[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: On today's show, we're a day closer to Arkansas playing at Ole Miss and its SEC opener. This week. We'll talk a little bit more about this Arkansas, Arkansas State thing with the governor. Also, Arkansas baseball schedule is out. That and much more. But first, a word from Kendall King.
[00:00:22] Speaker C: At Kendall King, we're proud of over four decades of design.
We're continuing the legacy of great creative design by combining our brands of Kendall King, Soapbox and shopc.
Together, these brands represent a new focus in marketing design with individual attention to specific areas. Through our design expertise, supported by a team of talented professionals, we showcase our best. We are Kendall King. We are Soapbox. We are Shopcart. We are Design.
[00:00:48] Speaker B: I can't help but notice that it feels like Arkansas is kind of becoming a trendy upset pick this week. Ole Miss is ranked number 17 going to this game Saturday night, CBS Inside College Football on the CBS Sports Network. I think it's one of the best shows that's out there. I would. I'd put it right there with College Game Day. It's not on. It's not on location like game day is. And it doesn't have some of the, you know, the big names that College Game Day has. But I think it's a fantastic show. I try to watch it every week. And this week, a lot of them picked Arkansas to beat Ole Miss. I'm seeing this in a lot of places that with the questions Ole Miss is having at quarterback, all of these things. You know, they didn't play particularly great against Kentucky the other day. A lot of people are intrigued by what Taylor Green's doing offensively for Arkansas, that this, Ethan, is a game that a lot of people think Arkansas might win this week.
[00:01:45] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that it being this early in the season, too, just that's the time that you want to catch a team like Ole Miss maybe sorting out some things as early rather than later when Lane Kiffin's had some time to, you know, get that offense maybe humming the way that we're used to seeing Ole Miss moving the ball. But I think that Arkansas has right now the advantage of both just kind of having not played.
There's a double side, you know, coin to this that there's Ole Miss has played an SEC team, so they've had that pressure of you've got to win a conference game. But Arkansas isn't probably as beat up as them.
It's not nearly as, you know, Physically taxing. I don't think playing Arkansas State and Alabama A and M then having to turn around after playing Kentucky and then play Arkansas. So I think that it is going to be a trendy upset pick just because Arkansas so far, I mean, has looked like one of the best offenses in the nation and Ole Miss has yet to play a team. I mean, no disrespect to Kentucky, but they're. That's. They're not at Arkansas's level. I don't think this year, just if you've watched them, at least the eye test, to me, I don't think they have nearly the offense that Arkansas has. They might be comparable defensively, but this is going to be the best offense that Ole Miss has faced.
[00:02:55] Speaker B: Arkansas's got the advantage, I think you were alluding to this, of they haven't had to put a whole lot on film yet. I mean, to beat Alabama A and M and to beat Arkansas State, they were able to do that, I think, especially from an offensive perspective with just a very base, you know, toss sweeps, crossing routes, slants. I mean, you know, they're not having to do anything exotic, it feels like, to win these games. You know, I don't know how much even play action have we seen from Taylor Green this year? Not very much. I don't think he's had to run a little bit and so. But everybody knew he could run. I feel like to this point, though, they haven't had to put a whole lot on film and so it's going to allow them potentially on Saturday night to pull some things out of the bag that maybe Ole Miss hasn't seen yet.
[00:03:42] Speaker A: Yeah, and I think that, I mean, we'll get. I know we get into predictions on Friday of what's going to happen, but I mean, I'll go ahead and predict that. I think Arkansas, this is going to be similar to the Oklahoma State game last year where you just notice like, okay, yeah, they finally opened the full playbook.
It's going to be a matter to me, I think of like, are they going to be able to not make the mistakes that they made maybe a year ago at Oklahoma State in a game where they moved the ball? Well, because I'm expecting Arkansas to be able to move the ball against Ole Miss. I just am. I think that they'll be able to.
To do some things with opening the playbook. It's going to be a matter of can they protect the football. And this has been the talk ever since the end of last year whenever, you know, their success really depended on how they did in the turnover margin category. I think that this is the type of game that Arkansas should be able to move the ball. It's just, can they prevent silly mistakes that give the ball back to Ole Miss? And then on the flip side, can the defense be a little bit more opportunistic and create some more opportunities for the offense?
[00:04:40] Speaker B: I'm ready to get to a point in the season where we can talk more football like, like on the field. Like, I feel like we just don't know enough yet about this Arkansas team to really speak with just a whole lot of authority on very much.
[00:04:55] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I'm right there with you. And that's what's been all this week. And I think that's why you see like SEC Network has been doing SEC power rankings every week, like for of their analysts and Arkansas across the board on all four of theirs. Which power. Things like power rankings are based on what you've seen. It's not necessarily a projection. I mean, that's why you'll see like Mississippi State high up in these because they've beaten Arizona State, which is a better win than most SEC teams have. But I think if you ask those analysts, do you think Mississippi State's one of the top seven teams? I don't think they'd say that. But anyway, all that to say Arkansas consistently across the board from these analysts are putting there at 14 and all of them are saying, you know, it's not that Arkansas has done anything wrong. They just haven't done anything to really ignite a ton of just confidence. You can do this against an SEC team. Saturday is their opportunity.
And it's not only like, I think it's not only, you know, win, loss, what happened Saturday, but what it looks like too, because I just think that if. If you go out there and you realize, oh, shoot, Arkansas, to win any game this year is going to have to win a shootout because the defense can't stop anybody.
That's what I'm going to be looking at is like, what can you learn about Arkansas not only in this game, but moving forward? How does the defense fare against, you know, offenses that are frankly a lot better than Arkansas State and Alabama A and M? And then can the offensive success translate against the defense that I think Ole Miss has some really good pieces on defense, so if it can translate against them, then that really ignites some confidence for the whole schedule.
[00:06:21] Speaker B: And then of course, locally, there's not a whole lot being said about Arkansas Ole Miss, because all of our focus is on this Arkansas State war memorial.
I don't know if you would call it a proposal by the governor, but it's certainly something that Sarah Huckabee Sanders is pushing for. She's had, I'd say, a little bit of a media blitz this week going on various radio shows. She had a commentary in the Democrat Gazette earlier this week that I talked about and yesterday we mentioned this just kind of in passing on the show yesterday. But I want to dig into it more because I think that this really deserves some discussion.
Really just how bad of an idea this is, not just for the Razorbacks, but I think this is potentially a bad idea for Arkansas State, too. But she said on the the Chuck and Bo show yesterday that she wants to see this as a potentially. And this is the quote. I'll just read the quote. It says what I'd like to see potentially. I don't want to be overly prescriptive, but traditionally the Thanksgiving game is really poorly attended in Fayetteville. I think doing this playing Arkansas Arkansas State over Thanksgiving, where you have a lot of students around the state that are home, helps us build this out and makes this game what we got to see last Saturday.
Another way to help replicate that level of attendance and enthusiasm. I think that she misses the mark by a country mile here. I think she is totally misreading what the people who really support the Razorbags and probably what a lot of people who support Arkansas State really would like to see. Arkansas State, they got their chance against Arkansas. They didn't. They didn't punch up. They were bad in that game.
Nobody, I say nobody. I hate trying to speak for everybody, but I would say the vast majority of Razorback fans do not want to see this game on an annual basis. And I certainly think that they don't want to see this game on an annual basis in Little Rock and I certainly think they don't want to see this game on an annual basis in Little Rock on Thanksgiving weekend when you've got big matchup after big matchup after big matchup across the board.
That's where I'll start with this. And you know, one of the other things that she says here where I think this is maybe not the best idea for Arkansas State.
She talks about how Arkansas plays other group of five, group of six teams, whatever we want to call it their group of five technically right now, but back 12 is coming back next year and it's going to make it group of six.
She says.
Let me find the quote. She says we being the Razorbacks Usually pay one of those other schools anywhere from 800,000 to north of a million dollars. I think we can do it for less.
In other words, I think that Arkansas could pay Arkansas State less money to do this. Now, a couple of things.
A group of five, group of six team like Arkansas State, the going rate for those games is actually somewhere in the one and a half to $1.8 million range. And so 800,000 is really cutting that number short or selling it short.
The other thing, if you're an Arkansas State fan, like, you've got to have money to these game guarantees. I don't know, you know, what their top things are on their, their line items, but I would guess that a game guarantee for a football game against a Power 4 opponent at their place is one of the most lucrative things that Arkansas State has going for them right now. And not just them, any team from the Max, Sunbelt, wherever.
And so are you really going to want to play this game against Arkansas for less money than you could command going out and going to Nebraska or Southern Cal or Tennessee or wherever?
Just as it's important for Arkansas not to lose money playing at War Memorial Stadium, I think it's important for Arkansas State not to lose money by playing Arkansas at War Memorial Stadium. I'd be very concerned, I think, if I were an A State fan and I heard that saying that not only does the governor want us to play Arkansas every year, but she wants us to do it on the cheap.
[00:10:38] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's all these scenarios, like a lot of them point to what. Like there's not really a silver lining for what this does for the Razorbacks. It's always just like protecting some nostalgia that you have from decades ago and experience. Most of it points to what helps Arkansas State. But this is like an, I mean, even a thing that you're like, does that help Arkansas State even at that point, other than they're getting more publicity for one weekend every year? Here's my thing. I mean, this has so many layers to it of just why it doesn't make sense to me at all.
First of all, I mean, you want Arkansas fans to actually like this Missouri rivalry. Throw Arkansas State on Thanksgiving weekend at them and they'll be missing Missouri because what a, what a steep staircase you have gone down from having LSU on Thanksgiving to Missouri, then to Arkansas State. I mean, that's just embarrassing. The gut. I don't think she understands. Like that's playing that on Thanksgiving weekend and the magnitude of games that happen on that weekend. It would be Embarrassing for Arkansas to be like, this is our rival. Because no other team in the SEC is playing a team like that and calling it. That's not, that's rivalry weekend in college football. Arkansas, if they want to play Arkansas State on the final weekend of the year, they got to realize that that is rivalry weekend for all of college football. And that would be embarrassing, number one. Number two, it's, we've come back and forth this all the time. It's just not financially advantageous for Arkansas at all to go down there. Why don't if they want this game so badly between Arkansas and Arkansas State at War Memorial, number one, Thanksgiving weekend. That's the worst part of this whole idea yet.
[00:12:13] Speaker B: What happens if Arkansas and Arkansas State both have losing records?
You're not going to get 20,000 people at that stadium.
[00:12:22] Speaker A: Well, here's my thing. If it's already just a bad idea in general, in my opinion, but the Thanksgiving part is the worst. If they really want this game and it has to be an every year thing, it shouldn't be one of Arkansas's home games. It should be at Arkansas State home game and War Memorial. So Arkansas will actually end up, you know, the reverse side of this where right now it's like they lose a home game with recruiting, hey, get them another home game in Little Rock. Because it would be really funny to have the reverse side of this with Arkansas State logo on the field. But the stand just packed with Razorback fans.
[00:12:50] Speaker B: I feel like the Thanksgiving thing is a lazy addendum onto a bad idea in the first place. I really don't give a whole lot of credence to this Thanksgiving thing. But you have to mention it because I mean, obviously the governor has a considerable amount of influence and this is something that she has floated in public. I don't see anything wrong necessarily. If Arkansas wants to schedule Arkansas State every year, then more power to them. If they want to give them less money and more tickets to play here in Fayetteville, say maybe they play here in Fayetteville and they say, you know, we'll give you a million dollar guarantee and we'll give you 5,000 tickets to sell in our stadium, they want to do that. I don't see anything wrong with that forcing them to play at War Memorial, which, you know, we talked Monday about the infrastructure. Everybody wants to frame this War Memorial thing. By the way, I was talking to somebody about this earlier this week. They want to frame it as this pro northwest Arkansas or anti Little Rock type thing. It's all about the stadium like if Little Rock had a better stadium, if Little Rock had the quality of stadium in that city that say Nashville has and can attract Tennessee to come over and play from time to time, or New Orleans has and can get LSU to come down and play every three years or so, it would be a totally different thing. The problem is the stadium. The problem is the infrastructure in and around the stadium. The problem is the ingress and egress out of that stadium. Both parking traffic, foot traffic trying to get into the stadium through the ticket scanners, through the metal detectors.
It's a mess. It is an absolute free for all. So I wish people would, would look at it like that instead of, oh, you know, you're, you're pro NWA or you're anti Little. It's all about the stadium. The stadium is, I don't want to say it's falling apart, but it's not fit to host major events anymore. It's just not. If you want to host 15,000 people for a 7A state championship game, that stadium is a perfect place to do it.
It's not equipped for a big game day. And we've seen it for years and years and years when there were only 35,40,000 people come to these games and just knew that if there was ever a day where that stadium got packed again, it was going to be a mess.
Because in my opinion, the game day experience there, and I'm not talking about music or anything like that, like, not the experience that you have once you are in your seats, it's everything that happens before you get to your seats and after you get to your seats, it has deteriorated since the Parks Department took over this stadium eight years ago. And I don't think anybody who's been going to the games down there for a long time would disagree. It's amazing the number of people I've heard from Ethan, who, whether it be through social media comments or people who, you know, I've talked to, who were there at the game, who they've said, I'm not going back to another game there. It's just not worth the hassle.
[00:15:52] Speaker A: Yeah, and here's the thing.
It's. I get it, like, and we've mentioned this before, like, it is tradition. It's something that Arkansas has done and that's what makes college football great.
But you have to change some with the times in this whole pro NWA versus anti Little Rock. Like, does it make LSU plays all their home games in Baton Rouge? Does it make them anti north Louisiana.
[00:16:13] Speaker B: That they don't go Play anti Shreveport.
[00:16:14] Speaker A: Since they don't go play a game in Shreveport. Yeah. Or does it make, you know, Alabama now that they don't play in Birmingham? Are they anti Birmingham? Like it's, it's. You're losing a whole weekend on your campus of revenue and for all sports, a recruiting weekend. That's huge. If Arkansas is going to play in War Memorial Stadium, it shouldn't be a home game anymore. And it's got to have some sort of lucrative tie. I mean, the same way that they're going to go to Las Vegas for a game, they're going there because, number one, they're not losing a home game and there's a guarantee that they're going to make for going there. And it's a stadium that can host college, big college football games. Like there has to be. There's nothing right now enticing about going to Little Rock other than that it is traditional and it's something that's happened. You've got to, I mean, there's got to be something in it for Arkansas to keep doing this. Right now, all it does takes away home game weekend and that's not good for anybody on campus.
[00:17:06] Speaker B: There's three elements here. Number one, there's the Arkansas State football, there's the Razorback football, and there's the city of Little Rock. What this does is that it props up the city of Little Rock. It props up Arkansas State football or attempts to prop up Arkansas State football, props up the city of Little Rock because it obviously adds some economic benefit to the city. It props up Arkansas football or Arkansas State football for obvious reasons. And it does so at the expense, I think, of Razorback football. And for a governor who says she's a self professed Razorback fan, I don't think she gets it. And, you know, no different than I'm not down in the weeds on prisons in Franklin County. I don't think that she and her advisors are down in the weeds on the realities of modern college football.
When it comes to scheduling, when it comes to revenue, when it comes to revenue share, I just don't know that they really have a great grasp of that. And so to me, I think back to whenever Arkansas expanded Razorback stadium in before 2018.
And if you'll remember, there was one dissenting voice on the board of trustees and it was David Pryor. He was like really opposed to the stadium for reasons that were basically economic. You know, just didn't know that they should be taking on that type of debt service at that time.
And you Know, he had a quote, and I can't remember the exact quote. I should have looked it up. But it was basically, as trustees of this university, we have to look out.
We have a duty and obligation to look out for the best interest of this university.
And so I think about that in terms of this conversation about War Memorial playing Arkansas State, what the governor wants, you've got a 10 member board of trustee group.
They've got to look out for what is in the best interest of the Razorbacks of the University of Arkansas. And I don't think you will find anybody who follows the situation closely who would say, you know, it's in the Razorback's best interest to play at War Memorial Stadium every year. It's in the Razorback's best interest to play Arkansas State every year, or it's in their best interest to play Arkansas State at War Memorial Stadium every year. I don't think you're going to find anybody who says that. And so I'm very interested to see what either publicly or behind the scenes, the trustees of the university do here, because ultimately, I think it's like they are the ones who are going to have a ton of power in this conversation to listen to their football coach, to listen to their athletic director, to listen potentially to their chancellor who says something different has to occur. We're trying to compete in the strongest program or the strongest football league outside the NFL.
And doing these things the way we've always done them is not necessarily the way that's going to bring us success moving forward.
[00:20:08] Speaker A: Yeah. And it just feels like that's what it is right now. It's right now a group trying to. They have the best interest of Little Rock and keeping that tradition alive and promoting, you know, the great economic weekend in the capital city.
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[00:20:46] Speaker A: All they have to keep this game going is to some idea of nostalgia and some idea of this is gonna somehow revive the economy of Little Rock every year for a weekend. And I mean, I'm sure it helps for one weekend, but it's one of those things where it's like, but who is responsible for the financial burden of it? You Keep on shoving it on the Arkansas athletic department, which comes back around to what you said. Like, none of these answers come back to what's in the best interest for the actual university and its athletic department. It's just what's in the best interest of preserving some idea of a vision of a stadium that's in your head from decades ago.
[00:21:23] Speaker B: This is probably not well thought out, but I was thinking it's like, what if you called Walmart and said, hey, I know you just built a new campus up in Bentonville, but we need you to build a satellite place down here in Little Rock and we need you to work here X number of days every year. And, oh, by the way, you need to share that building with another startup company from the state.
[00:21:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:41] Speaker B: Like, and it's going to be good for you in Bentonville because it's going to be good for us down here in Little Rock. Yeah, that's kind of what's being done here.
[00:21:49] Speaker A: It's trying to use. That's the thing. It's like using the Arkansas football, the Arkansas athletic department's funding to try and promote.
[00:21:56] Speaker B: And popularity.
[00:21:57] Speaker A: And popularity to promote War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock and Arkansas State University. It's like, why is arc. Why should the Razorbacks be responsible for trying to fund those other two things?
They're competitive. It's college athletics. The transfer portal is a thing. You're all the time recruiting players from conferences like that. And I mean, it's.
We live in an era where it's like, you can't be trying to be buddies with other universities because they're all tackling financial problems. It's like, there's no.
I don't know. It's. Arkansas should not be the promotional engine for Arkansas State. That's just not how it works.
[00:22:33] Speaker B: Living an era where tough decisions have to be made in college sports. And obviously, you know, ending severing that relationship with War Memorial Stadium is tough. And now it got a lot more murky because now you've added politics and another college. And there's just a lot that has to get sorted out with this.
[00:22:54] Speaker A: I mean, obviously they're both SEC programs, but imagine if Alabama was doing something to financially benefit Auburn.
[00:23:00] Speaker B: What bothers me is this conversation. Like, Arkansas State is somehow Arkansas's equal. Like, if Arkansas State were In the Big 12, maybe we could have a more legitimate conversation about this. These two teams are nowhere close to being equal. They showed it on the field the other day.
I mean, they show it in terms of their finances. You know, what one makes versus what the other makes because of the popularity of that team. I mean this is not a Clemson, South Carolina, Georgia, Georgia Tech used to any two in state teams that you can think of and try to link them together. This is not that.
[00:23:40] Speaker A: And that's why this whole Thanksgiving weekend idea is just insane because it's trying to compare Arkansas. Arkansas State could be on an equal playing field as Florida. Florida State also not the same thing.
[00:23:51] Speaker B: I had one more thought. What if Arkansas State were going to the Sunbelt championship game, but then they had to step out the week before and come play an SEC team? You think they'd want to be doing that? No, I don't think so.
[00:24:02] Speaker A: I'm about to say that one benefit for Arkansas on a playing on Thanksgiving weekend is I guess if they're already bowl eligible or about to be, you can rest your starters for a half.
[00:24:11] Speaker B: Like I said, the Thanksgiving thing, that's a lazy add on to this idea.
[00:24:17] Speaker A: It was just how can you make this idea a little bit less appealing? That's what it felt like to me. It was like, well, you just put the cherry on top.
This is the worst part of the idea yet.
But it's, I mean to tie this bow on all this. I just think it's not really beneficial for Arkansas in any way whatsoever. Unless Arkansas State, it wants to be a home game for them and Arkansas can just pack a stadium in the central part of the state.
[00:24:40] Speaker B: Arkansas State pays Arkansas guarantee.
[00:24:42] Speaker A: Yeah. And Arkansas, yeah. Great way for Arkansas State to promote its program out of its own pocket instead of out of Arkansas's.
[00:24:49] Speaker B: Interesting. All right. You can get the latest breaking news on our Razorback sports@whole hogsports.com Most in depth source for all Razorback sports. We have analysis, latest in recruiting, unique stories on all your favorite teams. You can subscribe today@whole hogsports.com when we come back, Razorback baseball has announced it's scheduled for 2026. We got some thoughts on this first word from Kendall King.
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[email protected] you can read all of our coverage there. Hope that we'll see you on our website. Hope that we'll see you tomorrow on our podcast. Have a great day everybody. Hey, welcome back. 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 Razorback baseball schedule is out and a lot of people think it's an easy schedule or an easier schedule. The the first thought I have here is the next easy SEC baseball schedule will be the first easy SEC baseball schedule. There is no such thing that exists. But you know, you look at some of the teams that Arkansas avoids next year, they don't play lsu, they don't play Texas, they don't play Vanderbilt, they don't play Tennessee, they don't play Texas A and M. I mean, you can make an argument those are maybe, you know, the five best SEC programs right now outside of Arkansas. Now, there's other teams that you know are certainly going to have a say in that. Florida, they're pretty darn good. And but you know, this is on its face, this is a favorable schedule to win an SEC championship or be high up in the standings when the season ends.
With that said, we don't know what these teams are going to be like next year. And looking at, in this day and age, looking at any schedule through last year's lens is maybe not the best way to do things. I mean, think about Kentucky a couple of years ago, who saw Kentucky going 22 and eight in the SEC and splitting the SEC title, getting to the College World Series coming. I don't think anybody saw that coming. So keep that in mind when you talk about this Razorback schedule.
But SEC series for Arkansas, the home ones are Mississippi State, Florida, Georgia, Ole Miss and Oklahoma. And then they go on the road to South Carolina, Auburn, Alabama, Missouri and Kentucky. Ethan, when you saw this schedule, what did you think?
[00:27:35] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, the same as probably most people. I was like, this is pretty favorable on face value. But I mean, the way it always works, there's always a team, a series or two that you get in the season. You're like, wait, didn't see this one being a real showdown, but it was. I mean, that's just what happens with every schedule. It does stink for Arkansas that if I mean, in a world where it all just pan out where how it normally does and these teams may be finished kind of where they are and Arkansas has a great SEC schedule and wins all these games and stuff. I'll be interested to see what the conversation around it is because, I mean, just for a recent for me, I mean, I covered the softball team. They had a year where they won the SEC pretty handily but it was against a lighter schedule and people were dragging them saying like, oh, y' all had an easy schedule. And then they went to the SEC tournament and just curb stomped everybody too. And I think that that can do sometimes for a team if they get told they have an easy schedule and they're winning a lot of games, it can really tick them off and it can actually be really good fuel. That's what happened to LSU the year with Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark. LSU got told that whole year they had the easiest schedule and then they just went to the NCAA tournament and just used it as fuel. I think that a lot of times if a team gets told like especially SEC baseball, that's a, that's the thing. Like you said, there's not an easy SEC baseball schedule. So if you get told that your wins or this is looking way in the head saying that they're going to win a lot of these games. But I mean, it is a favorable looking schedule. But if you get, if any team gets told, especially SEC baseball that you had an easy schedule, that can really tick off a team.
[00:29:01] Speaker B: I had two big thoughts as I looked at this schedule.
Number one, and both of them kind of, I lay at the feet of the SEC office.
Number one, they don't have any interest in capitalizing on the interest in college baseball.
And I'll tell you more why in just a minute. The other one is that they don't care about preserving tradition and rivalries in baseball like they do in other sports. Like, I mean, think about the great lengths that they've gone to to preserve some of these football rivalries on a year in and year out basis.
Arkansas and lsu.
Is it a nasty baseball rivalry? No. In fact, I mean, you hear them talk every year before the game. And whether it was Paul Manari or now it's Jay Johnson, Dave Van Horn, obviously at Arkansas, it's a rivalry that is really built out of respect for each other. Now they get on the field and they want to beat each other bad. But there's a ton of respect there between these two programs. You hear Jay Johnson talk about when I took the LSU job, Arkansas was the program that I knew we had to catch. They recruit better than everybody else out there. They develop as well as anybody else out there. I'm paraphrasing, but he said something along those lines this year before they played.
The fact that you don't have Arkansas last year, this year is criminal. It's criminal. I mean, think about the games they had last year, the games in Baton Rouge were phenomenal. Except for the second game. The games in Omaha were phenomenal. Over 1.9 million people watch that game in the semifinals that sent LSU to the national championship series.
They got no interest in capitalizing on the interest of that. They've got no interest in capitalizing on the interest of Arkansas Tennessee which is the best rivalry in college baseball right now. And did you know that if Arkansas goes to Knoxville in 2027 it will have been six years, six years since Arkansas went to Knoxville. They have not played in Knoxville since Vitello had his little gator over his mouth and went after Van Horn in the post game handshake line. Think about how long ago that was. Yeah, they got no interest in keeping this Arkansas Texas baseball rivalry up on a year to year basis.
[00:31:29] Speaker A: It's it, it stinks because it's a schedule that you really could do that to. It's not like.
[00:31:34] Speaker B: It's not like I thought the SEC should have gone to a 5, 5, 5 schedule if they were going to eliminate divisions. By the way, SEC coaches unanimously voted to keep divisions in baseball. Their athletic directors voted against them, which is really rare I think because usually you get recommendations from your coaches and you're going to vote based on your coach's wishes. The AD said we are going to get rid of divisions in baseball.
Baseball coaches wanted to keep them 16 to nothing.
[00:32:06] Speaker A: Yeah, and that's pretty, that's pretty crazy. What was the whole reasoning?
[00:32:11] Speaker B: I have no idea. I've never really been and nobody seems to really know other than I think the SEC wants to move away from divisions in every sport. Like they don't want to have a sport where they have divisions.
I think they've got like this kind of pie in the sky type idea where they say well you know, we want it to be where everybody gets to go to every campus during the course of their career. So many of the baseball players that are staying at one place for four years, very few. I mean Will McIntyre stayed at Arkansas for six but outside of him, I mean like who stays at a baseball program for four years anymore? Not very many. Arkansas this year they got a 40 man fall roster. They got 25 new players on it and a lot of those players are at their second and third school.
So.
And I don't know why they did it but I am always expect that might be.
[00:33:04] Speaker A: I'm always for resembling the pro model of whatever sport it is. And baseball's about divisions, all about divisions. Like imagine if split them, it's divisible by four, make four Team, divisions.
[00:33:15] Speaker B: You're a Braves fan. Imagine if the Braves said, we're not going to play the Mets this year.
[00:33:20] Speaker A: Yeah, that would really stink. Or the Phillies. Yeah, I mean, it would. That's. It's part of it. I mean, you get to. You get to hate these teams.
[00:33:28] Speaker B: I just feel like Arkansas, this is the first time they're not going to play since 1992. Like, 92 Arkansas came into the league. They played that year.
They have not. Not played since then. I mean, so you're talking about 35 years it's been since Arkansas and LSU haven't played. It reminds me of like LSU, Alabama football or Tennessee, Florida football, where it is. It's not great every year, but it's great enough times that that's one of those games that when you're looking at the calendar before the season starts, you say, oh, that's one I want to see.
That's what I feel Arkansas baseball against LSU is like. And so to not play it and then not to play it after what happened on the field with them last year when they. I think those two teams played the national championship. I don't care that LSU played Coastal Carolina in the championship series. Arkansas vs. LSU was the national championship and everybody in Omaha knew it.
[00:34:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:26] Speaker B: And then you're not going to have them play the next year. It just doesn't make any sense to me.
[00:34:29] Speaker A: I think if you polled, you know, a bunch of national baseball, just experts, and you said, name me your five or six favorite SEC baseball matchups that you'd like to see every year. I think that Arkansas, lsu, Arkansas, Tennessee would probably be on a. Unanimous on all of them, I would think.
Arkansas, lsu, Arkansas, Tennessee.
[00:34:47] Speaker B: It probably fluctuates. But like, right now, I think you would say that those two. Those two are what people want to see.
[00:34:52] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, it's like Ole Miss.
[00:34:54] Speaker B: Mississippi State a few years ago after they had both won the national championship, but now that that game's kind of taking a back seat to some others.
[00:35:01] Speaker A: These are programs that over the past how many years have proven that they're there to stay and they don't. I mean, it's.
[00:35:09] Speaker B: They're pushing the rest of the league forward. Now, I'm not saying they're the only two teams that are doing it. There's a ton of teams that are really good that are helping push the SEC forward. But LSU is the premier program in the country. Like they say. What do they. They call themselves the powerhouse of college baseball, and they are. They've won eight national Championships. They've won two of the last three. But Arkansas is right there with them. I mean, Arkansas is so hungry to win that first title that they're recruiting and they're developing and they are playing at a level that is helping push the SEC forward. Like if you ask SEC coaches who are like, like what are the programs that you're trying to keep up with on a year to year basis through recruiting and through development, they would tell you Arkansas is right there at the top.
[00:35:50] Speaker A: Yeah, and this comes back around to.
With just the whole issue at hand of like there's not really any of those great matchups on the schedule and how you said the investment. They're just not really that committed to investing in what will draw, I guess, you know, more eyeballs. I think that comes back around to like just how they even promote these games during the season. Like slapping Arkansas, LSU on SEC Network.
[00:36:13] Speaker B: Plus on a Friday, 55 on a Friday with Rollins on the call.
How about you kiss those ratings goodbye?
[00:36:21] Speaker A: How about you make like a premiere series of the weekend and you're slapping the Sunday series finale on ABC or something. You're doing something to try and see how the sport can do whenever you put it on a bigger platform. That's the thing. It's not even getting a chance in my opinion. Like a lot of sports, you see the success because they get that exposure and the chance to draw the viewership.
[00:36:39] Speaker B: They're trying to give equitability between baseball and softball. Well, that's what's happening.
[00:36:43] Speaker A: They need to. I just don't get why. I mean, you can't promote your bigger series in baseball more, in my opinion. I just think that you can, you can be equitable and promote your bigger series in both baseball and softball and throw them on, which they do a lot of times. But I think they could make a bigger production out of it. Personally. I think, I think that they could really, I mean, instead of throwing the Savannah Bananas on TV every chance on their big channels, maybe throw a sec.
[00:37:14] Speaker B: Who was it last year? It was.
There was a big SEC series last year and it was on SEC Network plus while the Savannah Bananas were playing at Clemson's football stadium.
[00:37:25] Speaker A: Yeah, it's just whatever.
[00:37:28] Speaker B: You know, I think going back to the, just the, the ease or whatever you call it, the schedule. I think coaches want to play the best teams. Like I think if you asked Dave Van Horn, he would say I want to play LSU every year because it helps get them better for the postseason. It sharpens these teams and it prepares them for the postseason. There's a reason Arkansas went 50 and 15 last year and got as far as they did in the tournament is because look at who they played down the stretch. And they won a lot of the games, but they played, they had that stretch where it was like six straight weeks of good team after good team after good team. A and M was in there. I know they didn't make the tournament, but that was a good A and M team. And obviously they came in here and beat Arkansas that weekend in Fayetteville. But their last three weekends they went Texas, lsu, Tennessee, SEC tournament and here we go down the road in the regional, super regional. That gets you prepared for that kind of stretch.
[00:38:24] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's what you're, you look at this schedule for Arkansas and you just hope that they have that same amount of testing to where they aren't, you know, facing some of the best arms in the conference during the, you know, SEC tournament. When you're kind of already thinking ahead to, to the NCAA tournament, quite frankly, it's like, are they going to be tested? I mean, they will be. SEC schedule will test you enough. It's just, it's not the same as what they went through last year.
[00:38:49] Speaker B: A few other notes on the schedule. We've known this for a while. Arkansas is going to start with four games in Arlington. We don't know the schedule of or the order of games yet for those first three days. They're going to play Oklahoma State, Texas Tech and TCU once a piece.
We should be knowing that, I would guess by the end of the month. Then they're going to stay over in Arlington and play on a Monday against Tarleton State.
From there in Stephenville, Texas. So they'll play four games in Arlington to start the year. They'll come back here. They'll play a weekend series against Xavier. They'll play Arkansas State twice in Fayetteville, not at War Memorial, but in Fayetteville.
[00:39:26] Speaker A: Imagine.
[00:39:27] Speaker B: Yeah, three games against UT Arlington, midweek against oru, and then they'll play a four game series against Stetson, which has actually been a pretty good baseball program over the last ten years or so. They've been, you know, up and down like a lot of programs there, but they've had some years where they've been really good. They'll play them in a four game series and that's SEC play starts with Mississippi State.
A couple of other notable things here. They'll play Missouri State in a midweek, home and home. They'll play there on a Tuesday night. Missouri State will come back here for a Tuesday night and then they'll play UAPB again at Dickey Stevens in North Little Rock.
[00:40:03] Speaker A: Yeah, and they have a. It's kind of a weird part of the schedule. They have back to back weekends at Auburn, at Alabama. So they're going to the State of Alabama two weekends in a row and the little breaks in between are midweek against Little Rock in Fayetteville and midweek against UAPB in North Little Rock. So kind of just a weird. That's a weird grouping in the schedule.
[00:40:24] Speaker B: Auburn, that's going to be a Thursday, Friday, Saturday series. That's the weekend of Easter. It's becoming really popular that the teams don't play on Easter Sunday.
So that'll be Thursday, Friday, Saturday. They end the year at Kentucky. Obviously. That'll be Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Just a few more things looking at this schedule before we get out of here. When they play Mississippi State to start SEC play, a lot of people think Mississippi State might be like, like resurging. They hired Brian o' Connor in the off season. He won a national championship at Virginia. That'll be a really interesting series to me. And then they go to South Carolina. Paul Manneri, another national champion coach who's come back into the league in the last couple of years. He did not have a good horse to ride, we'll say, last year with South Carolina. I'm very interested to see what that's going to look like this year after his first full off season, really being able to evaluate the roster that he had and then also getting a look at the rest of the sec because it's changed a lot since he coached at lsu.
How does that look in year two there with him?
Georgia comes here. Wes Johnson, that'll be a homecoming for him.
Also kind of an interesting thing. Oklahoma, when they come here, Todd Butler, who used to be a Razorback assistant coach, he is an assistant coach at OU right now. So a little bit of a homecoming there for former Razorback assistant coaches. And then, you know, you get the. Like Little Rock comes back with Chris Curry. You typically have a.
Van Horn's tree is so wide ranging now and especially within the SEC footprint that you typically have three or four of these type games every year or series.
[00:42:07] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's. It's kind of the crazy part of it is I feel like every time you look up, it's like Van Horn's coaching against a friend and you're like.
[00:42:15] Speaker B: Well, he doesn't like it.
No, he doesn't like it.
[00:42:18] Speaker A: Which is Funny, because a lot of, you know, your other sports coaches say they like to coach against their friends because they know at the end of the day they'll all be good, even though during the game they'll be angry.
[00:42:30] Speaker B: I just wish the SEC would treat baseball like it treats some of its other prominent sports. And I get it. Baseball doesn't make the money of the others. But it's not like it's, you know, sliced liver over here either. It is there. It is a sport that is growing in popularity, and the people who really love that sport, they are as passionate about it as I think you'll find in any sport that the conference offers.
[00:42:58] Speaker A: Yeah. And I just think it's crazy. It happens every year. You watch the College World Series and what all investments are made to make that a good production.
And it's phenomenal. Everybody's glued to watching the College World Series. It's also the time of year where it's great to do that, but, like, really, what else is going on late spring to where, like, where you can't do that.
[00:43:16] Speaker B: What's the World Series always come down to? 2sec teams.
And that's what happened this last year. Again, I know Coastal was in there.
If they would reseed the teams before they got to Omaha, no doubt in my mind that would have been a best of three between Arkansas and lsu.
[00:43:29] Speaker A: Yeah. And it was a very, like. It's. All the pressure in the world was on Arkansas to try and climb out of the first games hole because you knew that that was like, okay, here's game one of the finals, probably.
And then you get to. I mean, but it was.
It was such a good College World Series, in my opinion of just. I enjoyed watching like every game. I feel like in between Gage Wood's crazy game I was watching, I mean, I was glued to Louisville and was it Oregon State? I was glued to every single game of the College World Series this year because it's such a good production. And I think that it's like at a time of year where it's advantageous, but, like, it's. I just think college baseball, if you do more often good production like that and put it on networks like how they do for the World Series, you can gain more interest during the regular season to where everybody's not learning about these teams for the first time when they're competing for a title.
[00:44:21] Speaker B: It's 156 days until opening day. And you know what? It's going to fly by.
I have friends who are big baseball fans who say Football is what gets me by. Until baseball season starts, like, this is what passes the time for me.
[00:44:36] Speaker A: I love football season. I do. But I'm right now with basketball. I think that also people cannot wait for basketball season to start. I think it's similar to. I mean, there's a lot of like, I meet a ton of people are like exclusively basically Arkansas basketball fans too. I think that that exists more than we're maybe always aware.
[00:44:53] Speaker B: I think it's going to keep. I think it's going to exist more prevalently too, as we move forward because of the cost to attend games.
I think a lot more people are going to say, you know, I support you, Razorback football, but I'm going to buy Razorback basketball tickets.
[00:45:08] Speaker A: John Calipari has drawn people in like a magnet with like his personality and just what he's done in the community. I think you've seen the loyalty there with some people, right? Is at like an all time high. And I think that's what a coach, hiring a coach like John Caliperi can do for a program. Because I've just met more people in the past few months, I feel like that are just. I can't wait till basketball season. I can't wait till basketball season. I think that there's a lot of support there right now. The same way that baseball's had for years because Dave Van Horn produces teams that draw people in.
[00:45:37] Speaker B: 54 days until Arkansas back. There's a nice little lap here that I found that does that. 54 days till razorback basketball begins.
[00:45:43] Speaker A: And talk about a good schedule. That's going to be phenomenal. Yeah, that is going to be good game after good game.
[00:45:48] Speaker B: They haven't finalized it yet when they finalize it. I definitely want to do a big, deep breakdown of this Razorback basketball schedule because it does look like a lot of fun.
[00:45:57] Speaker A: Caliperi said, I want all the smoke they did.
[00:46:00] Speaker B: He says that every year, though.
All right, we appreciate you being with us. Hope that we see you on our website, whole hogsports.com or tomorrow on our podcast. Hope you have a great day, everybody.
