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re: Arky fans..seriously, where did it go wrong with Bielema?
Posted on 8/25/18 at 5:01 pm to jdevers
Posted on 8/25/18 at 5:01 pm to jdevers
quote:
Look at quality and depth of offensive linemen year to year and then then look at the one year we actually “broke through” and see the massive difference in defensive statistics versus all others. The stars aligned that year, we all thought it was a stepping stone but it was a pinnacle. The three players that made our defense solid (very good on one side of the field actually) all left that same year with no one behind them. He tried to build Wisconsin but didn’t know how Wisconsin was built in the first place. For his system to work we would need our entire starting offensive line to be first or second team all SEC with a backup crew good enough to be third team. Then a defense solid but not flashy, think maybe a defense littered with third team all SEC guys and guys behind them nearly as good. None of that came close to happening. We were starting freshmen every year on the offensive line because of necessity not talent and we never had depth.
I like where AggieChad’s recruiting for 2019 is going, if we can sustain that level for another year and maybe win some games this year and get close enough to winning in some losses to be talked about then we could potentially break through into serious Texas recruiting and build something. A lot of ifs, but there are very few sure things in football.
Yeah, that's part of where I was going with it. With a few exceptions, Arkansas has rarely been a fertile recruiting ground. Either you run something like Bobby did, hoping to just cover defensive and line issues with offensive firepower or you get overwhelmed. And, as cardboardboxer said, he wasn't recruiting well from the beginning. Kind of a missed opportunity, given the chaotic ups-and-downs of the Texas schools next door during his tenure.
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Posted on 8/25/18 at 5:15 pm to randomways
quote:
Yeah, that's part of where I was going with it. With a few exceptions, Arkansas has rarely been a fertile recruiting ground. Either you run something like Bobby did, hoping to just cover defensive and line issues with offensive firepower or you get overwhelmed. And, as cardboardboxer said, he wasn't recruiting well from the beginning. Kind of a missed opportunity, given the chaotic ups-and-downs of the Texas schools next door during his tenure
Houston Nutt was a lot more one dimensional than people assume Bert was. Nutt recruited a lot worse too. I'm glad we have an offensive minded coach now, but the premise that Arkansas "needs" offensive firepower to succeed is a myth. Bert's problem wasn't recruiting. Aspects of his recruiting and his roster management were bad, but the problem was Bert. He actually recruited better than anyone has at Arkansas in the rankings era. You claimed the SEC adjusted to his "style." The problem is we resembled the type of team people associate with Oinky one time in five years, and he Berted his way to 7-6 with that group. Otherwise, I would cackle when announcers would say things like "Bret Bielema's tough, physical ground game" because we were the antithesis of that. We were soft as wet toilet paper for the majority of his tenure here and fielded some of the worst defenses in college football history.
Posted on 8/26/18 at 1:25 am to randomways
quote:Where the hell did this narrative come from? Early Nutt years we were grounding people into the dirt just like any other SEC team. Bert's philosophy did and could have continued to work at Arkansas, but as others stated he just got lazy and the leadership within the program became content with mediocrity and prioritized what the team GPA looked like more than the scoreboard.
Either you run something like Bobby did, hoping to just cover defensive and line issues with offensive firepower or you get overwhelmed.
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