I don't think anyone expects it with regularity, but many expect it to happen occasionally when the right circumstances and team arise. It has happened three times for Arkansas in the last ten seasons. Now let's examine the Bert years. The '14 team was capable with that defense. They choked a lot of games away and went 7-6. Examples include Missouri, aTm, Mississippi State, and the Alabama one stings the most. The '15 team was lead by upperclassmen and had a lot of NFL players on offense. They blew ten wins by losing to fricking Toledo, Texas Tech, and the notorious Bert bed shite against A&M. The '16 team was a big "wtf" but they still underachieved considering the Bert bed shits that occurred against god awful Missouri and in the bowl game. As bad as that run defense was, it still should have been an 8 win regular season team. Hell, even the '13 team underachieved. They were going to be bad under any coach, but they never should have gone 3-9. Member Rutgers? LSU? Mississippi State? They were in games and choked them away late in typical Bert bed shite fashion. Underachievement is the theme here. Bert has underachieved here, as evidenced by his losing record, and I don't think that is debatable. His teams have a troubling tendency to shite the game away late, start seasons looking like shite, and lose to inferior opponents or at least let them hang around for way too long (Samford, LA Tech).

ETA: If we win even close to half of those games I mentioned, many people are not calling for the Fat Man's head, and his record wouldn't look near as bad either.

This post was edited on 3/29/17 at 4:25 pm

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Posted by troyt37

Member since Mar 2008

13359 posts

Posted on 3/29/17 at 6:22 pm to Arkansasrazorback

quote:
The '14 team was capable with that defense. They choked a lot of games away and went 7-6.

Lost to #6 Auburn, #6 aTm, #7 Alabama, #10 Georgia, #1 Mississippi State, and #17 Missouri, with Shutout wins over #17 LSU, and #8 Ole Miss. Inexcusable, right? How many teams have six top 10 games in one season? Letdown? Sure. But lets be real.

quote:
The '15 team was lead by upperclassmen and had a lot of NFL players on offense. They blew ten wins by losing to fricking Toledo, Texas Tech, and the notorious Bert bed shite against A&M.

Toledo went 10-2 and ended the season ranked in 2015 if I'm not mistaken. The Tech and aTm game sucked, but we just weren't a very good team in the early season. Some of it is Bielema's fault, sure. Wasn't that AA's first year?

quote:
The '16 team was a big "wtf" but they still underachieved considering the Bert bed shits that occurred against god awful Missouri and in the bowl game. As bad as that run defense was, it still should have been an 8 win regular season team.

Lost to #10 aTm, #1 Alabama, #24 LSU. The ones that pissed me off last year were the losses to Auburn, where Bielema let the team get intimidated (I think) and the loss to Missouri, as you rightly called it shitting the bed. You are partly right about the run defense, but you aren't thinking about the implications of a run first team like Arkansas not being able to stop the run. No way we win 8 with that run defense.

I'm not here to defend Bielema. Some of the complete breakdowns and losses are definitely his fault. He let the team relax too much when they were up. I'm not even sure if he possesses a killer mentality to keep the foot on the gas and up the teams arse when things are going well anymore. But if you're going to claim that just an old body could come in and do better, you should at least throw out some names so we can look at their record.

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Posted by rockiee

Sugar Land, TX

Member since Jan 2015

28540 posts

Posted on 3/29/17 at 6:57 pm to Arkansasrazorback

quote:
The '14 team was capable with that defense. They choked a lot of games away and went 7-6. Examples include Missouri, aTm, Mississippi State, and the Alabama one stings the most.

While you aren't wrong about those games, I think it is a little unrealistic to assume we hold on to all those games. Mainly the Mississippi State game on the road and the Bama game. We were certainly in position to win those games but those were all very tough situations.

quote:
The '15 team was lead by upperclassmen and had a lot of NFL players on offense. They blew ten wins by losing to fricking Toledo, Texas Tech, and the notorious Bert bed shite against A&M.

I can definitely agree here. While Toledo wasn't a typical MAC team, we still should have won that game. I think most would agree that we beat that team if that game is later in the year. Which brings the whole theme that we see pop up quite often about starting slow.

quote:
The '16 team was a big "wtf" but they still underachieved considering the Bert bed shits that occurred against god awful Missouri and in the bowl game.

Agreed

quote:
Hell, even the '13 team underachieved. They were going to be bad under any coach, but they never should have gone 3-9. Member Rutgers? LSU? Mississippi State? They were in games and choked them away late in typical Bert bed shite fashion. Underachievement is the theme here. Bert has underachieved here, as evidenced by his losing record, and I don't think that is debatable. His teams have a troubling tendency to shite the game away late, start seasons looking like shite, and lose to inferior opponents or at least let them hang around for way too long (Samford, LA Tech).

I think the toughest thing to judge is when we see his teams play like a top 25 team in the country one week and maybe not a top 50 the next week. Florida game and then the follow up LSU game was a good example. Although I think we all know that Florida mainly feasted on a week division. There are more examples but I think everyone understands the point.

I have felt to a certain degree that it is mostly useless to be hypercritical of Bert right now because he isn't going anywhere after this year barring something unforeseen. I don't blame others for doing that though with what we have see during his tenure. Jeff Long has definitely done him some favors on that contract.

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