When did our athletics lose their pride?

After the motorcycle fiasco imo.

Football was rolling, DVH had solid teams and Pel was on his way out.
What ensued after that was an unmitigated disaster by Jeff Long.


FWIW, I'll be spending more time this fall chasing specks and reds in the back bays.

Good thoughts. I think that’s it.

Is it reversible or will our kids and grandkids never understand Razorback pride? I fear it may be over.

ARHog…I’m in Apalachicola. If you want to come chase some tarpon along with the specs and reds…let me know. Primary tool is a fly rod!

Shoot me an email at gwilkerson26@att.net and we can exchange contact info.

I don't really care about football anymore. It started at the end of 2016 when we refused to fire Bert, only to let him bring us a dismal 2017 and end up doing it then. Everyone knew we were gonna end up having to do that, but we let him set us another year massively behind. Then the apathy sank in even more when we hired Chad, who everyone knew was going to be a disaster, but was worse than I thought. I became ambivalent when we hired Pittman, and although 2021 was a nice surprise, football is dead to me after we didn't fire him at the end of last year. Even making a flashy, homerun hire wouldn't restore it for me at this point. Mostly because the NIL changes and bowl opt-outs have ruined the significance of the sport itself for me. Arkansas football is for people with Stockholm Syndrome and for the college kids to have social events for four years. That's it.

For basketball, I was all-in on Muss and was since day one, and I really wish he liked it here more. With Calipari? Everyone is saying we hired our basketball Jimbo. Maybe so. It's more than likely his glory days are behind him. But A&M fricked up with Jimbo because they made it known right out the gate that he had until the end of time to win a natty, and he wasn't going anywhere with a ridiculous $75M buyout. I respected the fact that they went out and got a coach who won the NC only five years prior and had only one single bad season in his coaching career. They did it in the most Aggie way, but it showed the fire of an attitude that I wish Arkansas had: that they were going to go out and compete, look like they give a shite, and spend whatever it took doing so. Meanwhile, we were hiring coaches with three years of losing experience at SMU, and lifelong offensive line coaches, and still somehow massively overpaying.

But we finally showed that attitude with Cal. He's the highest paid coach on campus by a significant margin, and rightfully so, since football isn't a thing we're ever going to be serious in again. So we're at least going to have good recruiting, make the tournament every year, and not be laughingstocks.

As far as baseball goes, we have our baseball Mark Richt. The difference between me saying that vs. a Georgia fan is Mark Richt was a good coach and I'd have been grateful for him. Nonetheless, a spade is a spade, and I kept up with baseball less when May started because I knew we were in for a disappointment, and after the SEC tournament, I didn't even watch a single Regional game. I had no idea we were eliminated until someone said so at work, because even though I 100% expected to make it out of the Regionals, I knew we weren't making it out of Supers. And this is nothing against DVH, again, I've never called for that man to be fired. But for the past two years in a row, we've spent the entire year ranked in the top five (#1 for half the season this year), and then got upset in a Regional that we hosted. In 2021, we were #1 almost the whole year and got upset in our own Super. In case any of you weren't aware, you have to go all the way back to 2019 to see us lose a home series in baseball… until the post-season rolls around, and then we somehow drop a series when it matters the most against decidedly subpar competition. With our home record and the talent we have, hosting a Regional should be a sure thing. Three out of the past four years being complete busts ain't really doing it for me, and the teams DVH coaches being the most unclutch teams I've ever seen has to be addressed somehow. Maybe a change in hitting coaches would inspire me a bit, but whatever.

My attitude right there is part of the problem, but when I'm right about 70% of the time, then I feel pretty justified. It's not that I have no pride, it still stings when I see other ADs achieve, but we support a business that cares about selling tickets and merch more than giving fans a ROI. Why bother when their addiction is going to keep the machine going? You can just mail it in

It's more apathy now. Fans are past the negativity.

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Fans are past the negativity.

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You're literally on the rant right now talking about how a coach with two conference titles in the last four years should go away.

Fans are not beyond the negativity.

I have a bit more hope, than I did overall at this point.

Football, Pitt surprised many of us with 9 wins... He hasn't forgotten how to coach the Oline, he for some reason just didn't. I know that he is more involved than ever with them. Petrino hasn't forgotten how to scheme and run a successful offense, Our defensive coaches have shown a remarkable ability to go above predictions on that side with Woodson, etc.

Special teams will be a crapshoot... most likely. WR's Fine, TE's good, RB's should be fine...


Basketball: I am excited that Cal has adopted the view of 3-4 freshmen who hopefully will have a few develop and stay with NIL, and hit the portal. I think we will do very well.

Baseball: Remains to be seen, but what you... or someone wrote above about him being our "Richt" is probably spot on. Let's see him hit the portal.

Football will either sink, or swim this season and the hope is there because we will either have some success, or begin anew.

You called it Pride, I called it quit and people think I’m wrong. But it happens when you hire 4 failed football coaches in a row. Then you don’t hold them to standards, so they can’t hold the kids to standards.

Hire 2-3 failed basketball coaches in a row, who are content with mediocrity.

Then you get a coach in baseball, who has made us good enough to never be fired. He has became the world’s best college regular season coach. Then it’s like he has no aspirations to take the next step. If he did, the hitting coach would be let go last week, but he is going to good guy Dave him and let him take another job, just like Sam did with Odom. Instead of saying you failed to meet expectations, you are gone.

I do bc it is baseball portal season now.