Is there any realistic scenario where we have sustained success?

If we were able to do it in the 60's through the 80's before there was a regional airport, an interstate that cut out the treacherous drive up 71 and there wasn't national TV games every week and the internet and streaming sites so that anyone around the globe could watch basically every game if they wanted to then there's not really much to complain about regarding the perceived disadvantages we have as a program. That is just excuse making.

It all boils down to who is leading the athletic department and the football program. We have yankees that do not understand the south and what it takes to win in the south among the other monsters in the SEC.

Maybe running from Texas sealed our fate as a has been, but it was the right move for the long term but we kinda sacrificed our football program.

Get an admin that is obsessed with winning and not just going through the motions with a halo over our heads.

Being sanctimonious among the middle of the pack isn't an enviable place to be.

I've suggested Arkansas adopt 8-man football so the small towns can field competitive teams and increase the quality of play across the state. No one replied to that thread so I assume everyone ignored it as Arkansas is known to do as a state just ignore things until they get too bad to keep turning a shoulder.

Get better coaches, get an AD that wants to win more than collect paychecks and give huge checks.

Gus was probably the right choice a decade ago but we screwed that up as always.

the recruiting is an issue but truth be told, we just aren't that fricking serious about wanting to win in the SEC. We don't want it enough.


giving up 563 rushing yards and not immediately hanging, drawing and quartering someone on staff tells me all i need to know about the complacency of the administration and the state as a whole as far as desire to be competitive.

The above post is money

the key to sustained success is to give a coach the time needed to have said sustained success. no abandoning ship/firing after a disappointing beat down to a superior team coming off a bye week. 8 or 9 wins is still very much achievable for this team. 8 wins is a solid season for us and some might say 8-10 wins is our ceiling, right now.

but if we get a coach that builds the program the right way, then strings together enough of those 8+ win seasons, well that creates new tradition and increased notoriety.

funny enough, pretty sure our current head coach is that type of head coach.

Well the first thing to do is not panic. We had a bad game. It happens. Some changes are going to need to be made to our coaching staff. Should be an interesting off season.

As for our recruiting disadvantage, huge chunks of the state are effectively dead zones and LR just doesn't produce the talent they used to. The Arkansas Delta isn't going to come roaring back any time soon. Fortunately NW Arkansas is exploding in population so twenty or thirty years from now demographics might actually be on our side for a change. Which is cold comfort now.

Sustained success is possible. We will need coaches with ties to the South that can recruit here. We need to find a way to get the LR programs back from the dead. We need to stay the course of improvement, and if that means firing a coach that has hit his ceiling then so be it but I'm not ready to shite can Bert just yet.

We are not a quick fix program unless one of those golden generations of Arkansas talent poofs into existence in the next year or two. Recruiting the scum of the Earth is no guarantee for quick success either, Ole Miss has four losses this year and the NCAA getting ready to drop the hammer on them.

If we are going to make it back to the upper echelons of college football its going to take time to make that happen. It probably wouldn't hurt if one of the Walmart heirs decided to start pouring hundreds of millions into the program either.

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I honestly don't care if our players make good grades (as long as they're eligible obviously), are "good" people, run into trouble with the law, etc. College football is a business. If we're concerned with that then we're in the wrong conference.

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i would not take it this far.

I'm one of the lucky african americans whoose family takes education extremely seriously. I have a degree, my mother has a masters degree. People who have an education, do not understand just how much of a drawback it is to not have an education. Not even so much because of the money you make but just the way you approach life, morality and ethics.

Most African Americans in the state of Arkansas, are not afforded the opportunities that I have been. It's one of the things i do like about bert; His kids graduate, and he turns young boys into young men. They start careers when they leave. It's important to me that we don't use and abuse kids and they aren't at the university for 4 years then working at Jimmy Johns or running pimp services like that one guy that played for Arkansas's basketball team because they don't have any better opportunities.


And if the day comes where it becomes apparent to me that the only way we CAN win a national championship is to recruit said players, I would be at peace with not ever winning a national championship. At the end of the day, it's just a game.


With that said, running a successful college football operation and giving people from around the state or outside of it, who otherwise would not have an opportunity to afford higher education and turning those kids into young responsibility adults doesn't have to be a one or the other deal. It's a logical fallacy to suggest that young men who have the ability to act as responsible young men can't play football. It's why Al Ferguson at Parkview is so successful. outside of beard's little incident, name one player that played for parkview that has ever ended up on the wrong side of the law. Furgerson doesn't fricking play that and if you can't behave like a young man, you will not play. Period. When My cousin transferred from Jacksonville to Parkview I could see a distinct difference in how seriously he took his academics and just how he handled himself in general. '


My gripe with Bert is not that he targets uncommon players. My gripe with Bert is that he's fricking lazy fat frick that uses the uncommon montra to half arse recruiting. For instance, Crockett that went to Mizzoui, I can understand not wanting him at RB but that kid is a freaking player. You trying to tell me he couldn't help out in the secondary after a redshirt year? Bert should have been on him like white on rice trying to get him to be a hog and convert him to a cornerback. But no we just sign 17 recruits and call it a day.


I think Bert CAN be the man for the job but as of now, i don't think he is.

I like that

- he believes in himself
- he doesn't recruit character problems for quick fixes
- good coaches like working with him
- when he feels like it, he's a dynamic recruiter
- his wife is hot (seriously she's hot as balls lol)


I don't like that

- he's a man of much talk and little action
- He holds himself accountable, yet never changes things
- He's kinda lazy honestly.. and more than anything I think the team has started to adapt that lazy mentality
- He's too loyal and cares too much what people think about him. He doesn't have that ruthless streak that petrino or saban has.
- More than anything I think the message that he preaches, which is basically if you're a good person and do good then at the end of the day, everything will be okay, which is honestly, in my 33 years on earth not what I have precieved, and to be frank, especially if you're a non white person in america. In the real world, you either do what you are supposed to do well, or the person who employees you will find someone who will. In the real world, nice guys don't necessarily finish last, but the guys with the best results finish first, not the ones with the best manners.



If Bert is willing to get off his arse, get in shape (seriously bro your weight is a fricking problem you can't possibly have the amount of energy I, gets on a stairmaster for 1 hour a day and can play basketball all day long at age 33), get to work I think he is the man for the job. His laziness is my biggest knock on him. He's very bright and very capable. he's not hungry. I mean, he's obviously hungry lol but you know what i mean.


If he's not winning to put in the world to make arkansas great again, find someone who is. The sad thing Gus was that guy. He wanted it. He wanted it so fricking bad.

Al Flanigan.

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i'm drunk

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Well if it helps any I agree with what you said about recruiting the right kids even if you are drunk.

Besides recruiting the wrong kids and hoping for the best is no guarantee for success. Ole Miss and their small army of mercenaries is a train wreck this year and about to get slapped by the NCAA.

Like you said, Bert needs to work his arse off if he wants to make it here long term.

The teams that are successful are all in states with large populations of talented high school players.

Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia

I don't see Gus (or anyone else not named Saban) having much more success here. We just can't get the players they can.