From Petrino, to John L., to Bielema's plan paying off: tFlagship rising

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Three years ago, Arkansas was the most dysfunctional team in college football, the epicenter for all that can go wrong when egos go unchecked and selfish, reckless behavior supersedes all. Now it might just be the blueprint for all that can be — and should be — in the game.

Three years ago, the Arkansas coach was a self-absorbed dictator, a man who drove his Harley and his career into a ditch — and dragged what looked like a surging Hogs program down with him. They were a shell of a Top 5 program before Bobby Petrino was fired in April of 2012 to begin the downfall, a façade of winning that shrouded a slowly rotting mess.

Now after climbing out of the hole that Petrino dug, that John L. Smith subsequently cratered, Bielema has a team that won just two SEC games in the last two seasons believing they can win the whole damn thing.

“We absolutely can,” said Arkansas wideout Keon Hatcher, one of those 13 seniors who have dug deep over the last two years to truly find who and what they are. “After everything we’ve been through, that’s the most incredible and satisfying part about it.”

They didn’t win an SEC game in Bielema’s first season in 2013, and last year probably could have (and should have) won at least five. By the end of the season, no one in the SEC wanted any part of this suddenly physically intimidating and dominating program, and the Hogs trampled old Southwest Conference rival Texas by 24 points in the Texas Bowl.

As the final minutes ticked off, Arkansas quarterback Brandon Allen mercifully kneeled three straight plays inside the Texas 5.

“Borderline erotic,” Bielema said last month during SEC Media Days, and social media blew up.

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If it were just football; if it were Xs and Os and finding the right call or the right play, Arkansas would have been winning the day Bielema stepped on campus after the 2012 season.

But because it was so much more; because what others take for granted on a daily basis had been overlooked for so long and infected the very culture of the program, the heavy lifting began off the field at the source of the problem.

The areas that destroy programs off the field — academic indifference, social and behavioral issues — were the very things translating to a lack of success on the field.

When Bielema arrived, players were flunking out, missing class and changing majors to find the easiest roads to staying eligible. There was a saying within the football team: “Ds get degrees.”

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There are no rules against earrings or tattoos. No rules for facial hair or social media. But for this thing to truly change, it had to begin and end with what each and every player expects from themselves.

The way they dress, the way they talk, the way they treat each other and those they associate with on a daily basis. The way they accept responsibility and move forward.

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Bielema was at his dream job. He was working for a mentor and one of his closest friends in the business (Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez), and his parents were less than three hours away and could follow his every move. His best friend from college lived close by and they had dinner every Thursday night.

He was winning like few had in the Big Ten, and had taken the Badgers to three straight Rose Bowls — the first time in nearly four decades that a Big Ten team had done so.

“I could have stayed there forever,” Bielema said. “I’m sure there were more than a few people who thought I was crazy to leave.”

Especially considering what he was getting into. Despite winning 21 games in Petrino’s last two seasons, the foundation had cracks all over it. If academic and behavioral problems weren’t enough, the NFL atmosphere Petrino had created was feeding it on a daily basis.

Petrino’s office was on the second floor, and if a player was on the second floor, it usually was because he was in trouble.

“There was no such thing as an open door like there is now,” Allen said. “With (Petrino), I never wanted to go up there. No one did. It was kind of a scary deal.”

Now imagine this: Napoleon is banished and the leader of the minions is elevated to head coach — and he’s simply holding on until the next head coach arrives.

“So you’re playing for a tyrant, and you’re tight. He leaves, and now you get a little loose,” said Alfred Davis, a captain on the 2012 team and currently a graduate assistant. “I don’t think our starting free safety went to class the whole week when we played Ole Miss. He didn’t have to; the coaches weren’t going to do anything, they weren’t checking up on him. They were worried about their own futures.

“I had one coach who told me in the middle of the season, ‘Hey, Al, this thing is going bad. Do what you can and get yours. You need tape for the NFL.’ Players were doing whatever they wanted to do.”

Said Allen: “We kind of just threw in the towel.”

This is what Bielema walked into. This is what it had become for a group of players who, at the very least, signed on to play for Petrino — who, despite his flaws, was winning games and getting players to the NFL.

Or as one Arkansas staffer summed it up: “he was an a-hole, but he was our a-hole.”

It should come as no surprise then, that when Arkansas athletic director Jeff Long hired Bielema, he specifically told him he wasn’t expecting anything in Year 1. Or Year 2.

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