Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: You're listening to the Whole Hog Sports podcast. And now here's your host, Matt Jones.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: Today on the show, Arkansas Edge shutting down. We'll talk about what that means for the Razorbacks. We'll also get into our SEC efficiency ratings. First word from Kendall King.
[00:00:15] Speaker C: At Kendall King, we're proud of over four decades of design.
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[00:00:41] Speaker B: The Razorbacks announced yesterday they've shut down the Arkansas Edge Collective or that they're in the process of shutting it down. I think October 15th is the last day that they'll have a partnership with Blueprint Sports, which is the company that oversees it. This was not a surprise. We'd heard for a while that this was coming. And, and really, as I look at this, Christina, Christina Long here in studio with me, as I look at this, I see it as, you know, I know that Arkansas's kind of taking it on the chin a little bit because they're nil Collective. This is the second one. They started, the first one. I think why it shut down is a little bit misunderstood and we'll get into that here in a minute. But it's their second collective. Obviously it just never performed the way that they wanted it to it. And so they're taking it on the chin right now a little bit. And I mean, I think that's fair. But I think long term this probably sets up best for them in terms of being able to run their nil operations in house. Based on what I understand about what they had going on with Blueprint, they, you know, Blueprint got to keep a certain cut of whatever agreements were or whatever money was donated to the collective. And, and so let's say if it was 15%, I don't know the exact number, but let's say it was 15%. That means that if you had a hundred dollar collective fee per month that only 85 of your dollars were going toward the athlete and this company over here was keeping a certain percentage on the side. Now you cut out the middleman and you're able to do things more in house. And all of this was made possible by this house settlement that went into effect this summer and allowed universities for the first time to operate their nil systems in house.
[00:02:26] Speaker A: Exactly And I don't think this is that uncommon. A lot of schools have closed their collectives. This is not like, necessarily indicative of a problem. I think one thing that is kind of a problem is a lot of schools did this a while ago. A lot of them did this earlier this year, earlier this fall. I was just looking before we started recording. I think Clemson closed theirs in August, Colorado closed their sometime in the spring maybe.
And it's. It's not that uncommon.
I think part of it is what seems like a lack of a plan. And I think that's something that a lot of people have been frustrated by when it comes to Arkansas and its approach to NIL is it feels like they've been a step behind for most of this.
[00:03:08] Speaker B: I don't know if it's so much a lack of a plan as it's a lack of communication, because if you read the press release, they say that it's been, you know, they've been running this in house since July 1st, which is when the house settlement went into play.
October 15th, my guess. And again, I haven't heard this from anybody who would know, but my guess is that is the date that the contract expires with blueprint. And so it was the earliest that they could get out of it.
So I think that maybe it's more lack of communication. And I would have to think that if I were somebody who had been donating to the collective, my first thought as I read this yesterday was, well, where has my money been going for the last three and a half months and how has it been used? And I think that's always been one of the knocks on the collective from people is the apprehension of, hey, I don't want to necessarily fork over $16 or $50 or $250 or whatever plan you are on and not know how this money is being used. It's always felt like we. With the ticket office, you know how your money is being used. I mean, you can look at their financials and say that X number of dollars from tickets are going back into the department.
You can even say with the Razorback foundation, it feels like there's a better. There was always a better communication about the money that you donate to the foundation and how it's being reallocated back into athletics. There never seemed. This just always seemed to be a very shadowy entity that people never quite trusted.
[00:04:37] Speaker A: Yeah, I think there was. It suffered from a lot of bad optics. It started when they closed one Arkansas and opened Arkansas Edge, when there was confusion with that, you know, Then they go through a bunch of executive directors in a very short amount of time and there was kind of a lack of clarity on what that was all about and if they were hiring somebody else and who it was and then they went so long without hiring one. And then we had kind of started hearing that maybe this collective was going to go away. And so naturally they weren't going to hire one. But the collective was still posting things on social media and advertising products and memberships and things. And so I think you're right that I think there's honestly just confusion and then, yeah, bad optics that, that have frustrated people. And then you go into a coaching search where your athletic director is talking about how he needs to. He's been charged with coming up with a plan for how they're going to support this next staff, both in terms of paying staff, paying coaches and support staff and getting a roster together, that they want a good roster. And after saying that Sam Pittman didn't have the support that he needed, both in terms of roster and in terms of staff, how are you going to do that when you have this collective that looks like a hot mess and now it's not here anymore? And they, they've said that they've brought secure. The focus on securing NIL opportunities for student athletes has transitioned successfully to the front office. And the new director of NIL strategy, who is somebody who works in general manager Remy Cofield's office, that's one of two staff members that is listed under him in the directory. Those are new, new positions. We don't know a lot about that person. I looked him up yesterday. I can't, I don't remember his name off the top of my head.
[00:06:11] Speaker B: Devonte Higginbottom.
[00:06:13] Speaker A: Yes, that's right. And so I don't know a lot about him. Don't know a lot about what that role is.
They got rid of Flagship, which was kind of their in house, nil sort of education arm that was kind of working with Arkansas Edge. They got rid of that when they did all those layoffs. They were not. They were having people leave that and not backfilling those positions. And then they moved what two or so staff members were remaining in that after the layoffs into another department that wasn't about raising money, that was about kind of helping student athletes with sort of the, the like logistical part of NIL deals and helping companies understand il nil making sure everything was compliant, that kind of stuff. It was more about supporting the athletes in terms of marketability, how you fill out the tax form, all that kind of stuff. They've got rid of all of that.
And other schools have made similar moves. I know Oklahoma, when they had layoffs, eliminated all of that for them. So it's. There's just so much that's changing. I. I think it's just.
It just kind of continues to be bad look after bad look. But at the same time, I agree with you that I don't actually think this is indicative of failure. I think this is. The move to close the collective is not that uncommon. I think it's more about the timing and then the. Yeah. Where is people's money money going? We have no idea.
[00:07:29] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't know how many people were donating.
[00:07:31] Speaker A: I mean, I don't think it was that many. Which was the other problem. That was the other problem.
[00:07:34] Speaker B: They had the. What was the drive for 5,000 and it failed miserably. And I think they only got to, what, 13, 14, hundred before they took the meter down.
[00:07:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:44] Speaker B: On their website.
[00:07:45] Speaker A: Yeah. It was unfortunate.
[00:07:46] Speaker B: It was never moving. No meter was. It was. It was stuck.
[00:07:49] Speaker A: And I don't blame people. And this was the conversation that we were having when they launched that when the collective. You know, other things that people have complained about with collectives in general is I'm already giving you so much money to come to a game to do all this stuff, and now you need more. You know, you're trying to get all this money from me. The benefits that a collective provides to fans, kind of marginal. It doesn't get you tickets. It doesn't get you any sort of priority in terms of tickets or parking or things like that. The things that, like a Razorback foundation donation gets you because it can't, because it's a separate entity. But they were giving you autographed stuff. Some events with players. Cool. But not really going to move the needle for most people. And so that was what was hard for any collective, not just Arkansas is what is in it for other people? And how do you convince them to give you yet more money than they already do for other things?
[00:08:37] Speaker B: Now, the original collective was part of the foundation. It was called One Arkansas. Marvin Caston was running it, or he was kind of the director of it. And I don't know because obviously I just don't know how that.
How that paired with your Razorback Foundation. It would not surprise me if it did dovetail a little bit better than the Edge and the foundation a lot of people go back to.
First, there's the thought that Arkansas was late to Establish collective. They actually were not. They established the One Arkansas Collective earlier than a lot of the other SEC schools. Like I believe One Arkansas actually was established before even the Grove Collective, which is kind of the one that everybody wants to compare Arkansas to. Problem with One Arkansas is, and with collectives in general is that the IRS memos about these collectives continually changed over the years.
And eventually the foundation believed that the One Arkansas collective could potentially jeopardize their standing as a 501c3, their nonprofit status. And so they had to give that up.
That's how EDGE was formed. And so I do think there is a little bit of miscommunication or maybe misinformation out there about how the collectives were formed and why the first one went away. It wasn't that the first one was not having success. Now I don't think it was having success relative to some of the others in the sec, like what they're having at LSU or Ole Miss, but it went away because ultimately the Razorback foundation, that's a big entity and that's a really important entity to the success of the, the department.
And for them to lose their non profit or for that to even, you know, be jeopardized at some point, that was a no go and they had to find a different route to come in and form a new collective.
[00:10:29] Speaker A: Right. And so I think that kind of the, the sort of stopping and starting had them sort of taking a little bit of a hit, at least in terms of, you know, optics.
And I think then Arkansas Edge, like we said, they go through a bunch of executive directors. They don't get off the ground that. Well, some of that is them, some of that is just kind of people's resistance to wanting to donate to this.
So it's, it's just kind of been messy, the whole thing. And, and now, and, and it's changed. I think some of it is on Arkansas, but some of it is on the fact that this has only been, I mean, how. When was one Arkansas established? What year was that?
[00:11:06] Speaker C: 20?
[00:11:06] Speaker B: Early 21, I believe.
[00:11:08] Speaker A: So we're talking four years. And this has changed at least once every year. And I'm not talking about Arkansas Collective has changed the rules around it, what collectors are supposed to do, what they can do, guidelines, everything. It changes multiple times a year.
[00:11:21] Speaker B: Well, that's why I feel like they're not sustainable long term. Like, like these were always just meant, or I don't know if they were meant to be, you know, patchwork. But that's kind of what They've become. Yeah, you know, we're going to look back, I think we're going to look back in 10 years and say, oh, you remember the collective era, you remember the NIL era, because, you know, eventually, nil, that's pennies compared to, at least for prominent athletes. What I think they're going to be able to get through revenue share. And I'm talking about just from a baseline perspective. You're always going to have that athlete who is very marketable, who's going to be able to go out. And, you know, whether it's through a partnership with the multimedia rights holder, which in Arkansas's case is Learfield, or through their agent or some sort of other entity, they're going to be able to go out, they're going to be able to market themselves and they're going to be able to make a lot of money.
I just don't know that the NIL piece is going to be sustainable long term. And I'm talking about the NIL piece to steal your checks.
Comments the legitimate nil, like, I feel like the legitimate nil that is going to be sustainable, that's going to be there for, for a long time, normal business. It's the pooling together all of the money and, you know, giving it out to football players under the guise of nil.
I don't think that that's going to be like. I think that's going to go away before very long.
[00:12:49] Speaker A: Right.
[00:12:50] Speaker B: They've got to be able to enforce it and they're having some trouble with that. But I think long term that's going to go away.
[00:12:57] Speaker A: Right. But the problem is nobody knows how to forecast that. Nobody knows when to expect it to go away. Nobody can guarantee that it's going to go away. And so in the short term, you.
[00:13:04] Speaker B: Have to start prevalent right now.
[00:13:06] Speaker A: You have to compete. You're going to keep falling behind, you know, and that's what's been so hard about it, is that it continues to change.
You know, it feels like every other day and it might go away, it might, you know, maybe they find a solution, but until they do, you have to stay afloat somehow. You have to find a way to compete somehow.
[00:13:23] Speaker B: I wouldn't want to be in that world.
[00:13:24] Speaker A: No, me neither.
[00:13:26] Speaker B: Jurejik, by the way, said last week that this year in NIL agreements, they've brought in, I guess this would be since July 1, about $500,000 for their athletes or about $15,000 per agreement. He told the trustees a couple of weeks ago that the national average was, I want to say $5,800.
But again, the national average is that's probably taking everything that's taking UAPB and Arkansas State and these type of schools into consideration too. What I would be interested to know, and I don't know where to find this information and I've asked and people don't seem to know is what's the SEC average? Yeah, you know, what's the SEC football average? What's the SEC basketball average?
That would give you a lot better indication as to how they are competing in that space.
[00:14:16] Speaker A: Right. And that's another thing that's. That's difficult about this. And I know nobody likes to hear media people complain about our jobs being hard and I understand that. But it is extremely difficult when there's no transparency because we can't access these contracts. We have no idea.
[00:14:31] Speaker B: Well, the Arkansas legislature even took it a step further this year talking about nil agreements can't be.
[00:14:37] Speaker A: And the revenue sharing agreements can't be.
[00:14:39] Speaker B: The revenue sharing can't be disclosed through Freedom Information Acts.
[00:14:43] Speaker A: Right.
[00:14:44] Speaker B: It's. It's goes back to. It's just a very shadowy world.
[00:14:48] Speaker A: Well. And it makes it hard. It's not just a media problem or you know, fans want to know or you know, because I think some people are bothered by like the pocket watching that happens. It's not even just about that. And I remember talking to Chris Bauer about this when he was the executive director of Arkansas Edge.
How difficult it makes it when you are trying to negotiate with players because you have no way of knowing what other schools are offering them.
[00:15:10] Speaker B: You don't know what the market is.
[00:15:11] Speaker A: You can ask them. They could just lie. And why wouldn't they?
[00:15:14] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, South Carolina offered me 750,000.
[00:15:18] Speaker A: Awesome. I have no way of verifying that unless I know somebody at South Carolina. And if I do, why would they tell me if they really want this player? Why would they help me get them? You know, so that's the other thing. It makes it harder for the deal making. It's harder for the players. It's harder for the schools to know. And on the flip side, it could be harder for player. A player could be getting undervalued and they don't know because they have no idea what the average SEC running back is getting. And the running back walks in there and they get lowballed and they have no idea unless they're friends with somebody else and they can call an them. But who's to. You can't verify it. So it's harder from a business standpoint too. It's not just a media thing or people wanting to know.
[00:15:54] Speaker B: I think people have a.
I think people have a right to know what the market is.
[00:15:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:59] Speaker B: Generally speaking.
Right.
[00:16:01] Speaker A: I mean, I think so. I understand some people don't feel that way because there's people that don't like, you know, it's, it's mostly coaches, coaches that don't like that we know about coaches salaries and things like that.
[00:16:11] Speaker B: They'll get over it.
[00:16:12] Speaker A: They will. That's what the money's for.
[00:16:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Sam Pittman didn't like it. He even made a comment about that one time during a Q and A that I was doing with it. I remember that at Hogs Illustrated he said back when he worked for Butch Davis at North Carolina, Butch Davis told the coaches, don't discuss your salary with anybody, especially not the other coaches. And he said now it's in the newspapers.
But again, they're state employees and I think there's a right to know what they're being paid.
Moving on, I want to talk real quick before we go too far. I do want to mention the Arkansas basketball tip off times have come out and you can check this out on our website. This afternoon@whole hogsports.com there were I think seven dates that were either or dates that we were waiting on the SEC to tell us. And so now we know.
Ole Miss, South Carolina. I think I've got this right.
Alabama and Texas games are all going to be on a Wednesday and then all the other either or games are going to be on Tuesday for the racebacks. The big thing that I take away from looking at this basketball schedule, thank goodness There are no 9 o' clock tip offs listed here anywhere.
[00:17:27] Speaker A: It's a huge win. You said there's some 8 o' clocks though, which isn't as bad.
[00:17:30] Speaker B: 8 o' clock is okay. You know, there's no, there's no sweet spot anymore for basketball tip off times. When I was younger, all the basketball games started at 7 o', clock, even the televised games. You know, you'd get Jefferson Pilot to come in on a Tuesday. Wednesday night they would televise Arkansas and LSU at Bud Walton arena. And it was a 7 o' clock tip off and 7 o'. Clock. I always felt like it was really a sweet spot. Time for tip offs because you get the people who are coming in from work, you give them time to get to the arena, but then you're also not getting them out late. So late that they can't get home and get to bed and get ready for the next day. Now what you have is you have this either or you have a 5:30 tip off on a weeknight that nobody can get to or I would even say six o' clock tip offs.
It's very difficult to get to and especially as this area has changed and it's become, you know, a lot more populated and it's hard to get around at 5 o' clock around here and or you have the game that starts at 8 or 8:30 or 9 like they did with Vanderbilt last year over in Nashville.
And nobody wants to go to that game because even if you live in the area, you're not going to get home till 11:30 midnight. And if you live very far, you're certainly not going to do that unless you don't have a job or have to be at work the next day. And so TV has really affected the attendance and I think we all know this of games not only because it's more convenient to watch from home, but it's just a lot harder get to get to the games in the first place.
[00:19:03] Speaker A: Yeah, and I remember, I feel like several of the games I went to last year, I remember Arkansas playing some really long basketball games. I remember there being several where we were like this game is never going to end. So that's another thing. And I think, you know, some of that is TV and commercials and things like that and.
But I remember there would be some later games and then they would also be playing for so long but it would just end up being late kind of no matter what.
[00:19:27] Speaker B: Oh, it's, I mean it's, it's brutal. Some of those midweek games. Yeah, weekend, I don't really mind it. Yeah, I do. But like I'd rather have a game earlier today and I'm going to get to that here in a second. But the midweek games, those are just rough. And I think that's why you see, you know, people get so upset. It's like, God, you're playing number whoever and there's only 13,000 people in the arena. Well, it's, it's a combination of a lot of things. It's the time, it's the cost to attend games, cost and convenience, man, those are the two things that people look at when they're attending games. And honestly it's probably going to get worse now after the receding thing because.
[00:20:07] Speaker A: The people who went up so much.
[00:20:08] Speaker B: The people who don't go to the games, they're going to want to recoup their money a little bit. We're seeing this at Bomb.
This has happened at Bomb the last few years since the receding at Bomb Walker Stadium, where you used to be able to get a ticket for some. For a game, you know, on like a SEC weekend, you get a ticket for 10 bucks, 20 bucks, something like that. You go to a game, you go out there. Now they're playing Missouri last year and the hog pen tickets against Missouri, who barely won an SEC game, they're like 30 bucks on a Sunday afternoon. And you trying to get a ticket off the resale market, you're probably gonna pay somewhere around 70, $80 unless somebody really drops the cost of that ticket right before first pitch. And so it's just made it a whole lot more difficult to go to games.
[00:20:56] Speaker A: Yeah, and one thing I thought was interesting about the basketball reseating was how many they allowed the higher level of donors to get so many tickets. I mean, wasn't it up to like 12?
[00:21:06] Speaker B: It's actually. I think there were.
[00:21:07] Speaker A: And I know it's fewer than they.
[00:21:08] Speaker B: Used and I know it's fewer than they used to get.
[00:21:10] Speaker A: It's still too many. I think that is a lot.
[00:21:12] Speaker B: Yeah, I think they can get 14. Like. Like if you're in that. If you're in that top tier, I think you can get 14 tickets. You can't get more than six in the lettered rows that are right there next to the court, but I think you can get six there and then eight in other areas of the arena.
[00:21:26] Speaker A: Yeah, it's just. It's interesting because nobody's using all those, you know, so then you're just trying. Those people are just going to try to resell them probably for a pretty high price. People aren't going to buy it. Then you have empty seats and then everyone complains about attendance.
[00:21:39] Speaker B: And that's why. Well, that's why capacities are going down.
[00:21:43] Speaker A: Yeah. Yes.
[00:21:44] Speaker B: And that's Bud Walton Arena's capacity is going to go down probably at some point in the next five to eight years.
Florida State did this with football, so I'm going to surprise me to see there's a little bit of pride that goes into this, but there are going to be some SEC football stadiums that do this at some point, and there are going to be a lot of, oh, my God, we're not going to have 85,000 seats anymore. No, you're not. Because you're going to make a lot more money by dropping that total down to 77,000 and building club and premium areas that people really want to sit in as opposed to having 8,000 more bleacher seats.
[00:22:18] Speaker A: I will say those club seating areas are so interesting to me and I, I have a weird experience because I've, I've not gone to a lot of college football games as a regular fan. I've usually been working or when I was a kid I was in an athletic director suite. So I've, I've not really been to a lot of college football games as just the average fan, so. But what's interesting to me is the club seating thing is fascinating. I had a friend in town for the Notre Dame game and he was with his parents friends and they had tickets in the Diamond Club and he said it was the most awkward game watching experience he's ever had.
[00:22:52] Speaker B: Have we figured out where the Diamond Club was?
[00:22:53] Speaker A: It's the one in the, the south end zone.
[00:22:56] Speaker B: Is it behind the glass?
[00:22:57] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:22:58] Speaker B: Oh, I would never say.
[00:22:58] Speaker A: And they're super steep. And he was, he said it was like silent. He said it was so quiet. He also couldn't really see. He was like in the back and he couldn't see through the, the way the windows were like the, the metal that's holding the windows. Couldn't really see the far end zone at all. And then he said it was silent and really awkward. That's not fun. I don't know. It's weird. It's like, I assume these people pay a lot for these club seats and it sounds like you don't even really get a good experience. So that's a whole other conversation. But some SEC teams, I know there's been a lot of conversation about what Vanderbilt is doing with its new stadium or its re vamping of its stadium. And it is, you know, Vanderbilt obviously is kind of a different story just in terms of the size of the school and the size of the fan base. But they're trying to prioritize a lot of premium experiences. And I think part of it is because Vanderbilt does not have great home field advantage. A lot of people that are going to Vanderbilt football games are people from the other school that want to spend the weekend in Nashville. And they know that and they're doing a lot of things to kind of set that up pretty well to, to their benefit to where people are going to pay for, you know, the people that want to spend their nice weekend in Nashville are also going to spend for a more premium experience at the stadium. And so they're setting up with a lot of that, some of those kind of premium experience type of Things. It's just interesting to me because if premium experience means the Diamond Club and what I heard about the Diamond Club, it doesn't sound fun and I wouldn't want to pay a lot of money for it. I don't know, maybe that's just me.
[00:24:21] Speaker B: No, I'm with you. I wouldn't want to sit in there.
[00:24:24] Speaker A: The view. He said the views bad. Apparently the vibes were terrible. Yeah. So. I don't know. Very strange.
[00:24:30] Speaker B: Yeah, that is odd.
Speaking of start times, Arkansas, Texas A and M. Their kickoff time was announced yesterday. It's going to be at 2:30 next Saturday on ESPN. And now with this, Christina, it means that they are not going to play a night game at home until the last game of the season. Missouri. That game's going to kick off between 5 and 7pm and so by that time of year, 5pm, that's a night game.
But they're going to play Auburn in the morning or the morning kick either. 11:00am, 11:45, that's to be announced. Mississippi State, we still don't know if it's going to be 230 or 330, but it's going to be somewhere in that range. So they're not going to play a night game at home until Missouri at the end of the year. They. I mean, who knows what their record's going to be at that point. They could potentially be 2 and 9 and win this in the SEC.
Probably be pretty cold.
I don't know. It's just kind of interesting. My question for you though, do you like night games? Because some people, this really. This really gets them.
This makes them mad.
[00:25:30] Speaker A: It makes them mad. I think as a fan I would probably. I think there's something about the vibe of a night, night game. You know, you tend to. They're kind of. They feel more exciting just because, like, I don't know, it feels more climactic. It's a better vibe.
I. For work? No, for work. You want an 11am I go to bed at 10. So I don't really want to do that. But I think as a fan, you know, or I get more excited to go, you know, like when they played at LSU a couple years ago and I got to do a night game at lsu, that's cool. I was working and I didn't really care that much because it was cool to experience that, you know, I think when you have a really good home crowd, I think a night game can be really fun. But I, I don't feel super strongly about it, like this does not upset me and I don't think it would upset me as a fan either.
[00:26:15] Speaker B: Sweet spot for football, 2:30 in the afternoon.
[00:26:17] Speaker A: Yeah. The only thing about the 230 games, though, is you don't get to watch any of the other games. You miss most of the 11:00am games and you miss most of the 7:00 games or 6:00 clock games.
[00:26:27] Speaker B: I don't get to watch a whole lot of them anyway.
But 2:30, that, that's the sweet spot for me, like in regard, like I don't care if it's September or November, you get it's different at 230.
I think that's the sweet spot, but that's just me. So I kind of like this Texas. And game time, by the way, 315 on Saturday against Tennessee. We know now that the announce team for that is going to be the same announce team that was on the first game this year. Dave Neal, Fozzie Whitaker and Morgan Uber. And then I wanted to mention this too real quick. We've got some ratings on Arkansas's football games. So far, not great. I was actually a little bit surprised that the Ole Miss ratings were not very high because that was an entertaining game that night. Now, I think there were some other pretty good games that were going on at the same time Notre Dame A and M was going on at that time. And I think there was one other one. But the, the biggest rating Arkansas has gotten this year, they averaged 4.26 million for the Notre Dame game. And a lot of you probably aren't happy that so many people watch that game, but that's the, that's the biggest rating they've had this year. And that's because Notre Dame is such a national brand. Look at Notre Dame. That's actually their second lowest rating that they've had this year. But just kind of interesting. Arkansas is not played, by the way, in a game this year in one of the 20 most watched games of the season.
A lot of times they'll end up in at least one of like the top 15 to 20. And maybe that game is still somewhere down the road where they give a team a scare.
[00:27:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:59] Speaker B: You know, like they did with Tennessee last year, obviously beating them, but they haven't played in one of those type of games this year. All right, when we come back, we're going to talk about efficiency ratings in the sec. We'll give you our SEC power rankings based on these first award from Kendall King.
[00:28:13] Speaker C: At Kendall King, we're proud of over four decades of Design.
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[00:28:39] Speaker B: Hey, welcome back. I want to tell you about our friends at Bentonville Glass. They've been serving their community since 1971. Committed, professional, versatile. If you're looking for a quality leader in northwest Arkansas or looking for skilled craftsmanship, look no further than Bentonville Glass for all your glass market needs with the highest quality products. You can come by and see them now at 507 South Main in Bentonville or online at bentonvilleglass.com okay, this is what I've been waiting for weeks to get the efficiency rankings out there. And I've said this that, you know, I've been waiting for Texas. Like they've been the team that has delayed this for two weeks.
[00:29:13] Speaker A: So weird.
[00:29:13] Speaker B: Yeah, very weird schedule. And I think I see why they put it this way after you see the result on the field.
But we wanted to have at least two games or I want to have at least two games where teams had played what I would call high level competition. High level competition. I mean, you can have some bad Power 4 teams, but to me it's teams that are in the power four or select group of six teams. So like when Arkansas played Memphis, that is a team group of 16 that I would say is worth gauging how things went against, I would say the same like Florida against South Florida or Ole Miss against Tulane. And there might be a team out there that by the end of the season, like let's say, let's use Temple for an example. I don't think Temple is going to be any good, but. Oh, you played Temple.
Let's say Temple's like 10 and 2 at the end of the year and they may even, they may have more losses than that. I'm just using them as a hypothetical. I might add them at the end of the season for OU and then, you know, recalculate things. But right now, you know, that's, that's how this goes.
And so here's what we have found out. Arkansas's offense is the seventh most efficient offense in the sec.
The ones that are better, Vanderbilt, ole Missouri, Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama defense. Would you like to know where Arkansas ranks?
[00:30:41] Speaker A: I already do.
[00:30:42] Speaker B: Yeah. They're last by a lot. By a Wide margin. And let me back up and talk to you about what efficiency is. Basically what efficiency ratings. They take into consideration how many possessions each unit has been on the field and how many points they gave up.
And you use that. You come up with a number. We're able to use those numbers, and we can come up with some predictions that sometimes are way off, sometimes they get pretty close, but they kind of give you an idea of what kind of game you might get. And so you have to look at these numbers like batting averages. So offensively, how often do you score? That might be kind of like, how often do you get on base in baseball?
By the flip side, defensively, how often do you give up points?
That's kind of like. Think about, like an opponent batting average against a pitcher. And so imagine for a minute that if you had a pitcher whose opponent batting average is.614, because that's what Arkansas's defense is,614.
But you ain't got anybody in the bullpen that's any better.
[00:31:43] Speaker A: Nope.
[00:31:43] Speaker B: And so you got to live with this guy, and he just has to sit there and take it over and over and over again.
That's what's happening to Arkansas's defense. It's over 200 points higher than the next worst defense in the league, which is Kentucky. I never thought I would see a year where we had a defense that was worse than Mississippi State's was last year, because Mississippi State's defensive numbers last year were just truly awful. And Arkansas right now is trending toward being way worse than Mississippi State was a year ago when they never won a game.
And so that's the problem with Arkansas right now.
We'll see if a coaching change can get them to play more inspired on defense. Bobby Petrino, in that story that Chris Lowe had yesterday talked about, they were working on run fits all week last week. Defensively, to me, yeah, the running game has hurt them, but I feel like the passing game has been hurting them just as much.
And so these numbers have got to get a lot better. Otherwise you're. You're cruising toward a winless SEC season. Unless somehow you face a team who is just as bad as you are defensively that day and you're able to beat them in a slugfest.
[00:32:57] Speaker A: Yeah, and that's the thing we've been talking about, is how much improvement can you actually get in the middle of a season when there's been. Especially when there's been the kind of turnover that there's been. Maybe that's a. Maybe that turnover helps but maybe it doesn't. And so how much improvement you can actually get, whether this is something about talent, whether this is something about just the guys that they have, or whether this is a scheme thing, it's, it kind of remains to be seen. I, like we've talked about, I don't think it's one thing, but how much can you, the things you can improve you got, the guys you got, so how much can you kind of scheme for them to try to help out? How much can you also then motivate them? Like you said, get them to play with a little more effort, get them to play with a little more enthusiasm. How much can you do that in the middle of a season and, and improve where you can when you're stuck with the guys that you've got? And so that's the number one thing that I think we're watching now with this, you know, Bobby Petrino audition period.
And that's what Hunter, your check said is, are they going to have some more effort? We need to see that. So, yeah, it is crazy how much worse they are. And it's, it's what I like about the efficiency ratings is you, you and I both talk all the time about how certain stats are great, but they only tell you so much. And you know, you can point to how many yards they've given up a lot. But also they've given, they've turned it into points. Opponents have turned it into points. And so you and I always talk about, when we're talking about Arkansas's offense. Okay, great. They put up so many yards. Are they scoring? Call me when you score points.
Arkansas is allowing opponents to do both. They're not stopping anybody from doing anything so bad.
[00:34:21] Speaker B: It's so bad. I mean, like these, these are the stats right now defensively against Ole Miss, 41 points and nine possessions.
Memphis, 32 points in 12 position or 12 possessions. That's actually not a bad number, but it's not a great number either. Maybe the way to say it is it's not a bad number relative to their other games. And then Notre Dame, I mean, it's as bad as I've ever seen. 56 points in nine possessions. Literally the only time Notre Dame did not score was the one time that they had to turn over on downs after they ran the fake punt to start the second half. And I don't count possessions that end with end of half, kneel downs or if you're able to run the clock out like Notre Dame was able to do for the final five minutes. Or whatever of that game.
I don't feel like that should count against you or for you.
Yeah, you were doing your job, but there was no point opportunity there for you.
Also, I don't count special teams touchdowns in either way. So like South Carolina, they've had a lot of special teams and defensive touchdowns this season.
And if you look at, if you just look at South Carolina's points per game, you would say not terrible, not good, but not terrible. But you have to go back and look at they've had like three special teams touchdowns and I think they've had one or two defensive touchdowns this year. And so really you take those away and you are able to kind of strip it down and see that their offense is not very good at all. So I mean, those are some of the, the hallmarks of this. But Arkansas offensively numbers are okay. I mean, 35 points and nine possessions against Ole Miss, that's essentially what ole Miss did.
31 points and 13 possessions against Memphis, essentially what their opponent did. The 13 points and nine possessions against Notre Dame is what has brought them down a little bit. But as far as leaders, I mentioned Vanderbilt is the leader right now on offense, defense, it's ou.
And I'm really interested in this game this weekend. Oh, you in Texas. Because OU defensively has been really good and Texas offensively has been really bad.
And so like, dude, the numbers that we've seen through the first half of the season or close to half of the season, did those play out in this game or do we get something that's just totally unexpected in a game like that?
[00:36:40] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, you've got the Texas is tied for worst offensive efficiency in the SEC with Florida in the. In your rankings here. So you have one of the SEC's two worst defenses against its best or, sorry, one of the SEC's two worst offenses against its best defense. What happens, it's probably not going to be great.
[00:36:57] Speaker B: And on the in Arkansas, Tennessee is the flip side of the equation. You've got the worst defense against one of the best offenses.
[00:37:03] Speaker A: I wanted to ask you, and I've always meant to ask you this something I like that you do with these is you use the ratings to predict the next week's games. How does that actually work?
How are you actually, I don't even.
[00:37:16] Speaker B: Know if I like it's an equation.
[00:37:19] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:37:19] Speaker B: I don't know if I could explain it. It takes a little while for each game and sometimes I don't want the numbers to look like they look like I did not want Missouri to be favored to beat Alabama this week because personally I think Alabama is a better team than Missouri and I think they will probably go there and win the game.
But based on the, you know, the games that they played so far, it says Missouri would win that game by one point.
[00:37:41] Speaker A: And it's so interesting to me that. And these are pretty, you know, the final scores aren't always accurate, but it picks winners pretty well. Yeah, in the past it has historically. So I like, I tend to trust your formula and your ratings because I think it's very interesting and I think it's been a fairly effective predictor. Now a lot of those scores that it predicts end up being really close. Like that. Okay, one point. That's kind of a toss up at that point.
[00:38:06] Speaker B: I had a game one time where it actually was projected to end in a tie.
[00:38:10] Speaker A: Really.
[00:38:11] Speaker B: And I think the game actually went to overtime, which was kind of fun.
[00:38:14] Speaker A: So funny. Yeah, so it's actually, it's pretty accurate. I also wanted to ask you, just also out of curiosity, on offenses, you used a tiebreaker to put Auburn ahead of South Carolina.
[00:38:25] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:38:25] Speaker A: But you couldn't use one for Florida and Texas.
[00:38:27] Speaker B: What's the tiebreaker? Because, well, the tiebreaker is, you know, you.
I've got. Well, for instance, Auburn, 251. South Carolina, 251. You go like to the fourth decimal point.
[00:38:38] Speaker A: Oh, I see.
[00:38:38] Speaker B: But like for Florida and Texas, it was literally 13 numbers and they were the exact same.
[00:38:43] Speaker A: That's crazy.
[00:38:44] Speaker B: It was very. I've never seen.
[00:38:45] Speaker A: Really weird.
[00:38:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I've never seen that before. Okay, so here's the power rankings, by the way. This is based on offensive and defensive efficiency.
Arkansas is number 16, Kentucky's number 15. Texas number 14.
Surprising, maybe, but certainly not when you look at how they played against Ohio State and Florida. Mississippi State's number 13. Florida, number 12. South Carolina, number 11. Auburn number 10, LSU number 9, Tennessee, 8, Alabama 7. I think Alabama is going to end up really high. The Florida State game, it's starting to even itself out right now.
They were not good after that game. It's evening itself out. And I've seen them going up quite a bit the last few weeks. Georgia number six. And again, this is not head to head. This is just based on what their efficiency, offense and defense combined tells us. Oh, you. Number five, A and M, number four. Missouri, number three, Ole Miss, number two and Vanderbilt number one. Vanderbilt is trending down, but they were so dominant in their games against Virginia Tech and South Carolina.
1 was 44 to 21 was 31 to 7. That it's going to take some time for, you know, those numbers to even themselves back out the way I think they're going to do.
[00:39:59] Speaker A: Right. It's. As the sample size gets bigger and as they kind of play some closer games, it'll bring them back down to earth a little bit. But it is very. It's been interesting. We've been talking on the show before. You actually publish these and put these out once Texas played a real team.
And we've been talking about how Vanderbilt was kind of at the top and how it was kind of a fun surprise. But at this point, I mean, I know they just lost, but at this point, we kind of need to stop being surprised by Vanderbilt at least while Diego Pavia is there.
[00:40:24] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, they're. They're a good team. The one thing that this shows that Vanderbilt does well is that they control possession and they don't give the other team a whole lot of opportunities to score. And that's really been the hallmark of their success over the last couple of seasons. We got a ton of numbers here. You can read it on our website. SEC football efficiency rankings through week six. Arkansas numbers trending toward Mississippi State's winless 24 campaign. That's a long headline.
[00:40:51] Speaker A: Very long.
[00:40:53] Speaker B: Christina wrote it.
[00:40:54] Speaker A: Oh, sure.
[00:40:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
But, you know, I think that based on these, the teams that really stand out to me right now are Alabama, Texas A and M.
I would say Ole Miss.
And I like what Oklahoma looks like. Yeah. I mean, and the fact that Oklahoma is not allowing a lot of points. Texas A and M would be in the same boat.
Their offenses haven't been bad, but it just allows more room, like a wider margin for error for those teams. And so we talked yesterday with Chris Lowe. Can you really even have a feel for what teams are going to end up in Atlanta right now? He said no. And I would agree with that. And I'm sure there are some teams outside of those four that I just mentioned who are going to be in the discussion toward the end of the year, but those are kind of the four teams that have stood out to me the most right now.
[00:41:46] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think when you look at Oklahoma, you know, their offense is kind of the bottom of the milit middle. They're at number nine. And so like you said, there can be kind of a larger margin for error when the defense is doing what they're doing.
[00:41:56] Speaker B: They got some dudes on defense. And go back to this weekend's game in Dallas. Texas problem this year is that they do not have offensive linemen that look like their offensive linemen a year ago. And you want to talk about Arch Manning and all the problems that he's had if you don't have time to throw it. I mean, he got sacked six times against Florida and a couple of more interceptions. And I'm sure that at least, you know, some of those interceptions that he's thrown this season have probably been the result of rushing a throw.
They just don't have the offensive line like they had last year. And so it's great. You know, when you've got the quarterback and you got the receivers and you got this and that football is such a simple game.
If you don't have the guys up front on either side, you're going to really, really struggle. And I think that's what Texas. The root of their problem is right now is that their offensive line just is not really good. You look at Arkansas, offensive line is pretty good.
[00:42:48] Speaker A: Defensive line is.
[00:42:49] Speaker B: Defensive line is terrible, and it's causing.
[00:42:50] Speaker A: Problems for the entire rest of the defense. The secondary has problems of its own, but it's not being helped at all.
[00:42:55] Speaker B: Yeah. So maybe we should do some ratings for line play. That'd be fun.
[00:42:59] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely.
[00:43:00] Speaker B: Yeah. The Texas line, not very good this year, and there's probably.
It would. It would actually be kind of interesting to go back and look at these teams that are at the top right now. What's their line play like?
Vanderbilt, I think they got a pretty good line. Ole Miss, I think they got a pretty good line. Missouri, always a little bit underrated, but, I mean, look what they're doing in the run game right now.
You get good offensive line, defensive line play, you're going to be a pretty good football team. And I think that, that. That's really what this shows. All right, we appreciate you being here with us. We'll have another podcast tomorrow. Hope to see you there or at our website, wholehogsports.com have a great day, everybody.
