where are the Fayetteville 5 or however many it was now?

[PorkerOinker]

To your point about NWA still being Arkansas, NWA is an anomaly, an outlier to the rest of the state.  That is why when I go anywhere and people ask where I'm from I don't say Arkansas, I say NW Arkansas.  Since NWA is universally lauded in publications such as Time, Fortune, Kipplinger's, Forbes, and High Times, people automatically know where and what I am talking about. 

There is also a movement to have Benton & Washington County secede from the state and be a new state formally known as Northwest Arkansas.  This will stop the outflow of tax dollars from the region and also help the remainder of Arkansas receive federal tax dollars.

I could see this new state being kind of like Russia eventually, with President Gus and Prime Minister Floyd and Six Flags over Jesus being the Kremlin

[Kevin]

Reminds me of why I'm so positive about the future of Hog football in spite of last year's winless SEC record.

All three of Arkansas previous head coaches have run the program with a personal agenda.

Houston Nutt thought he WAS the helmet. Everything about Hog football was all about him. He'd throw any player or any coach on his staff under a speeding bus if he thought it would help him personally.

His time at Arkansas coincided with some of the best instate talent ever and he threw it all away.

Bobby Petrino ran his football program with uncompromising discipline and an amazing ability to call plays. He won games. He made Arkansas one of the big boys in the SEC. But he was totally lacking in personal discipline and he left the program in pretty much the same shape as the day he arrived. A total mess.

John L Smith was up to his eyeballs in debt. His main concern was to clear himself of that debut while rebuilding his retirement portfolio. The program crashed down around his ears while he walked around like Alfred E. Newman.

What is Brett Bielema's agenda? He wants to coach up players, have them get their degrees, lead them to the NFL if possible and win games in the process.

Is he going to do that overnight? Hell no. You trying putting a program back together that has been sucked dry by three straight self centered head coaches. But take a deep breath. Look around. Guess what's missing these days?

A coach with an agenda that's all about him.

great post

[Magic_Hogg]

I am not sure how leaving the program with the 2012 squad in place qualifies as a total mess.  The administration chose to not compete in SEC football that season.  Don't put that on CBP.  Just b'c 2012 was a wasted year does not mean it had to be.  And in hindsight more should have been done to save it.

[Mike Irwin]

I am not sure how leaving the program with the 2012 squad in place qualifies as a total mess.  The administration chose to not compete in SEC football that season.  Don't put that on CBP.  Just b'c 2012 was a wasted year does not mean it had to be.  And in hindsight more should have been done to save it.

Talk to some of the players on that 2012 team like I have. They'll tell you that the talent level was already down. But it was the emotional damage Petrino did that caused the mess.

Going back to 2008 there was never a bigger cultural change for a football team than going from Nutt to Petrino. They went from having a soccer mom to a prison warden for a head coach. It was hard and some didn't make the transition.

Players aren't robots. When you convince them to sacrifice everything for the team and they find out you are a hypocrite and a fraud things start coming apart at the seams. Bielema and his staff are still dealing with a lot of that. The older players on the team, especially last season, had a hard time buying into what the coaches were telling them. After Petrino and John L. why would they?

Here's one player's story told directly to me.

He got a hamstring injury and was really hurting. Petrino called him a whiner and told him if he was really a team player he'd get his butt back on the field and play through the pain.

So he did.

When the season was over he had an MRI and it was determined that he had actually played almost half the season with a torn hamstring.

He saw Petrino later that day and said it him, "Well coach, what do you think now?"

"I still think you are a puss," Petrino shot back before walking away.

The kid said at first he was mad but then he thought to himself, That man may be a total ass but by God he knows what it takes to win.

He continued to believe that until the motorcycle accident.

"At that point I realized that he was completely full of it," the kid said to me. "There's no way I would have ever bought into a word he said after that day."

Coaches ask a hell of a lot from their players. To me they aren't worth spit if they don't apply the same standards to themselves.

[Magic_Hogg]

Well - I still do not think that 2012 had to be the train wreck it was, and yes CBP had his own coaching issues.  What you just described is one of the reasons why I'm lukewarm about my kids participating in organized sports past a certain level.  I suppose coaches have to strike a balance.  I heard coaching horror stories about Holtz and Ford.  Nutt might have had his moments too. 

[Pigstie]

Moments?? Nutt had his seasons!