Arkansas Times

Thursday, November 27, 2008 - 12:39:43

Sooie (11-27-08)

Mama said there'd be days like this. The football team pissed away an early lead to lose a game to a 3-7 Mississippi State. The basketball team fell like a tree in the forest to Missouri State. Meanwhile, the former head Hog and current Colonel Reb led a squad of inherited talent past an overrated LSU team on national television. Dark days, indeed.

Having been forced to piece together a ragged game through the infuriating filter of chipper Chuck Barrett, I moped helplessly on the couch, watching Ole Miss/LSU on mute while we struggled mightily against the sorriest team in our conference. Scratch that, the second sorriest. (Even Auburn posted a win over the Bulldogs.)

Dick the Younger had a solid debut at starter, and we put more points on the board against the Bulldogs than against any other SEC opponent, but nothing's enough to overcome the horrible performance of our defense. Passing and rushing evenly for 445 yards of total offense, MSU looked like a complete team against our weak scheme.

Yes, senior linemen Antwain Robinson and Ernest Mitchell sat this one out, supposedly over some low-grade mutiny. But if defensive coordinator Willy Robinson hadn't lost his seniors already, he's definitely going to have a hard time convincing them to show up the day after Thanksgiving against the Tigers. Poor tackling wasn't the only problem last Saturday. Our boys got whipped by an offense that couldn't buy a conversion against other SEC teams.

Houston Nutt's likely going to win SEC Coach of the Year — just like he did his first season at Arkansas — for toppling two perceived giants, one a little more substantial than the other. Whatever. We know Nutt's game. We know his limitations. He squanders talent like no other, and the Rebel faithful will be thrilled with every winning season, regardless of the extent of a given team's under-performance. Good for you, Ole Miss. Get your hopes up as high as they'll go, but keep your eyes peeled for the inevitable meltdown. Just spare us the quizzical looks in our direction when the man stumbles onto a little success here and there.

When Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama fans scratch their heads and wonder why a program like Arkansas would get rid of a winning coach, it's the essentialism of their confusion that chaps my hide. For them, Arkansas just doesn't have what it takes. We don't know our place. We're talking out of turn. As a matter of course, they begin almost every season with the national championship in their sights. So should we, regardless of what they make of our aspirations.

Posted by Derek Jenkins | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wednesday, November 19, 2008 - 17:29:38

Petrino's Priorities

Chris Low of ESPN's SEC blog prolly doesn't have many friends around here, but I'm glad to read his latest entry.

President-elect Barack Obama's proposed plan for an eight-team playoff in college football was welcomed by many coaches around the country.

But not everybody is on board with Obama's plan.

"I think he ought to call us so the head coaches can figure out how to get the price of gas down," said Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino, adding that he was kidding.

Petrino is serious, though, about not wanting to see a college playoff.

"I think it's a good system now," Petrino said. "We play a lot of games and miss a lot of school and do a lot of extra things to make sure we keep our players eligible. It's not something I believe in."

I'm a huge fan of NCAA sports, but the practices of the organization already border on exploitation, and adding a month to the season is a very big deal. I've taught athletes at the college level, and among the best of them were the hardest-working students I've ever met. During the season, these men and women work 16 hour days, six or seven days a week, in the classroom and on the playing field.

For free.

While old men in suits make oodles off of their sweat.

And because of the fragile promise of their professional careers, because their athletic advisers hover outside the classroom and urge them to drop classes at the first sign of a setback, because they're surrounded by people who are willing to let them skate by, because they've been allowed to do so since they were old enough to show such potential, they've been given very little incentive to excel.

And many don't.

And then they attend combines and maybe they're drafted or maybe picked up for a few peanuts. Maybe a team needs a player with just the right characteristics. Maybe they get singled out by a good coach who knows how to develop professional athletes. Maybe they manage not to fuck up their knees or their shoulders. Maybe they get that big fat check. Maybe they're that lucky.

Be careful when people talk about extending seasons because many of them look to benefit monetarily from it. Be careful not to cross some imaginary line of decency that maybe we've already crossed. Be careful not to overextend a young person's abilities for some sense that a national championship means more than more money.

Athletes used to want to play college ball so they'd have a chance at an education. Don't make NCAA sports a de-facto farm system for a bunch of people who don't give a damn for those athletes. Don't get blinded by a sense of fairness that doesn't take their futures into account.

Some seasons it most definitely does not seem fair that a certain team fails to make the championship. Maybe they're the best team and one Saturday didn't go their way and they have to watch from the sidelines.

They'll get over it.

What they won't get over is having their lives peak at 22 years of age.

Posted by Derek Jenkins | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wednesday, November 19, 2008 - 17:24:13

Sooie (11-19-08)

OFF-WEEK BULLET POINTS

• Once again, Tim Tebow is primed to snatch the Heisman Trophy from the grasp of the front-runner. Graham Harrell needs to stay perfect to survive the onslaught.

• Despite Tebow's stats being down this season, despite a loss to Ole Miss, despite being only the third or fourth best player on his own team, the media love affair lives on.

• Florida is clearly the most talent-laden team in the country, but do they have the focus to pull through and win it all? We're lucky to get a chance to see them take on a determined Alabama in the SEC championship game. If the Gators falter and the Crimson Tide goes to the title game, I expect them to lose to one of the powerful Big 12 contenders. But if the Gators can play their game for the rest of the season, nobody's going to come close.

• The Big 12 might have all the great quarterbacks this season, but the SEC has Alabama's Julio Jones and Florida's Percy Harvin. Who's the more exciting player? Harvin can do anything, and Jones is only a freshman. Both are friggin' beasts!

• God bless Les Miles. As long as he's there to foul things up, LSU will never see the powerhouse it could be.

• I just like the way “No-show” Moreno sounds. Could we make that a thing?

• Vandy is favored over Tennessee this Saturday. Tusk sprouted wings over the weekend.

• With an offensive coordinator who plays as fast and loose as Gus Malzahn, Tulsa's bound to have an off-week or two — which is why any school with an open position ought to keep an eye on what happens to Todd Graham's Golden Hurricanes when Malzahn can only manage to put thirty on the board.

• Obama needs to examine the career of former U of A Chancellor John White and butt out of all things athletic. His outline for a playoff system makes a certain amount of sense, but he's got better things to do, and nothing turns to mire quicker than sports administration.

• Peyton Hillis had the game of his career so far on Sunday night, pulling duty as the go-to running back for the Broncos. One reception on the sideline gave him a chance to display Crabtree-like athleticism, tip-toeing along the chalk for a few extra yards and a pivotal first down. A lot of NFL scouts are going to be a little reticent to listen to what Houston Nutt has to say after his whisper/smear campaign last season focused not on Hillis' manifold abilities but on his locker room presence. Denver thanks him kindly.

• Congrats to junior forward Michael Washington, who garnered SEC player of the week honors for his performance last Friday night. Washington scored thirty and led the Hogs to an inspiring comeback victory over Southeastern Louisiana. That's right, I said “comeback victory over Southeastern Louisiana.” Revolutions take time.

• Jermain Taylor recorded an impressive win Friday night against a strong opponent. Because I know more about weather patterns in southeast Asia than I do about boxing, I let my friend John Riley file a couple posts on my blog leading up to the fight. Log on to http://www.arktimes.com/blogs/sooie/ to check out his recap. His prediction of Taylor's next opponent? “[H]is next fight should be with Sakio Bika, the most recent champion of the Contender reality/boxing TV series, who also happens to be campaigning at 168 lbs. Trust me, it would be a classic.”

• Mississippi State is a poor team. Their offense would have trouble scoring against your average high school squad. But they're still Division I athletes, and quarterback Tyson Lee gets better each week. We should have no trouble scoring against a defense that has been decimated by injuries, but let's not count our chickens just yet.

Posted by Derek Jenkins | Permalink | Comments (0)

Saturday, November 15, 2008 - 11:28:08

Jermain Taylor vs. Jeff Lacy: Who Will Win, and Why, and Who the Winner Should Fight Next

Like a lot of Americans today, I know diddley-squat about boxing. Instead of faking it, I'm gonna let my buddy John Riley drop his wisdom on you leading up to tonight's Jermin Taylor bout.

An old adage in boxing says that “styles make fights”: the truth of this axiom is what makes boxing such a hard sport to predict. How else can we explain how Jermain Taylor was able to beat Bernard Hopkins twice, then suffer two defeats at the hands of Kelly Pavlik, who then was beaten by Hopkins?

So what are the styles of JT and Jeff Lacy, and how will they mesh?

Jermain Taylor is in the boxer-puncher mold. He is a superior athlete with excellent hand speed and a textbook jab, honed through years of amateur experience. If Taylor can keep the fight in the middle of the ring, control distance with his jab, and land enough solid power punches to get Lacy’s respect, he could potentially win every round. He needs to avoid getting lured into a slugfest, which may be the only kind of fight that Lacy can win.

Jeff Lacy is more one-dimensional than Taylor. The one thing he does have is power, in both hands, and power can be the great equalizer: you don’t have to win rounds if you score a knockout. Lacy is an aggressive fighter who will come forward and try to get inside on Taylor and land power punches. If much of the fight takes place in the corners or on the ropes, chances are that Lacy is dictating the fight.

The oddsmakers have Taylor as a 5-1 favorite. One could argue that Jermain needs to not only win this fight, but look impressive as well. A particularly interesting subplot is whether either fighter will be able to hurt the other at any point in the fight.

I think Jermain wins this fight by decision, claiming perhaps 9-10 of the 12 rounds. Provided Jermain gets by Lacy, his next fight should be with Sakio Bika, the most recent champion of the Contender reality/boxing TV series, who also happens to be campaigning at 168 lbs. Trust me, it would be a classic.

Posted by Derek Jenkins | Permalink | Comments (0)

Saturday, November 15, 2008 - 11:25:37

Sooie (11-13-08)

Another week in a frustrating season tempered by distant hope, and yet again Casey Dick's play at quarterback gets the lede. This time, the numbers tell a different story. Granted, the Hogs were thoroughly manhandled by the Gamecocks' top shelf defense at all positions. That Dick was sacked six times can't be all his fault, despite his hair-tear-ingly, screamingly, jumping-up-and-down-ingly infuriating inability to get rid of the fricking ball already(!). However, his worst play still manages to shock me, even if I see the mind-boggling interceptions coming from miles away. This far into the season, failure to throw the ball away equals either incompetence or refusal to accept that a punt is better than a sack, and the Hogs simply can't win against a powerful defense with that kind of baggage.

Continue reading "Sooie (11-13-08)" »

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Saturday, November 08, 2008 - 11:07:46

Sooie (11-6-08)

Anyone who saw the homecoming game knows Casey Dick wasn't throwing the ball all that well. The senior quarterback and head whipping boy completed 28 of 35 passes for 358 yards last Saturday, receiving SEC Offensive Player of the Week honors for his trouble, though many of his passes were tossed well behind his intended receiver. Plus, he got lots of yardage from post-catch spin moves and general beastliness on the part of our talented position players. The best throw of his career got dropped by Joe Adams on our 5 yard line. His last throw of the fourth quarter almost cost us the game. Thankfully, the defense held strong.

I don't mean to downplay Dick's individual performance; I mean to emphasize our play as a team. It's been a season of glimmers for the Razorbacks: a bright hope here, an amazing play there. But Saturday, Bobby Petrino's Razorbacks treated us to the most complete team performance of the year. Our offensive scheme looked every bit as exciting as Tulsa's much-touted attack. So much so, in fact, that our talented and undersized workhorse, Michael Smith, all but got the day off. Seems like every prized recruit got a major play in, and some of our more experienced players looked extra studly. Even Alex Tejada managed to redeem himself with three key field goals.

Continue reading "Sooie (11-6-08)" »

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Saturday, November 08, 2008 - 11:00:57

Guest Post: What Have You Done for Me Lately?-Jermain Taylor at the Crossroads

Like a lot of Americans today, I know diddley-squat about boxing. Instead of faking it, I'm gonna let my buddy John Riley drop his wisdom on you leading up to the Jermin Taylor bout. Tune in regularly for updates.

F Scott Fitzgerald once famously said that the problem with American lives was that they had no second acts. On Saturday, November 15 in Nashville, Tennessee we should learn whether there is a second act to Jermain Taylor’s boxing career. On that night, Taylor is matched up with his former US Olympic teammate Jeff “Left Hook” Lacy. You might remember Lacy. He was the once the Next Big Thing in the super middleweight division, a personable Florida native with the physique of a body builder and the power to match who had rolled through all of his opponents, setting up in 2006 the first of what has become a series of Trans-Atlantic superfights, this with another unbeaten fighter, Joe Calzaghe of Wales. Calzaghe exposed Lacy as a one-trick pony, thoroughly dismantling him in as one-sided a beat-down as we’ve seen in recent championship fights. Since then, Lacy has slowly been trying to rebuild his career, but no fight has come as easy as when he was in his ascendance, and he has also been sidetracked by injuries.

I had the chance to meet Lacy at the Winky Wright-Jermain Taylor fight in Memphis in June, 2006, and he’s as nice a guy as you could hope for. He graciously posed for pictures with my wife and me, even as the group he was with was clearly impatient and in a hurry to leave the arena. It’s hard for me to root against Lacy, but it’s clear to everyone in the boxing world that this fight is a do-or-die situation for Little Rock native Jermain Taylor’s boxing future.

Continue reading "Guest Post: What Have You Done for Me Lately?-Jermain Taylor at the Crossroads" »

Posted by Derek Jenkins | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sunday, November 02, 2008 - 22:08:17

Battle for the Boot?

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Thursday, October 30, 2008 - 12:09:37

Sooie (10-29-08)

The look on Houston Nutt's face when we recovered that onside kick makes everything worth it. Despite being manhandled the entire night, Arkansas was still in the game. We won't go away. We'll haunt the rest of his career. You've heard about the battle and the war. Winning one game doesn't mean he's escaped with his dignity intact. The Razorbacks finally have a true rival, even if it's just Mississippi. Playing for the Boot is well and good, carefully designed and surprisingly fruitful for a wholly contrived exhibition, but there's nothing like genuine enmity to make for real drama. Word of antics on the Ole Miss sideline seems to indicate that they're content to fan the flames for a while. We'll see what song they're singing in a few seasons.

Continue reading "Sooie (10-29-08)" »

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Tuesday, October 07, 2008 - 16:42:13

Sooie (10-10-08)

My baby brother brought his two-year-old up to Fayetteville this weekend for her first Hog game. I've been to sporting events with toddlers before, and I operated on the basis of two assumptions: 1). She'd be squirming by the second quarter, have wet her diapers by halftime, and be crying by the third. 2). At least if we did have to leave early, this was the season to do so.

I was wrong on both counts.

Posted by Derek Jenkins | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thursday, October 02, 2008 - 12:37:05

Sooie (10-2-08)

Doesn't look like Razorback football to these guys.

I'll be the first to admit that my expectations for this season underestimated the difficulty of turning around a program in the all-powerful SEC — which must be somewhat akin to changing directions on an ocean liner, except there's perhaps more to it than simply turning a wheel. But we shouldn't let our previously sunny outlooks color our interpretations of that change in direction. We should grin and bear it. A friend from up north once told me that we remind him of Philadelphia Eagles fans, and I'm beginning to see his point. Instead of enduring the growing pains with the rest of the state, several Razorback fans — including the usually quite cogent Jim Harris of Arkansas Sports ˚360 — have retreated into outright fogeyism.

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Wednesday, October 01, 2008 - 09:53:16

Hello?

The tumbleweeds have really been piling up on ye old blog, due to a number of things, but mostly marriage planning and an issue with movable type. But I'm back again, here to chronicle best I can one of the most painful seasons in recent memory. Walking on Sunshine (one of my faves) invokes 1990. Blergh.

I haven't been on a message board all season on the assumption that logging in might trigger an emotional spiral. My own temperature's running too high to expose myself to others. If you keep up with the column at all, you know I've spent the last coupla weeks trying to see the good in all of this. I'll keep doing so until I see some reason not to think we're getting what we paid for....

So far, I think we're headed in the right direction, and I'd keep watching even if I weren't being paid to do so. I'm what you'd call a fan.

Posted by Derek Jenkins | Permalink | Comments (0)

Friday, July 25, 2008 - 12:55:46

Cold Feet in Kentucky?

Anxious much?

A man named Dacus who never played for our favorite football team sent me this link, and I find it quite funny.

I'm getting married in October, and I've never had a dream about my fiancee leaving. Last night, however, I did have a dream that she was someone else, and I kept wondering why I was marrying this person that I hardly knew.

While chatting this over ony minutes ago, Lindsey Millar lamented the dearth of lovable weirdos on the Razorbacks. I asked him if he ever heard of Brian Walker. God, I wish I had footage of the hula contest he won in Hawaii.

Posted by Derek Jenkins | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thursday, July 24, 2008 - 11:35:07

Sooie (7-24-08)

First-year athletic director Jeff Long has been busily dragging the University of Arkansas Athletic Department into the 21st century. Measures taken over the last couple of weeks signal a sea change for Razorback athletics. Gone are the days of old, when the organizational values of what is both a multimillion-dollar business and a department at our largest state-funded university descended directly from a white male septuagenarian. We now understand — or at least recognize — the cultural changes necessary to running a successful athletic department.

Frank Broyles understood progress in material terms. His vision of the Razorback athletic program was strictly brick and mortar. Say what you will about the negative aspects of his tenure, nobody can overstate his positive impact on the Hogs, from the Razorback Foundation to Donald W. Reynolds Stadium. That vision just never really included a url.

Even the most churlish among us will note that top-flight facilities were not limited to our most profitable programs. All of our athletic facilities — from softball to tennis, track to football — stand in the first class relative to other universities. If we can all call him Pawpaw, Broyles did a pretty good job of not playing favorites. [read more]

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Monday, July 21, 2008 - 18:35:35

The Red Stockings do Arkansaw

Lord knows I don't condone the Red Sox Nation, but this is pretty freaking cool, as is this.

If you know what's good for you, you'll stick the Smithsonian flickr feed on your RSS forthwith.

Posted by Derek Jenkins | Permalink | Comments (1)

Thursday, July 17, 2008 - 16:22:31

Sooie (7-17-08)

Nobody likes a scold. Few are more prone to tsk-tsking than pasty columnists with space to fill. I don't want to pile onto Matt Jones. He's still young enough and talented enough to make mistakes, learn from them and move on with his life. God knows I've racked up my fair share of bad choices. Adults of all stripes take recreational drugs, to varying degrees of impact on their lives.

Cocaine exits the system within three to five days. Random tests are all but helpless to detect it. Serious people are ready to admit that the drug enjoys widespread use in professional sports.

I just don't like being taken for a fool. The theater drives me batty. [read more]

Posted by Derek Jenkins | Permalink | Comments (1)

Wednesday, July 09, 2008 - 21:30:25

Sooie (7-10-08)

I was in my hometown of Crossett all last week for the funeral of a former Razorback. He had died on Sunday night — Wallace Wayne Jackson, class of '64. You wouldn't know his name. You won't see him in any team pictures. His stats aren't in the books. He was no bench-warmer — just ended up playing out his life off the field. [read more]

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Monday, July 07, 2008 - 11:22:40

53 Days & Counting

::DOWNLOAD::

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Sunday, June 29, 2008 - 10:59:04

Stacy Lewis Storms the LPGA

Frick some scoliosis.

You might have heard by now, but the former Hog is currently whooping that ass in her debut:

The world will awake Sunday morning to news that Lewis is the 54-hole leader at the 63rd U.S. Women's Open, and that may surprise many. It doesn't surprise Dale Lewis, nor does it astound his 23-year-old daughter in the least.

Even if it is her very first tournament as a professional.

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Friday, June 27, 2008 - 18:12:17

Addendum: McFadden Clearly a Badass

To add a little umph to this week's column, in which I purposefully tried to give as much space to the other draftees, here's a short report by two fantasy analysts about D-Mac's prospects. Someone once said that if you want to get the real news that you should read the business papers, because those guys have cash money riding on events. Well, if you want straight talk about rookie prospects, check into fantasy predictions. They may not have (much) money riding on their analysis, but I can guarantee there's an awful lot of stat-monkey ego involved.

The first guy is just nuts, but the usually trustworthy Andy Behrens is hot for D-Mac, quoting Raiders blogger Jerry McDonald to poo-poo the folks who think McFadden will be overtaken by his fellow backs:

[McFadden] has lined up as an I-formation tailback, lined up as a single back, been split out as a wide receiver, lined up in the slot, and gone in motion. He's also taken shotgun snaps... It will be Fargas and Bush that fit in around McFadden.

Sounds about right.

Posted by Derek Jenkins | Permalink | Comments (0)