bielema is on October 30, 2013 and where Broyles was on October 30, 1958, two days before the Razorbacks would earn their first victory of the year in College Station - a 21-8 win over the Aggies. 

"Everything was waiting for me when I came", Broyles often said according to Bailey and Henry.  "The unified support, the desire to get moving."  Prior to Broyles, Jack Mitchell had strung together 5-5-1, 6-4, and 6-4 seasons.  No bowl games since Bowden Wyatt's Twenty Five Little Pigs played in the Cotton Bowl in 1954 before Wyatt bolted to Tennessee.  The fans must have been sick of the "mediocrity" - Hogville's favorite word.  What would the meltdown look like if Hogville had been around in 1958?

Arkansas has great facilities and a great fanbase.  This website is not representative of the fanbase, although it may be a barometer.  Bret Bielema is a proven head football coach with a fundamentally sound philosophy that has proven decade after decade to produce champions.  His is a philosophy very similar to Frank Broyles' philosophy.  He has hired an incredible staff of assistants.  Pittman turned down Alabama not 6 months ago.  Shannon?  C'mon man.  He needs players, though.  Alex Collins?  Leading the country in ypg for freshman.  QB's? They're on the way. 

It should be apparent to all of you that Arkansas has some holes to fill.  It should be equally apparent that those holes will not be filled immediately, and not likely next year.  I don't expect to win the last four games this season.  I don't expect to beat Auburn this weekend.

Arkansas's 0-6 start in 1958 was the worst in its history.  "We were blue," Broyles said of himself and his staff. "I was standing on the field at A&M with Dixie White before the game.  He had been at Arkansas four years.  I asked him if there was any way Arkansas could compete with the Texas teams and all their great athletes.  And he said 'Frank, at one time I thought we might be average or better and sneak in every once in a while and win.  Now I don't see any way Arkansas can compete in the Southwest Conference.'"  Arkansas scored first that day after recovering a fumble at the Aggie 16 and went on to win 21-8.  That was the beginning of thirty years of good football.  Not every year.  Not every bowl game.  Not every big game.  But thirty years of fundamentally sound football and national respect. 

I love Pigsknuckles' avatar above.  "When you least expect it . . . "  All I know about 1958 is what I read in books, but I was in the stands on October 17, 1981.  Texas had stomped Oklahoma the week before and was No.1 in the country.  The game in Fayetteville that day was almost over before it started.  Texas turned the ball over time after time in it's own end of the field, and Arkansas took advantage of every one.  Gary Anderson and Billy Ray Smith were all over the field.  It was 42-3 in the fourth quarter.

When you least expect it . . . history repeats itself.   

[Hoggish1]

Excellent job, bphi11ips!

I guess Bowfishinghogfan never heard of "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger..."

[jrhardy88]

Thank you.Screw the fickle bandwagon jumpers.Go Hogs!

[Fan1958]

Fantastic post.  The SWC of the late 50s, 60s and early 70s was very good football.  In the SEC, Florida, AU, OM, MSU, Vandy and UK were pretty much an afterthought.  OM had some success with Manning.  The SWC was pretty stout in the 80s too.  For those of us who were around remember A&M having some good years, Texas was Texas (not the Mack Brown Texas) and Houston was tough.  Baylor and Tech were just pesky enough to cause problems. SMU cheated their way to prominence. Arkansas did not have a losing season from 1975 through 1989.

Many on here think Arkansas football spontaneously generated in 2009 and didn't exist before that.  To be honest with you, Frank Broyles was much more successful than BP.  So was Ken Hatfield.  Hatfield couldn't win the big ones you say.  What big one(s) did BP win?  0-4 against Bama with 3 blowout losses, 2-2 against LSU and one of the wins meant nothing.  Couldn't win in 09 when it would have really mattered.  Had Georgia on the ropes in 09 only to find out why playing defense is important.

What I see, at least of those who whine and cry, are a bunch of people who are miserable with their station in life and have a fatalistic outlook on life.  They live vicariously through something that if given the opportunity to run they wouldn't have a clue what to do with it.  Kinda like the rube who ogles the supermodel and brags what he would do if given the chance but if she gave him even a glance he would choke on his tobacco.

They are the weekend warriors, assuming they have a speck of athletic ability, who act like the beer league softball game is the deciding game of the World Series or the pick up basketball game is the seventh game of the NBA championship.

The thing I find most amusing is their whiney posts will have absolutely no bearing on what happens to the coach at Arkansas yet they think it will.  Of course those of us who have a trifling of intelligence and are in touch with reality know none of what is posted on a message board will have any bearing on what happens relative to Arkansas athletics. 

[Hogwild]

Fantastic post.  The SWC of the late 50s, 60s and early 70s was very good football.  In the SEC, Florida, AU, OM, MSU, Vandy and UK were pretty much an afterthought.  OM had some success with Manning.  The SWC was pretty stout in the 80s too.  For those of us who were around remember A&M having some good years, Texas was Texas (not the Mack Brown Texas) and Houston was tough.  Baylor and Tech were just pesky enough to cause problems. SMU cheated their way to prominence. Arkansas did not have a losing season from 1975 through 1989.

Ole Miss & Auburn were not 'afterthoughts' during that stretch.
Auburn from '55-'89 were ranked in the Top 10 11 times (one less than us) & won a national title in the '50s.

Ole Miss during the '60s(our hayday) claim more national champions than we do, & 5 times finished the season with more wins than we did. They went to 10 bowl games in the 60's. Then as you said they got Manning in the 70s.

[bphi11ips]

Ole Miss & Auburn were not 'afterthoughts' during that stretch.
Auburn from '55-'89 were ranked in the Top 10 11 times (one less than us) & won a national title in the '50s.

Ole Miss during the '60s(our hayday) claim more national champions than we do, & 5 times finished the season with more wins than we did. They went to 10 bowl games in the 60's. Then as you said they got Manning in the 70s.

Ole Miss was 10-0-1 in 1960 and was awarded the FWAA NC, which is the main organization to award the Hogs their 1964 NC.  They claim another for their 10-0 season in 1962.  The Johnny Vaught era is to Ole Miss what the Frank Broyles era is to Arkansas.  I don't believe Ole Miss claims more titles that Arkansas.  Here is a pretty comprehensive list that I haven't studied carefully:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_football_national_championships_in_NCAA_Division_I_FBS

P.S. - Ole Miss capped the 1962 season with a 17-13 victory over Arkansas in the Sugar Bowl.   

[Hogwild]

Ole Miss was 10-0-1 in 1960 and was awarded the FWAA NC, which is the main organization to award the Hogs their 1964 NC.  They claim another for their 10-0 season in 1962.  The Johnny Vaught era is to Ole Miss what the Frank Broyles era is to Arkansas.  I don't believe Ole Miss claims more titles that Arkansas.  Here is a pretty comprehensive list that I haven't studied carefully:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_football_national_championships_in_NCAA_Division_I_FBS

P.S. - Ole Miss capped the 1962 season with a 17-13 victory over Arkansas in the Sugar Bowl.

If they claim 2 titles ('60&'62) and we claim one ('64) that would mean they claim more titles during that decade than we do.  But you are dead on with the Vaught & Broyles comparison.

[bphi11ips]

If they claim 2 titles ('60&'62) and we claim one ('64) that would mean they claim more titles during that decade than we do.  But you are dead on with the Vaught & Broyles comparison.

Maybe I misread your intent the first time.  I took it to mean Ole Miss claims more titles overall than we do. 

[DeltaBoy]

Great post I expect great things from this team and staff and I am waiting to see it come about.