Look at what we have wrought.
We despise so much. Nothing is ever good enough. Not our teams or favorite players. Not our jobs. Not our marriages. Not our president or our economy. Nothing is ever good enough.
HawgSports’ Trey Biddy is one of the best in the business when it comes to the Arkansas beat; never mind he’s one of my favorite humans in this job I’ve held for 10 seasons. He’s a fantastic dude who knows what he’s talking about and isn’t, typically, prone to overreaction. Typically.
In the late hours following Arkansas’ 39-26 win over Texas Tech in the Liberty Bowl, the focus wasn’t, really, on what the Razorbacks did well. It was on what they could have done better. Not just by Biddy, but by the intelligentsia – ahem – online. People ragged on Sam Pittman’s timeout usage, Arkansas’ inconsistency offensively and, inexplicably, players celebrating early in games.
I don’t know. Maybe just, like, be happy?
That isn’t ever going to happen again on a regular basis. It’s just part a world now in which everyone has a platform on which to vent their informed opinion, grating ignorance or anything on the spectrum between. Marketplace of ideas, indeed.
So, instead of trying to convince you of something about which you’re probably not interested, anyway – joy – let’s examine the issues of complaint.
Arkansas’ Fumbling Problem
This is the biggest legitimate gripe.
No one would argue that Arkansas is good at taking care of a wrapped football offensively. The Razorbacks have lost 35 fumbles in the last three seasons combined. This year, only one team in FBS had more fumbles lost: Oklahoma, a team that really has a fan base up in arms about underachieving. And no team had more than Arkansas’ 30 total fumbles this year. Arkansas must keep its arms on the football better than it has for sustained success.
But fumbles are not indicative of a lack of success. Correlation, not causation. Three teams that made the College Football Playoff – Georgia, Texas and Southern Methodist – all committed 20 fumbles or more this year. The Longhorns even lost a double-digit amount of fumbles, yet they remain on the cusp of a national title.
Holding on to the football should be a top priority for Arkansas as giving it away too often can ultimately bite too hard. The numbers show, however, that at least on the NFL level losing the ball in this way is too much of a crapshoot to come to any reasonable conclusion.
Arkansas’ Game Management
One of Biddy’s biggest complaints, which he admits to seeing as a bigger deal than most people, is the way Pittman uses timeouts. Biddy isn’t a fan of calling a timeout immediately before the two-minute warning, preferring instead to use it after.
It’s a justifiable perspective. It’s just that, though: a perspective.
Arkansas is left with more time to think following Texas Tech’s touchdown with 1:58 left in the first half if the Hogs hold on to a final timeout. But it may or may not make a difference. More time to think does not necessarily mean success. Arkansas went down and kicked a 39-yard field goal, anyway. Was the timeout going to help the team pick up those additional 22 yards for a touchdown instead? Unlikely.
Still, the protestation is indicative of some Razorbacks’ folks’ state of mind. They won the game.
Arkansas’ Big Play Ability
Twelve of Arkansas’ 66 offensive plays went for 10 yards or more Friday night. On the season, the Hogs had 246 plays this year, leading all of FBS. The big-chunk capability was consistent.
Big plays are required. Take a look at the top 20 teams in FBS when it came to yards per play. In that top 20, you’ll find more programs Arkansas wishes it were than inferior programs to Arkansas: Alabama, Indiana, Kansas State, Notre Dame, Penn State, Ohio State, Boise State, Ole Miss, Miami (FL). Five of those teams were right there near Arkansas when it came to big plays, all finishing in the top 20 there, too. This is a good thing.
It’s just everything else that drove people bonkers.
Where Arkansas stunk was in negative-yardage plays allowed. Taylen Green’s propensity for taking inopportune sacks (more inopportune than normal, that is) is The Razorbacks lost ground on 83 plays this season, finishing 115th out of the 134 teams in FBS. A better offensive line would go a long way in alleviating such an issue. And a better offensive line is just what Pittman has gone out and recruited through the transfer portal since the regular season ended.
It’s a shame next season’s slate is so tough.
Close, No Cigar
The true measurement of whether you see things as half-full or half-empty. Close losses can either signify a team that should have won the game or a team that could have won the game, depending on your perspective. Those fond of Arkansas seem to take the former more often than the latter.
Pittman is 6-14 in games decided by seven points or fewer in the last four seasons. In 2024, Arkansas went 1-3 in such games. If you’re on the Fire Pittman bandwagon, the Hogs should have gone 4-0. But that isn’t realistic against Tennessee, Texas A&M, Oklahoma State and Missouri. Winning just two of those games would have been an impressive feat, although it’s somewhat surprising the lone win over that quartet came against the best team.
Given the circumstances of what Pittman had to work with – i.e. his roster – the man did quite the job, covering the spread against Oklahoma State, Texas A&M and getting the upset against then No. 4 Tennessee. Against Missouri, the other one-score loss, the spread was three points. A near-miss.
In other words, Arkansas did better than the oddsmakers and most prognosticators predicted this season. They just happened to lose nailbiters to Texas A&M and Missouri, which feels worse because Pittman’s predecessors were even worse against those programs than he’s been.
In 2024, the Hogs finished 8-5 against the spread against a 7-6 actual record. Thus, overachieving. Don’t tell this guy that, though:
Players Can’t Celebrate?
“Arkansas is up 21-3 and I just see too much dancing, too much celebrating,” Biddy said at the end of his post-game Walk and Talk video. “Handstands and stuff. Guys, we’ve seen this before. Quit acting like the game is over in the first quarter.”
Silly to waste time on this one, frankly, so it’s getting only a cursory mention. Let people celebrate however they want, unless they’re hurting something or someone. If Isaac TeSlaa wants to do a headstand after what he and so many others thought was a touchdown (even if it turned he actually went out of bounds at the one) in the final game of his collegiate career, he should, time left on the clock be damned.
“Act like you’ve been there?” Sorry, Trey – but that’s nonsense. They haven’t been there before. TeSlaa, for instance, wasn’t on that 2022 team that went to the Liberty Bowl. This was the one and only bowl game he’ll ever play in. You don’t go to Iguazu Falls or the Statue of Liberty and decide to opt out of the whole taking photographs thing. No one gets upset at people taking photographs (Well, most of the time). Heck, entire businesses are predicated on human beings’ nature to celebrate trivialities. Few complain about that, even if Instagram is stupid.
Leave people be, man.
Ultimately, nothing is answered. Nothing at all. Biddy and I and every person who has started a YouTube channel or podcast from their Man Cave to opine about Razorbacks sports will keep Monday morning quarterbacking and predicting until the cows come home, because that’s what they want and what you want.
And it’s a lot more profitable to be angry than happy. Arkansas is America.
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See our latest here:
Biddy’s still the best at these walk and talks, even if someone was doing these kinds of things first. Ahem.
More from him on the celebrating starting at 2:00 here:
More on Arkansas football from Best of Arkansas Sports…
