Cue ‘em up. The ESPN detractors are itching to tell you how much the network has it out for Arkansas. The state, the athletic program, “Arkansansans” themselves. Enmity for the Worldwide Leader in Sports has only grown over the last decade, too, as culture wars have seeped into every aspect of American life, including what was once – ahem – sacred, sports.
If you listen to those haters, anyway. Of course, they’re wrong. ESPN’s decline has been hastened by consumers’ shift to streaming more than anything. And political ideology is, and has been, intrinsically tied to sports since almost the dawn of athletic endeavor, so pretending a sports programming network in a post-Obama era carries disdain for denizens of a state that may lack progressiveness is ludicrous. Look, the reason Arkansas football isn’t talked about nationally is that isn’t very good.
A recent piece by Adam Rittenberg and Bill Connelly, a pair of ESPN.com writers, backs up such a proclamation. The two named Arkansas one of the most underachieving football teams in the country, a statement which everyone should be able to get behind, regardless of one’s affinity for ESPN. Right?
The authors of the piece incorporated expected SP+, long-term history, stadium capacity and coaching/staff salaries. SP+ is a proprietary metric that analyzes a team’s tempo and opponent-adjusted efficiency. These were measured against a team’s five-year SP+ average for comparison.
Rittenberg and Connelly didn’t rank the teams, per se, but instead put them into tiered lists. Arkansas’ tier is simply titled “Under the projections,” which doesn’t seem so bad until one of those aforementioned prone to animus for ESPN realizes the Razorbacks didn’t make the tier called “Hoops or else,” a group comprised of the blue bloods of college basketball that have sometimes had good football seasons. You know, your UCLAs, North Carolinas and Kansases.
Arkansas Part of Most Underachieving Group of Five
The metrics, according to the authors, indicate Arkansas should be much better than it is.
The Razorbacks, by the SP+ numbers, should be the 21st best team in the country on average. Instead, the metrics show Arkansas is 53rd, underachieving by a remarkable 32 spots. The only teams on the list that have a bigger gap are Nebraska (19th expected vs. 60th actual), Arizona (53rd expected vs. 86th actual), Colorado (43rd expected vs. 98th actual) and Georgia Tech (41st expected vs. 100th actual). Arizona and Colorado have distinct chances of turning things around soon, what with the Wildcats coming off a 10-win season and Colorado tempting with Deion Sanders holding the reins, though it remains to be seen if the Buffs’ results can come close to matching Coach Prime’s hype. Tech, on the other hand, hasn’t been elite since Arkansas legend Frank Broyles played there during World War II.
To be clear, Arkansas is still better than other teams on the list, such as Maryland, Arizona State, Cal-Berkeley and Indiana. But the piece isn’t about overall quality (of which Arkansas’ is still limited), instead it’s about meeting expectations. What I found most curious about the Razorbacks’ expectations and why they were so high, or at least higher than I anticipated, were the items Rittenberg and Connelly listed as assets. Chiefly, “a large and loyal fan base” and a “top-15 history.”
What Arkansas Did 60 Years Ago Doesn’t Matter, Folks
That history has seen the Hogs ranked inside the top 15 in the AP poll in just 10 seasons since joining the SEC. Ten seasons out of 32. They’ve finished the season ranked inside the top 15 in just three seasons out of those top 32 and the highest Arkansas has ever been slotted in the College Football Playoff rankings is 21st.
Going back any further than 1992 for “historical” purposes as it relates to modern success is foolish. The game has changed so much in the last three decades, after all.
Still, that history is part of the reason why many people 45-and-older think Arkansas should be better than it is. They remember Broyles or Lou Holtz or Ken Hatfield. Maybe they remember all of them. Arkansas would not have appealed to the SEC back in the early 1990s if not for the success achieved by those three coaches.
Unfortunately, as the game has changed, Arkansas as a program has not changed with it. The school’s continual disregard for the hiring of progressive football minds has only stifled any potential success and the one time university brass did take a chance – Bobby Petrino – his foibles were so extreme the decision-makers seemed to have decided to never try it again. Arkansas has had nothing but Good Ol’ Boys running the show since (and frankly, before, even).
Besides, do you think anyone under the age of 30 who isn’t a dyed-in-the-wool Arkansas homer really cares about the Holtz and Hatfield eras? Get serious.
Do You Love the Hogs If You Don’t Give Them Your Money?
As for the large and loyal fanbase, they’re among those believers. But such an asset is only helpful if said fanbase coughs up the dough. In the NIL era, money is going to win championships even more than it did before players could make thousands off their name, image and likeness. And Arkansas’ NIL collective isn’t exactly raking in the cash. Arkansas Edge launched a drive to have 5,000 members in March and by the time executive director Chris Bauer stepped down last month, the number of members was 782. Neither large nor loyal.
Anyway, even if you want to use those adjectives, they come with limited allure. Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium is the 11th biggest in the 16-team SEC. Sellouts are rare and nonexistent during bad years (save Texas). And the clamor for Hogs merchandise outside of the Natural State and its borders hardly registers. Texas, on the other hand, is a national brand. Like Florida or Alabama or OU or a number of the Razorbacks’ counterparts in the SEC.
Take away those two supposed assets, which I’m not convinced are actually valid to the conversation, and it looks more like Arkansas is finishing seasons in line to where it should. That’s a positive. Of course, considering Arkansas plays in the SEC and most of those seasons over the last decade have been bad, well, it’s why Arkansas is what Arkansas is. Whether Arkansas can ever overachieve – or even just win – on a consistent basis is a topic for another day. The Hogs have done it before with workmanlike seasons in the Houston Nutt era or even with the brothers Morgan under Bret Bielema and in 2021 with Pittman at the helm.
Expect Another Long Year
This season’s expectations place Arkansas closer to where the Hogs have finished in those aforementioned rankings, not where the data expected them to finish. Minnesota and Maryland are just ahead, while Duke and – get this – UCF are just behind Arkansas, which is ranked 46th. The Golden Knights will run former Razorbacks quarterback KJ Jefferson behind center this year.
If UCF ends up better than Arkansas, it’s hard to imagine Sam Pittman getting another run to right the ship, especially after Jefferson decided to exit a program at which he is the greatest at his position in history for a team that hasn’t even been in FBS as long as Arkansas’ been in the SEC. So much for history mattering, huh?
However you slice it, the Razorbacks have a ways to go if they want to be something more than a casual team cosplaying as a power. Minnows grow up to be big fish sometimes. But they also get eaten. And that isn’t ESPN’s or any of the media’s fault. It’s Arkansas’.
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See our latest on Arkansas football here:
Rittenberg talks about the underachievers tiers in college football:
More on Arkansas football:
This doesn’t sound promising
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