Let's have an HONEST conversation

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Historically we are the 33rd winningest program in cfb history. 

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Before the Bobby wreck, they were basically a top 20 program all time. It just shows how badly the last 10-15 yrs has destroyed the football program.

Anytime someone is making excuses for mediocrity while many other schools with the same or less resources are buckling up and getting better it’s a sign of lazy loser mentality.

Explain how Mizzou, Ole Miss, TCU, Illinois, Iowa, Baylor, Clemson, Texas Tech have moved ahead of us in prestige and being competitive.

I won’t even go to programs we were at one time equal or better than…like Auburn, Florida, Georgia, OU, Penn State, Oregon passed us. Many of those do have resources we might not have.

Just stay with friggin Mizzou. That alone is reason to clean house in the football offices and athletic offices in Fayetteville.


Yes….comparisons are exactly what need to be made.

Arkansas isn't winning the SEC or a natty in anything other than basketball or baseball. Pour all neutral resources into those two sports. Football can go 7-5/8-4 with a cheap young coach and middling NIL.

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Historically we are the 33rd winningest program in cfb history.

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Before the Petrino firing, we were better than this. Before Hatfield left, we were even better. Arkansas football has been trending downward since we left the SWC, and there's likely not much that would have changed that. With Arkansas high school football falling off and the switch to the SEC, our football win total from 1992 to 2023 would have slowly lost footing. Now, the emergence of NIL should be exactly what teams like us, Nebraska, SMU, etc need to make a big leap. We're (allegedly) a "serious" football program and a "football school," so we have the resources to commit to dumping funds into NIL and moving up, while places like Alabama that were already doing it heavily, can only hold steady or lose a little ground.

There was another thread a few days ago about the record in our one-loss games under Pittman being switched. DaleDenton made a good point and said:

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Keeping it close is different then winning close games.

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I think this is a good point. Look at the 2021 Alabama game. Bama played Georgia for the NC that year, and we lost by 7 points at Alabama. That's losing a one-score game, but that's clearly different. And then you have the Ole Miss game that same year, which was just about as satisfied as I've ever been with a Hog loss. It was a shootout, and we decided to go for two in OT rather than kicked the XP and drag it out. It was basically scoring at will at that point, and whoever made the first mistake loses, so let's not even give them a chance. It was the right call. There was a miscommunication on the field (of course) and we lost, but I couldn't even be mad.

We just need to 1) Win our games against G5 opponents, and 2) Stop losing the close contests against teams that don't become bowl eligible even with us being an extra win. This is doubly true when we have them at home.

In 2022 we went 7–6. In the A&M game, we went up 14–0 in the first quarter. It was 14–7 and we were on the three yard line about to punch it in, and one of the A&M players just… takes the ball from our RB's hands. Just takes it and returns it 82 yards for a TD. Then we implode, losing 21–23, and A&M goes on to win five whole games. That's unacceptable and unforgiveable. 7–6 would have been 8–5 and two in a row against A&M, maybe getting this ridiculous monkey off our back. Same year, we had the Liberty debacle. Liberty was coached by Hugh Freeze, and he had them 7–1. Except his starting AND backup QB were out when they came to play us. This G5 team beats us 19–21 in Little Rock. With a third string QB. They didn't even score the entire second half. They go on to lose the next four in a row, including to a 6–7 UConn team, a 3–8 Virginia Tech team at home, and a 7–6 New Mexico State team at home (by 35 fricking points), ending 8–5. Only Sam Pittman and Chad Morris could lose that game. Disregarding all other close games, we could have been 9–4, probably ranked, and experienced no falloff from the previous year. If we'd have just not blown two almost unblowable games.

2023, BYU beats us at home 31–38. We won by 17 points the year before @ BYU, and we've established what a joke job that year was. Why and how did we lose this game? They went 5–7 in 2023, we went up 14–0 in the first quarter and were winning 31–21 in the third. We let them score 17 unanswered points with less than 5:00 remaining in the third?? We had a QB starting for the third straight year. We can't lose that game.

5–7 Mississippi State beats us 3–7 at home. We couldn't even manage one fricking TD against a team that'd be 4–8 without us as a win? At home? With a third year starting QB? 4–8 becomes 6–6 and just a little disappointing if we win those two games.

Last year, Oklahoma State beats us in 2OT. They went 3–9 and 0–8 in the Big 12. We were their ONLY P5 win that year. We were up 21–7 in the second quarter. Are you fricking kidding me? 7–6 is 8–5 on that game alone.

Now we already have a ridiculous loss to Memphis under our belts this year. Stopping this horse shite while elevating our game play in no other way gets us to that 8 win average.

Truthfully, I don't know what's going on. We watch Ole Miss fire Matt Luke after just three years and then steal Lane Kiffin out from under us. MSU fired Zach Arnett after ten games. Auburn fired Bryan Harsin after less than two years. Missouri fired Barry Odom after four years and a .500 record. Programs we were traditionally better than or on-par with are making these decisive firings, and we have Sam Pittman in year six, with a losing record, a 7–19 record in one-score affairs, and we're not sure if he's even going to get fired at the end of this season??

The problem isn't that we hired Sam. It's that we've kept him now three years longer than we should have. I seriously don't understand what's being gained by this, no other SEC team except Vanderbilt would put up with these results for six years, and even they're doing better than us now. And just as confusing, NIL comes around and throws us a lifeline. And we… openly and vehemently say frick that shite? To what end? WHY? This is all literally on purpose and there's no benefit.

.500 in conference and winning three OoC games would be getting us to 7–5 before bowl season. Realistically, that fourth OoC game is a P5 scrub and could be won most years to be 8–4. 7/8 should be the basement every single year. Any better than 4–4 in conference puts us at 8/9 and ranked. I don't honestly care how it goes, I haven't been emotionally invested in Arkansas football in years, but just on pure general principle, this has become a mind-boggling psychological experiment and a study in just how improbably we can mangle ourselves beyond repair.

Maybe the big money is saving their dollars on the right hire to get the right talent for them. Makes sense to me. You can't throw enough money at the current program to make a shite's difference. I know some are bitching about Taylen, but he wasn't that expensive in the grand scheme of things and Petrino has our offense looking good.
We need a head coach/GM with an eye for talent. Petrino for GM? I feel like we brought him back for more than Pittman's OC for a couple of years.

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Our NIL advantage over most is in basketball and baseball.

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I think that most fans are hanging out to their money because we haven't hired a serious head coach since Bert. He may have flopped, but his record in the B1G was proven. He should have won 8-9 games a season here with little trouble.

If Arkansas went out and hired a serious coach then fans would be willing to contribute to the NIL. I'm not throwing away my money to hear, "I didn't know what to do."

I donate $50 a month to basketball NIL only. I refused to give the football program a damn dime because it’s been loserville for a long time.

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Do you think Tyson would donate the way he is if he wasn’t best friends with Cal? He certainly wasn’t under Muss. Our basketball NIL isn’t coming from the average fan.

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Aren’t he and Gruden buddies too?

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hrow out the COVID year and Enos debacle and that’s what we are which is what people here were begging for when Chad was here. Just give us that!

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just take out the bad years and it’s not that bad!