This isn't a shock to some, but Liberty's gonna be another week like this one.

And Luke Fickell. We have the sneakiest schedule. Everyone sees three G5s and an FCS on our schedule and thinks it's a fricking joke.

Missouri State is the #5 FCS team, which likely makes them better than the bottom half of G5. It was an emotional and important game for Petrino, which cannot be understated. His style of offense (of which he is a bonafide guru) is tailor made for our depleted secondary, and his players were never going to fight harder for him than that game. I expected the game to be close or to even be losing at the half, although I didn't dare say that. The way we let them linger the entire game was sobering and disappointing.

Cincinnati is coming off a playoff berth. Fickell lost one game last year, one game the year before that, and finished 11–3 the year prior to that. We're likely looking at an 11+ win team with rare coaching continuity and stability for a G5.

BYU, despite their poor showing today, is a for real ranked team and we're playing them in maybe the strangest road situation I can think of in my lifetime. Both BYU and Cincinnati are going to be in a P5 conference starting... next year? They're wolves in sheeps' clothing in every way.

And then the cherry on top is fricking Hugh Freeze and Liberty. Say what you want about the guy, he's done nothing but win everywhere he's been. One of the most confounding parts of the last decade of Hog football is how Bert Bielema of all people had his number for some of the best Ole Miss teams most of the people on this board have ever seen.

All that shite is scarier than the whole bottom half of the SEC. I'd almost have rather faced Clemson than a spurned Bobby Petrino trying to make us regret derailing his life, plus those other three shitwagons we have to struggle against while the rest of the country pretends they're talentless. And all of these guys now have access to the transfer portal and NIL.


Oh, well. The entire SEC is looking so Jekyll and Hyde, that I feel simultaneously confident and terrified of everyone except Missouri and Auburn. And even Auburn has some kind of witch doctor bullshite going on with their stadium, so who even knows. I'm taking this one week at a time. A&M can't decide if they want to be good or not, but I fully expect a dog fight, and I'm challenging myself to fully believe in a win. They should be just as scared of us.

I'm sure it is in his mind, lol.

Eh, you're probably right. It's been a long time and I feel like both parties have moved on. I'm just spitballing and was almost surely off the market there. Nonetheless, it was cathartic for Hog fans to see him fail at Louisville, because he was looking like the one to take us to the promised land for a little while. It hurts to see things like Lou Holtz leave and win a title at ND, or Jimmy Johnson get hired and win a title at Miami. That's not the case with Petrino.

I can't help but feel a victory here would be cathartic for him, too. He no doubt would have left us for another NFL gig, or the kind of money a place like Texas, Ohio State, Michigan, etc would have offered him. But that's really any coach at the end of the day. He has to know in hindsight at some level that he had it made here after WKU, Louisville, and now being at an FCS team. Beating us has to be healing in some way, and it'd go endlessly far in proving he deserves another shot at a big time job.

He screwed up big time and now 61 at an FCS program is not the pinnacle of coaching success.

Petrino winning yesterday would be terrible for Arkansas. Sam said that he was happy to get the win because he was very stressed out that losing to a team you are supposed to beat would be bad. Also it would give Petrino more positive publicity beating Arkansas who fired him. Thank goodness and Sam was to that didn't happen.

Things happen for a reason, but it doesn't make them any less frustrating. If you'd have asked me through the Chad and end of the Bert era, is have the you ten times out of ten I'd accept probation for a pair of titles in my lifetime. Even Bear Bryant. He was from Arkansas. There exists a probable set of circumstances that he could have come here instead. It wasn't in the cards for us, but it's hard to not think about it.