Bad football officiating, basketball season begins tonight

[00:00:00] Speaker A: You're listening to the Whole Hog Sports podcast. [00:00:02] Speaker B: And now here's your host, Matt Jones. On today's show, we're talking Razorback football and the loss to Mississippi State, also its first day of basketball season. We'll discuss that. First, a word from Kendall King. [00:00:13] Speaker C: 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 Shopcart. 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. [00:00:39] Speaker B: I don't think you can talk about the game Saturday without talking about the officiating. And I think there are a couple of things that are true. Number one is Arkansas played a very undisciplined football game against Mississippi State. Number two, I think that the officiating was terrible in this game and I think that the two kind of played off of each other in that the bad officiating on the field led to some of the undisciplined from Arkansas. And I think, you know, and any other way around, Arkansas's frustration with the officiating probably contributed some to them getting some of the penalties that were called against them. I don't buy into the theory that the SEC is trying to get Mississippi State to a bowl game and so they had it out for Arkansas on Saturday. If that's the case. Let's like if you're one of these people that believe this conspiracy theory that is out there, why was an Arkansas fumble through the end zone negated by a holding penalty against Mississippi State? Like, if that's really what's happening, then they're going to take that advantage to get or they're going to take advantage of that opportunity to get Arkansas off the field. What I think is more likely is that it was just really incompetent officiating from this crew on Saturday. This is the same crew that had been involved in the Auburn Oklahoma game earlier this season when very rarely do you get the SEC putting out a press release about officiating. But they missed the hideout play that involved Isaiah Satania that oh, you got a touchdown and it ended up being a seven point game. And so they publicly commented not on the officiating crew necessarily, but on that misplay. So make of that what you will be. But the official's job is to control the game and really kind of be in the background, don't notice them on the field and they were incapable of doing that on Saturday. They totally lost control of the game. You notice the officials everywhere. It felt like at all times. And I just think if you're the SEC and you fashion yourself as the best football conference out there and you've got the best players and you got the best coaches, you can't be putting this level of officiating on the field. And it's been a problem for the SEC this season. This crew, I mentioned them in the Auburn Oklahoma game. I think that there's a crew that has reportedly been taken off of the field for the rest of this season based on what happened in the Auburn Georgia game. You just can't have this level of officiating. And when you're Arkansas and Mississippi State and you're playing in the Yuck bowl because both of you don't have an SEC win, you're not getting the A list officials at this game. And so you get some of the bottom barrel officiating, it feels like for this game on Saturday and you saw what the result was. I don't think the officiating is why Arkansas lost the game. You've got to be able to overcome that. But I certainly think that it did play a factor in Mississippi State being able to come back the way that it did. [00:03:42] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean it was the story of the game and like you said, I don't think it's why they lost. I think they could have found a way to lose anyway, but it obviously didn't help. And so, yeah, I mean it's been a bad year for SEC officiating with several controversies like mentioned. And you know, it's, it's normal for fans or coaches to complain about officiating once in a while, but the level that it's been at the, and the number of times it's been at just a kind of exceptional level this year in the SEC has been really remarkable. Somebody mentioned that this crew, or at least maybe the head of this crew was like a former ACC official. [00:04:14] Speaker B: The national championship game two years ago. [00:04:16] Speaker A: Didn't realize that. So, yeah, I mean it's, it's just a strange thing. You know, like you said, it just really got out of control. I mean like. And I think it got to the point where it just felt like anything was going to happen. It felt like every play I was looking for a flag just. And I was more surprised when there wasn't one than when there was. [00:04:31] Speaker B: If you've ever been a parent, you can, you will identify with this, that when your kids are on your nerves, it's easy for them to continue to get on your nerves. And you sometimes you kind of have a short fuse and I think that's a little bit what was happening with the officiating during this game. They got a verbal lashing for three, three and a half hours. However long this game took from Bobby Petrino on the Arkansas sideline, I mean we saw it, you know, there were, there were times where the TV cameras obviously picked it up, but when you're at the game, you see it. I mean it's, it's after probably every other play and the more it felt like the calls were not going in Arkansas's advantage, you know, the higher frequency that you saw, the frustration boiling up on Arkansas sideline, even to the point. One of the most humorous things that we saw on Saturday, Arkansas gets a long play late in the second quarter and Petrino sprints 50 yards down the sideline to get a timeout and is as an animated. He was like leaping, yes, it looked. [00:05:32] Speaker A: Like a gazelle skip, but more of a bound like a way. I did not think he imagine like. [00:05:36] Speaker B: If you, if you watch a deer run across the meadow, that's kind of what it looked like, him going down the side and he finally gets them, he gets them to acknowledge that he's taken a timeout and then just rips into him for not seeing him call the timeout earlier. This was going on the entire afternoon way before the, the third quarter deal that, that really saw this game kind of unwind from an officiating standpoint. But going back to like if you're a parent, like, like if your kids have been bad all day and you're just kind of like you're, you're on your last nerve and the next time, even if it's something that should justify the type of response that you're going to give them or not, you're probably just going to lose it on. And I think that there's a little bit of that going on from the officiating crew. I think that Arkansas's antics, actions, whatever you want to call it on the sideline, it probably influenced some of those 15 yard penalties throughout the game because you know that you got Jeff Levy over there on the other side. He said hey, you see because like. [00:06:40] Speaker A: There'S this like very cool good cop. [00:06:43] Speaker B: Bad cop thing going on in terms of the head coaches. And I think that he's over there and like hey look, those guys are losing their cool over here. I'M really concerned about my players. You need to watch what they're doing out there. So you get a 15 yard penalty for roughing the passer when it very easily could have not been roughing the passer. You get the Quincy Rhodes penalty where he slams the guy down. You know, you probably get some of those penalties, you probably get some of those unsportsmanlike conduct penalties that you might not get otherwise. So I very, I very much believe that the, the actions from Arkansas sideline probably created an intolerant officiating crew toward them. We had somebody on our message board who's a lawyer, and I want to read what he said. He said that I don't think that they're biased for one side, but that it can create some, some prejudice during the game. And I thought that was kind of. [00:07:41] Speaker A: A human nature type of thing. I mean, I think that comes up a lot. [00:07:44] Speaker B: You see this in other sports. That's the weird thing is like think about baseball and umpires and how, you know, kind of pissy they can get whenever you're chirping at them from the dugout. Okay, well, the same thing can apply in other sports too. It's just maybe we don't notice it as much in those sports. [00:08:00] Speaker A: Right. It's so interesting to me, you know, as somebody who was not an athlete past like middle school, the way that coaches and athletes at high levels navigate, like the relationship in game with officiating is very interesting to me because it's just a dynamic I've never experienced personally in my life. And so it's just, it's always interesting to me to kind of hear and see how different players and different coaches kind of navigate that and how different games take on different characters and different crews take on different characters. And yeah, this was one where it just, it, it really got out of hand. And I think the thing that stood out about it the most was not just, oh, there were so many penalties. It was the, it was the imbalance in penalties. You'll see. You know, I feel like you'll see in basketball a lot, we're just like, they're calling ticky tack stuff. There's just a lot of fouls across the board. [00:08:41] Speaker B: One team ends up with 44 fouls and the other ends up with 49. [00:08:44] Speaker A: Yes. And this was so imbalanced and there were calls that Arkansas was not getting. And it was so that was, I think what stood out to the most about it to me was in addition to the number, just how lopsided it was and how There, it seems like, you know, there were a lot of holds that went uncalled. Went uncalled that were, you know, Mississippi State holding Arkansas. So it was just, I don't know, it was very interesting. [00:09:03] Speaker B: I think what, what really caused this game to spiral out of control was really. And it's in the span of like 10 plays. Raylan Sharp has a long run for Arkansas. He gets clearly hit out of bounds and tackled out of bounds. They throw the flag and then they pick it up. Touchdown. On the next play, two point conversion. Green gets body slammed to the ground. And this is a penalty that if you've ever watched the NFL, NFL refs are watching for this. And like, there have been a lot of defensive players who have unjustifiably gotten penalties just because, like, they are really hawkish on, on looking for that type of play. They didn't throw it. And if you watch Arkansas's reaction to that two point conversion, it puts him up 28 to 14. Like, you can see Cam Robinson going to celebrate. And then he sees this happen behind him and he, he beelines back there and is defending his quarterback and Taylor Green, who's not real excitable. I mean, he gets up and he's in the guy's face and everybody. And so that tells you right there that it was not. I'm not saying that it was a dirty play by the Mississippi State player. It just was not a clean play. It was not. It was a play that should have been penalized. Unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. Another unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. [00:10:13] Speaker A: Unsportsmanlike conduct penalty against a guy that wasn't there. [00:10:16] Speaker B: They said it was on number three because he left the bench. But if you look at the place, C.J. brown is on the field. [00:10:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:23] Speaker B: So was it on Larry Worth? [00:10:24] Speaker A: Larry Worth. But I haven't seen if Larry Worth came off much because I have YouTube TV and I can't watch the dang replay of the freaking game. [00:10:29] Speaker B: So on sportsmanlike, unsportsmanlike, Petrino gets one because he, you know, he says that he didn't think he went overboard, but I guess he did. And then you start getting the. Okay, you know, we're going to, we're fired up. We're going to play a little bit harder. Well, then you get the tackle out of bounds. Then you get the targeting penalty, which was ridiculous, by the way. I mean, it's the fact that we're slowing these plays down. I know. [00:10:53] Speaker A: You don't even know what targeting is. [00:10:55] Speaker B: The fact that you're slowing these Plays down for two guys run at each other full speed and then ejecting someone for it is ridiculous. The next game targeting is the worst penalty in college football. 20 years ago is the halo penalty. Do you remember the halo penalty? [00:11:11] Speaker A: No. [00:11:11] Speaker B: The halo penalty was whenever a guy was catching a punt, the re. The coverage team could not get within a two yard halo of him and they finally got rid of the halo penalty. Well, the halo penalty, I think that was like a 5 yard penalty or a 10 yard penalty or something. And it was called just about every punt. The targeting is way worse than that because it's a 15 yard penalty plus the ejection plus the suspension for the next game or for half of the next game if it happens in the, in the second half. They got to fix this somehow. This is, this is like the definition. [00:11:43] Speaker A: Of what it is has changed. [00:11:44] Speaker B: Find the player. Yeah, find the player. [00:11:47] Speaker A: I wonder how far away we are from that. [00:11:49] Speaker B: Find the player. Don't penalize the whole team for someone that's, you know. And don't. And don't try to make this decision in three minutes on the field. [00:11:58] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:11:58] Speaker B: You know, do like, do like professional football does have a crew that, that goes back and looks at these plays and then you determine the next day or two days, three days later whether or not this is something that really is punishable and then levy a penalty against. [00:12:14] Speaker A: Do you think we have to have a CBA for there to be fines against? I think we probably do. [00:12:19] Speaker B: Way over my head. [00:12:20] Speaker A: I think that's another thing to what we were talking about last week with a employment would fix some stuff. [00:12:24] Speaker B: Going back to Raylan Sharp and Taylor Green if they called those penalties correctly. I don't think you get the frustration penalties out of Arkansas and I don't think we're looking at this type of discrepancy in the penalty yardage and the, in the penalties in the game. 18 to 4 penalties, 193 to 30 penalty yards. Yeah, that's. I went. Arkansas's got their box scores on their website that are digitized back to 1997. And I went through every box score between 1997 and now. I couldn't find anything that came remotely close to finding this type of discrepancy between two teams in a Razorback game. And maybe there's other SEC teams out there where this, this type of imbalance exists. But you're talking about. For as undisciplined as Arkansas was, you cannot convince me that they were 14 penalties and 163 penalty yards more Undisciplined than Mississippi State. [00:13:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:13:19] Speaker B: Good luck convincing me of that. [00:13:21] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. It was crazy. I. Corey, my. My fiance. I get to say fiance. [00:13:26] Speaker B: He put the accent over the E. Yeah. [00:13:28] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. So he is a big stat guy. And he pulled out during the game. He was doing this from the stands during the game. He found that it was the fifth game with at least 18 penalties and 193 penalty yards in the last 30 years. There's only been five games last 30 years that have met those two that have had at least that many. [00:13:45] Speaker B: And this isn't just Arkansas games. [00:13:46] Speaker A: No, no, no, no, no. [00:13:47] Speaker B: This is all of college football. [00:13:49] Speaker A: All of fbs. [00:13:50] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:13:50] Speaker B: Yeah. It was a clown show on Saturday from an officiating standpoint. And the problem with the SEC is that you're not going to get any accountability out of them. Even if they suspend this crew or if there are any type of disciplinary actions taken at all, you're never going to hear anything out of them. Greg Sankey comes to the Little Rock Touchdown Club tomorrow, and there's a lot of people who think, well, he's going to give an account. No, he's not. He's going to say a lot to say nothing, or he's going to say a little to say nothing. [00:14:16] Speaker A: That's his job. [00:14:17] Speaker B: But it's going to equal nothing that he's going to say about this. And I don't expect much accountability out of the league office about the imbalance in the penalties either. [00:14:26] Speaker A: Do you think a take I've seen some people have, mostly from a fan perspective, is that Petrino should have just said what he wanted to say in the post game afterwards. Yeah. And just taking the fine, they could. [00:14:35] Speaker B: Have, like, started a gofundme. [00:14:37] Speaker A: I was going to say. Does that, like, mean it? Like, do you care about that? [00:14:41] Speaker B: I mean, you get. You get your pound of flesh and you get like that instant gratification of the coach because Dabo did this in their game the other day or not. He got fined $10,000 for what he said about the ACC officiating and their game against Duke. I don't know. I think if they. I think if Bobby did that, they could start a GoFundMe and, you know, they'd pay for that. And a minute. [00:15:04] Speaker A: He doesn't need a gofundme. [00:15:05] Speaker B: Well, he might. We don't know if he's gonna have a job. [00:15:10] Speaker A: He's had several. He'll be fine. [00:15:12] Speaker B: And I say all of this to say, like, look like you go back and you Go. And you look at those 18 penalties, I would guess that at least two thirds of those, if not more, were legitimate penalties. On Arkansas holding, there was a pass interference call where it looked like it was an uncatchable ball. Yeah, but like, like I think most of them were. But the problem is I just don't think a lot of the same penalties were being called the other way. [00:15:34] Speaker A: Right. I think it was a mix of. There were some, it got out of hand and there was some lack of discipline type of stuff, but it wasn't all that. It wasn't like it was just, it. [00:15:42] Speaker B: Looked to me like an officiating crew that got pissed off at Arkansas sideline for being mad at them the entire game. And it was an imbalanced, very heavy handed for one team, maybe not quite as heavy handed for the other. Yeah, no, 100% for Arkansas. You know, they blow a 14 point lead in the fourth quarter even after all that nonsense where it's like 55 penalty yards and five plays. They had a chance to win this game because they, they go back up by two scores early in the fourth quarter. And you can say, you know, penalties affected them in the fourth quarter too. You look at the two drives where they didn't do anything with the ball in the fourth quarter, there are really three drives, counting the last one. But the two before that, Mike Washington has a 14 yard run that's negated because of holding penalty. Taylor green has a 13 yard run that's negated because of a holding penalty. How did those drives change if they're not looking at, you know, first and long, second and long in those type of situations. But you know, the big takeaway for me is that they just don't. They still have not figured out how to win these close games. Some teams know how to do it, some teams don't know how to do it. And for Arkansas, this is a problem that predates Petrino, it predates Pittman. It happened during the Chad Morris years, it happened during the Brett Bielema years. Really it's happened ever since Bobby Petrino left as the head coach the first time in 2011. They had some games where they got outplayed by worse teams, but they figured out how to win at the end of the game. They figured out how to beat Vanderbilt, they figured out how to beat Ole Miss, they figured out how to beat Texas A and M that year. And they just. Something happened after Petrino left where they lost that ability to play well late in tight games. And it is a, you know, we're didn't. We're now in what's a generation of college football. Ten years, eight years, I don't know. We're multiple generations into this now though, where it's kind of just, you know, it just kind of passes itself down the line. You know, the players get late in the game. We don't know how to, you know, we. Texas A and M, they always figure out a way to pull it out at the end against, yeah, Mississippi State, they, they've figured it out. And I really do think that there is a mindset like this, this hurdle that you have to. This mental hurdle that you have to clear to be able to fix this long term. And you look at some programs like Georgia, Georgia's 8 and 1 this year. Think about where Georgia could be right now. I mean they could have easily given up against Tennessee or lost late against Tennessee, Ole Miss, Auburn, gosh, the other day against Florida, you know, but they, they have got a culture where they know how to win and close games late. You're against Tennessee and Gunner Stockton pulls a Houdini act on fourth down and you get the two point conversion and you just, you just, you just figure it out late. You're against Auburn and it looks like, you know, they're about to go up 17 and you figure out how to rip the ball out and save your season right there. And so some teams know how to do it and some or I should say programs know how to do it and it's like instilled in their program we are going to be the better team late in games, not every game, but in way more games we are than we are not. And then you get a program like Arkansas who just. This is many years going now where we focus on the one possession losses or the one score losses, whatever you want to call them. There are a lot under Brett, there are a lot under Chad, a lot under Sam Pittman. There have been, you know, three, four of them now under Bobby Petrino in three or four games. [00:19:15] Speaker A: Yeah. Do you feel like, and I actually know the answer to this because I've seen you post on our message board about it. You, I know you don't feel that this has ended Petrino's candidacy. [00:19:27] Speaker B: I think it's hurt it. Yeah, I think it's certainly hurt it. [00:19:30] Speaker A: But I, I guess I think it has because I don't think they're going to win the rest, any of the rest of their games. [00:19:35] Speaker B: Yeah. And I would be surprised if they went into the rest of their games. [00:19:37] Speaker A: But if they were to win. [00:19:39] Speaker B: I just go back. [00:19:40] Speaker A: Do they have to win for him to be legitimate? [00:19:41] Speaker B: I don't know. But, but what happens if like, like let's just say pie in the sky, you beat LSU in Texas and Missouri back to, back to back in the season. [00:19:50] Speaker A: We're having a different conversation. [00:19:51] Speaker B: We're having a different conversation. And as long, and that's why I keep saying this is as long as he is in this open audition and he's the guy who's auditioning for the job and there ain't anybody else that's auditioning for it, I don't totally rule him out. I mean that's, that's, that's where I'm at with that. But I think that if you get to the end of the season and you're one and six or you're owing seven in these games that he's been the head coach of, you look back on Mississippi State and Auburn like, gosh, what if you do this and this differently? Because in both of those games they blew a double digit second half lead. [00:20:25] Speaker A: Yeah, I think this makes him truly not more than like a break in case of emergency, we can't get anybody else option, which I think is still, you know, we kind of thought he would maybe be that, but I think he was more of a legitimate candidate than that to begin with because of the support that he has had. But I think this makes it more likely that if they keep him, if they move on, it's just because they couldn't really get anybody else. [00:20:48] Speaker B: I hate to say it's a no win situation for him because I mean if they win games, he's in a good position to be the coach. It's really hard to step in and take over a team midseason and say, okay guys, we're going to play better. Well, I mean, it's not that simple. I mean like part of the problem why they were 2 and 3 in the first place was because there was a huge talent and personnel gap between them and a lot of the teams that they were playing. I do think that you can look at them and the offense didn't have a good game against Auburn defensively. Like, look what they've done defensively in the last four weeks and how different it looks from the first few games. [00:21:25] Speaker A: Significant. [00:21:25] Speaker B: I've got the numbers here. I'm pulling up the spreadsheet against Ole Miss defensively. So these were the last three games under Travis Williams. Ole Miss 41 points and nine possessions against Arkansas. Memphis 32 points in 12 possessions against Arkansas, Notre Dame, 56 points in nine possessions against Arkansas. Now compare that to what's happened here recently. There have been some stinkers in here, but you look at start with Tennessee, 34 points and 11 possessions. Arkansas got off the field five times against Tennessee, Auburn, 25 points and nine possessions. Again, Arkansas was set up in some. Some bad situations where Auburn had short fields and Arkansas was able to hold him to a lot of field goals, A and M. That was a very bad defensive game. 45 points, nine possessions. Mississippi State the other day, 38 points in 11 possessions. Arkansas got off the field five times against Mississippi State. So the defense is playing a lot better. The problem is that you're facing better defenses and the offense is not playing at as high of a level. What's amazing, Christina, they had more chances against Mississippi State the other day, more possessions than they've had in any other SEC game this year. They had 12 possessions. They had not had 12 in any other SEC game. They did have 13 against Memphis earlier this year, but they did like they're doing less with more possessions. Or maybe the better way to say that is they're doing equal or less with more possessions than they had when they were putting up these big numbers earlier in the year. [00:22:54] Speaker A: I think it's notable that two of these offenses that they've played and when we're saying that the defense has been better are two of the worst offenses they've faced in SEC play in Auburn and Mississippi State. So, like, that's worth noting. It does matter the, the competition you're facing. And they had a really, they opened just in a really hard way. But I do still think it's worth noting the improvement that we've seen defensively and that, yeah, the fact that the offense has not matched that. [00:23:17] Speaker B: They're playing shorthanded the other day to two of their offensive lineman around, which. [00:23:21] Speaker A: Honestly, it went better than I thought it was. I thought, I thought it was really bad disaster. [00:23:25] Speaker B: There was a bad snap from the center that kind of wrecked a play down on the goal line, but they were still able to score on that drive. And then, you know, at right tackle, you've got Amarian Harris out. You bring in Shaq McCroy. [00:23:36] Speaker A: He gets hurt about. He's been in, he's played a decent amount. And then he gets hurt on the. [00:23:40] Speaker B: Second play of the game, doesn't return. So you've got your third string right tackle in there. I think he got a holding penalty on his first play. [00:23:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:23:47] Speaker B: And you're thinking, boy, this could go really Bad. But they were able to keep it together and play a pretty good offensive game. [00:23:55] Speaker A: Yeah, Yeah, I was. I was impressed with that. When we saw that when we got to the stadium, I was like, this might get really ugly. And it got ugly in the penalty department. It got ugly for reasons I did not expect. [00:24:05] Speaker B: I think. Didn't Brizard have two of the penalty. The third string right tackle? I think he had two of the penalties against them on Saturday. So I don't know. We're almost to the finish line. [00:24:16] Speaker A: No game this week, no basketball tonight. [00:24:19] Speaker B: Then lsu, Texas and Missouri to end it. We do have to talk real quick about Auburn firing Hugh Freeze because now. [00:24:27] Speaker A: Again changes things again. [00:24:28] Speaker B: It's like every Sunday. And I'm like a broken record because I say this every Monday, every Sunday, we're just waiting. Who's it going to be? [00:24:34] Speaker A: I was wondering. It was. With Freeze, it was a matter of time. I mean, it was like, all right, what time is it going to be? Not. Is it going to be him? [00:24:40] Speaker B: Yeah. When I read. Because of the clock change, I read somebody tweeted something after Saturday, they said the good news is Auburn has an extra hour to fire Hugh Freeze. [00:24:49] Speaker A: I saw that. Yeah. No, I mean, and it changed, you know, it changes things. Yeah. We were kind of expecting, you know, obviously we expected this one to open, but we knew, you know, this is another SEC job, that it changes things. It affects Arkansas. You know, it's another big SEC program that probably, you know, steps in, kind of gets in front of the line, in front of Arkansas in terms of level of program or kind of coach they're going to attract. And so it's another, you know, it's another team that kind of slots in above them. So it affects them for sure. [00:25:16] Speaker B: There's so many jobs that are already open and I think there's more that are going to follow that. You know, I'm getting to the point with Arkansas that I feel like it's going to have to be one of two things. Either you're going to have to have kind of a retread head coach, someone who probably has some warts somewhere along the way, or you're going to have to go the coordinator route and give someone a chance to be a head coach for maybe the first time in their career and. Or I guess that would be the opposite of the retread. It would be giving someone a chance, a coordinator, to be the head coach for the first time in their career. Because you're just getting to the point where unless you've just got a ton of people job hopping from one prime job to another. You know, there's only so many John Summeralls that are out there who are kind of the, you know, the bright shiny up and coming here. [00:26:10] Speaker A: I think Arkansas would have a great shot at him and he'd be a great option. I don't, I don't even considering him an option because I don't think he's going to make it to Arkansas. You know, like, I think there's, he's going to get picked up by somebody else. [00:26:19] Speaker B: And we're going to talk more about Arkansas's job tomorrow on our show. Kind of, you know, just, just kind of what the current landscape looks like and candidates and everything. But one thought I did have this morning is that you think about coaches who are kind of in the prime of their life right now. Like Rhett Lashley, he got an extension at SMU over the weekend. What's he like, 42, 43 years old somewhere in there? You know, if you're now, Rhett Lash is a different story because he grew up here in northwest Arkansas and he's seen the program whenever they've had success. But if you are that coach who, you know, you're like your late 30s, early 40s, into your mid-40s, think about how old you were the last time Arkansas football was relevant on a national scale. [00:27:00] Speaker A: That's a really good point. Yeah. [00:27:02] Speaker B: Let's say you're 42 years old. You were 28 in 2011 when Petrino had this program rolling. And so it's just like I feel like we view Arkansas differently sitting here in Fayetteville because we've seen what the program can do. We know what some of the baked in, we know what the disadvantages are, but we also see it maybe through the prism of what other sports are able to do and how competitive they're able to be in the sec. I think unless you're like that though, when you look at Arkansas, I think a lot of people, and this probably rubs some people the wrong way, they look at Arkansas like that's kind of like Northwestern. That's kind of like, you know, that's kind of like ku. [00:27:47] Speaker A: Yeah, I would look at it. [00:27:48] Speaker B: You know what I mean? It's like, yeah, it's that team that's perennially at the bottom of the conference who you wouldn't be surprised if they jump up every few years and have maybe a seven win season and pick off a team or two. They're not. [00:28:01] Speaker A: But you don't look at Them as like some sleeping giants. [00:28:03] Speaker B: You don't look at them, you don't look at them as a team that's going to consistently produce a high level winning product doesn't mean it can't be done. And that's one of the challenges in this coaching search is finding someone whose view of the, of the program can align with your own. Which has to be this really, you know, this. Am I going to use Pie in the sky for the second time today? But I mean that's kind of what it is. It's like, hey, we think we can get to this point, but we need you to think you can get to that point too. And I just don't know that there's a whole lot of those candidates out there. And that's really the tough part when you're leading this coaching search and I know they're using a search firm to try to identify some candidates is getting someone to be able to have that same view for your program that you. [00:28:51] Speaker A: Think it can be and also having a clear vision from an athletic department side of things for how you're going to get there. And I think that's why so much of the frustration when you're. Hunter, your check basically said what you said about how, you know, it's, this is not a team that is positioned to compete for national titles. He said they couldn't compete in the sec, which, okay, but I, you know, there was that whole thing that happened and everyone's response to that was because you need to bring in a guy that, that like you said, shares that vision. But you need to be really clear about what the vision is and how you're going to execute it, how what you are going to do for your coach to help them execute it. [00:29:25] Speaker B: And by the way, just because you have money and just because you have some prestige doesn't mean you get it right. Look at Auburn, this is 2 Street. [00:29:31] Speaker A: Look at LSU. LSU is such a mess. [00:29:33] Speaker B: LSU is a mess relative to where they think they can be. Yeah, let's not forget Brian Kelly's won like two 10 win seasons there at a nine win season, had a Heisman. [00:29:43] Speaker A: No, you're right, you're right. [00:29:44] Speaker B: But you know, like Auburn, they've been a real wreck for like five years now. And you know, it's so they thought they had the right guy, you know what I mean? So just because you have money and you have prestige doesn't mean that it's going to work out. I think there's a lot of people who think that Pittman was the bridge to something better may very well work out that you have to have a second bridge that builds to something better, especially in this market right now with the way that the coaching searches are going. All right, Christina, appreciate you being here. When we come back, Anthony Christensen's going to sit here at the desk with me. We'll talk about this basketball game for the Razorbacks tonight against Southern. But first, another word from Kendall King. [00:30:26] Speaker C: 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 Shopcart 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 Kindle King. We are Soapbox. We are Shopcart. We are Design. [00:30:51] Speaker B: Hey, welcome back. Want to tell you about our friends at Benville Glass. They've been serving their community since 1971. They're committed, professional and versatile. If you're looking for equality 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 at 507 South Main in Bentonville or online at bentonvilleglass.com Razorback basketball begins tonight with a game against Southern at Bud Walton Arena. It's going to be a 6 o' clock tip off. SEC Network will televise the game. Arkansas, they looked really good in the exhibition season and I think that the exhibition games only serve to maybe heighten the expectations for this team. Think back to last year, their exhibition games, they beat KU pretty handily. But then they came back to earth the next week. Whenever they went down to Fort Worth and didn't play very well against TCU this year, I mean, there was the little, you know, 8 to 10 minute lull early against Memphis. I mean, but for the most part, if you put those 80 minutes, if you say they played 80 minutes of exhibition games against Cincinnati and Memphis, 65, 70 of really high quality basketball, I would say. And you know, they win those exhibition games by 28 over Cincinnati, by 25 over Memphis. Those are. We'll see what kind of teams they have this year. But historically those are pretty good basketball programs. Anthony Christensen's here. Southern is a team that they're predicted to do pretty well in the swac. That's not the sec. [00:32:19] Speaker D: It's not. [00:32:20] Speaker B: That's that this feels like one of those games where if Arkansas doesn't come out of Bud Walton arena tonight with a really, you know, nice looking score. It's probably going to be a game that even John Calipari would say that wasn't up to our standard. [00:32:36] Speaker D: Yeah, probably not. But you know, you look at this Southern team, they've got three of their top four contributors from last season back and Cam Amory, Michael Jacobs and A.J. barnes. So I mean it's a solid team. They like to play at a moderate pace and they like to shoot the three pointer. They're the best three point shooting team in the SWAC last season. So, you know, there's a lot to like about the team. I mean they're not going to be able to match Arkansas's athleticism by any means, speed or athleticism. But I mean, it's a team that, you know, has won SEC games on the road in the past. They beat Mississippi State a couple years ago on the road and you know, that's kind of, I guess the, the marquee win of, of coach Kevin Johnson's non conference time, I guess there at Southern. So I mean there's, there's some stuff to like. But you are correct in saying that if anything other than I think a, a pretty emphatic win would be a, a strange one for Arkansas. Obviously it's the first game of the season and you know, they did look really good in the exhibitions, but exhibitions are exhibitions and you don't want to read too much into them. So this is the first real taste of, of what, you know, the team is going to look like. And you know, I'm just excited for basketball to be back. I mean, it's fun. I've got, I've got the Murray State Omaha game on the laptop going right here. I know, I don't know, the people listening can't, can't see it, but the people watching. [00:33:53] Speaker B: Yeah, we're probably committing all kinds of penalties right now. ESPN is going to come shut down. [00:33:57] Speaker D: That's not ESPN, it's field of 68. [00:33:59] Speaker B: Well, they'll do it too. [00:34:01] Speaker D: Well, sorry everybody. [00:34:04] Speaker B: The big takeaway I thought from the exhibition games was you never know how the coaches are going to approach these in terms of, you know, are you going to. And Calipari, he tinkered with the rotations, right? But he didn't tinker with like the depth of the bench, so to speak. And in the Cincinnati game, Isaiah Seeley got a little bit of run. In the Memphis game he didn't get a whole lot. And so this again, it looks like this is going to be One of those teams where you're looking at maybe a, you know, three to four man deep bench, but it looks to me like a deeper three to man, three to four man bench than they had assuming everybody was healthy last year, which really. That never materialized at any point during the season. [00:34:50] Speaker D: Yeah, I'd also say that I think it's a more versatile team. I think you look at, you know, especially in the front court, you look at what Malik Ewan can do and what, what Nick Pringle and Trevin Brazile can do. And, you know, there's a lot of different ways that you can attack, you know, a lot of different teams. All three of those guys are comfortable as ball handlers. You know, maybe you don't want Nick Pringle being in the guy, being the guy to bring the ball up the floor, but I mean, it's not like he's incapable of doing that, you know, that all three of them are willing to handle the ball on the, you know, on the top of the key or on the perimeter. And, you know, there's a lot of different ways you can go about doing that. They've got, you know, a really strong backcourt, obviously. D.J. wagner, Darius Acuff, Malik Thomas, you know, there's, there's a lot to like in the backcourt as well. So I mean, they've got a lot of different, you know, pieces and you know, I do, I do think they're deeper, but I also think they're more versatile as well, which is, which is, which is pretty big. [00:35:41] Speaker B: How many dunks you think we're looking at tonight? [00:35:44] Speaker D: Probably a few. You would think just with the, the. [00:35:46] Speaker B: Athletics, what would you set the over under at least? I'd probably set it at five and a half based on what I saw in the exhibition. [00:35:54] Speaker D: I was actually going to go like a seven and a half actually. I think so. Especially when you look at last year, Southern wasn't exactly the, the best paint defense team. Let me pull up the, the Ken Palm real quick. But Southern last year. Well, actually, no, I was wrong. Okay, I got, I got the numbers flipped. They were not the best offensive paint team, but defensively they were pretty strong in the paint. But my mistake, forgetting the, the numbers. [00:36:22] Speaker B: I've already been lobbying for Dunkettville, that'd be pretty good. You know, Dunk City was taken. Now, I don't know, do you spell it D U N K I T ville or do you just take the fay and replace it with dunk? D U N K E T T E? [00:36:38] Speaker D: I like that one better. Dunk it. Yeah, yeah, the Replace the Fae. I like, I think I like that better. [00:36:45] Speaker B: Would you put that on a dateline at the start of a story? [00:36:49] Speaker D: Would I get yelled at for it? [00:36:50] Speaker B: Probably. You'd probably get it changed now. I don't know about yelled at. You'd probably get it changed before it ever made it online. [00:36:55] Speaker D: Well, you know, I would do my best, I guess. [00:36:57] Speaker B: Duncanville, I think this team, I think you got to go back to. Gosh, I don't even know when maybe one of Nolan's later teams like when they had Brandon Dean and Derek Hood and that group where I can remember a team like. And I know that we're only talking about a couple of exhibition games, but just based on potential that can play above the rim as well as this one does. Stan Heath had a team that had Olufamatimi, Ronnie Brewer. They had some, you know, they had some length and athleticism too, but like that, that really stands out. The ability to play up above the rim that they've been able to do here early on. [00:37:31] Speaker D: Yeah, on both sides of the floor. Right. I mean their rim defense has been really good so far in the exhibitions as well, you know, and that's something that is, you know, going to be an important thing, you know, not just, you know, in this non conference league but once you get into the SEC where there's going to be, you know, high level athletes everywhere you look. It's, it's going to be, you know, a big time thing you need to do. But yeah, I mean you look at this game tonight, like I said, you know, Southern's not the best or the last season wasn't the best paint offense team. You know, it's pretty strong defending the rim in the paint, you know, so. But obviously that's mostly against swack composition. So you know, they're not going to, you wouldn't think at least, you know, you'll, you'll. You don't want to completely rule it out because you know they've gone on the road and beaten SEC teams in the past but you look at, you know, this, this team and they're not going to most likely be, I mean they're not going to be as, as athletic as Arkansas and you would think that, you know, obviously that's going to play a big factor in the game. So yeah, big, big above the rim team. [00:38:39] Speaker B: And before anybody comes and yells at me about hey, you forgot the Michael Qualls team or the Sonny Weems team or something like I remember things that happened a long time ago. A lot better than I remember. Like basically if it's happened since I had kids, there's a good chance that I'm not going to remember it nearly as well. I think that's just how everybody is. You just, you remember things from a long time ago maybe or at least you get to a certain point. I think you get to a certain age where stuff that happened a long time ago becomes a lot more front of mind than stuff that happened last week or last year. [00:39:10] Speaker D: I remember that Nolan Nolan title team like it was yesterday. [00:39:13] Speaker B: You do not. I do. [00:39:14] Speaker D: I was, I was not born. [00:39:15] Speaker B: I do. I remember. I remember very well. I think that this is, I've said this on here too and, and when Dwight Stewart was in here about a month ago, he and he and I had a little bit of a conversation about this. Like to me this reminds me of that era level excitement leading up to the basketball season. Like football was really bad in those years. You know the early. [00:39:39] Speaker D: It's not going great this year either. [00:39:40] Speaker B: It's not going great this year. And that's part of the point is that football was not real good in that era. They had the 1995 season where they went to the SEC championship game but otherwise they, the 90s up until Houston nut came were not a real good era for football in Arkansas. At least I'd say any part of the 1990s I was going to say in the SEC. But even their last couple of years in Southwest Conference weren't all that great. And so in those days you were really excited for basketball. Now it was a different, it was a little bit different because basketball season started a lot later in November like Arkansas and UMass in 94, 95. That game was played the day after Thanksgiving. And now here we are it's like the first Monday of the month and we've got college basketball that tipped off at like 6:00 clock this morning, 7:00am. [00:40:29] Speaker D: I was at Winthrop versus Queens. [00:40:31] Speaker B: Some YouTube. [00:40:32] Speaker D: Yeah, it was a great game. [00:40:35] Speaker B: Okay. [00:40:36] Speaker D: It was really entertaining. [00:40:37] Speaker B: The point being, the point being Winthrop. [00:40:40] Speaker D: Getting the win best record in the country right now. [00:40:43] Speaker B: The point being that, well, you make. [00:40:46] Speaker D: I guess them and you make it. [00:40:48] Speaker B: Hard to make some points. Sometimes you just, you just jump in with all your random facts about Queens. [00:40:53] Speaker D: I'm not counting the 91 games. So that means Winthrop and Saint Bonaventure are tied for the best record in the country right now. [00:41:02] Speaker B: I'm going to try to finish point those games. [00:41:04] Speaker D: I'm going to try to finish I'll be quiet now. [00:41:08] Speaker B: The. If you're not listening to us, we are really laughing. This is not fake, Anthony. He cracks me up with how well he goes into the detail about all these different college games. It reminds me of the old days in terms of the excitement. Football's bad. Basketball looks like it's pretty good there. This. This is like they go to Michigan State on Saturday. That's going to be a really awesome. I saw Fox the other day. I was watching a football game and Fox was hyping up that Arkansas, Michigan State game for next week. [00:41:42] Speaker D: Oh, yeah, it's going to be. I mean, that's going to be a lot of fun. I mean, I've had the privilege and honor of covering a game at Breslin center in the past when I was covering Southern Indiana and Evansville. And, you know, it's a. It's a, you know, it's a great place to. To watch a game. It's a great place to cover a game. And that was just for, you know, second game of the season by game against an OVC team. And, you know, now it's going to be, you know, a Saturday in which both teams, football teams have a buy. So it's going to be all full focus on basketball and, you know, two top 25 teams. So I'm. I'm anticipating it to be, you know, a phenomenal atmosphere. And, you know, my, My lone experience at Breslin leads me to believe that it absolutely will be, but it's going to be a lot of fun. I mean, on paper, you know, two really good teams, two teams that I had in my AP poll and, Yeah, I mean, it's just. Yeah, everything is really exciting. The excitement about, you know, basketball here and in Fayetteville, I think is very tangible. You know, there's. There's a lot of people who are. Who are ready to, you know, watch this team, be it Southern or be it Michigan State. You know, I'm not. I'm not sure that it's going to be a fully packed Bud Walton arena, just because, you know, I don't know that Southern gets people as excited, the general population, as excited as it does for me. Just because I. I'm weird. [00:42:58] Speaker B: There'll be a lot of empty seats, probably. There'll be a lot. They've already started. They've already started their campaign, their online campaign. [00:43:05] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:43:06] Speaker B: Use your tickets or let us use them for you. I think that's exactly what it said, actually. [00:43:10] Speaker D: Look, I mean, the people don't understand that they, they want to see Cam Amory play basketball. [00:43:15] Speaker B: But, yeah, you know, I've had this. This. I can't remember the last time I went on this tangent on this podcast. I'm pretty much a broken record. I just spin around. It's just a matter of how long do I come back full circle. You want to be a Blue Blood program, you need to act like one. You know, and that's. That's one of the things that I know bothered Calipera early last season was just the lack of attendance for these games. You don't get this at, you know, like. Like, they turn on the lights at Fog Allen Field House. It doesn't matter if you're playing UNC Wilmington. They're going to pack that place out. Same thing. [00:43:51] Speaker D: Also, the best environment I've ever been a part of. [00:43:53] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:43:53] Speaker B: Rupp Arena. They turn on the lights at Rupp arena, you're going to get 22,000 people in there. It doesn't matter if they're playing Elon on a, you know, a Friday night. It's just how it is. And so, you know, I. Based on what we saw for the Cincinnati exhibition game, Arkansas hadn't quite made it around to that point yet. So I am interested to see what the attendance looks like here for some of these early November games, because last year it was really rough. I don't know what the numbers were announced as, but you're talking. You're talking crowds that were probably 7,000 for some of those games. [00:44:25] Speaker D: Yeah. I don't remember the numbers off the top of my head, but, you know, it's. Yeah. I mean. But. Yeah. But, yeah, I mean, I'm excited. I know you are. I set my alarm at 6:50am There. [00:44:41] Speaker B: Are a lot of people like Winthrop versus Queens, but there are a lot of casual fans. [00:44:46] Speaker D: Oh, yeah, No, I fully recognize. I'm a strange, strange person. [00:44:50] Speaker B: They'll show up when they play Louisville in December, which. [00:44:53] Speaker D: That'll be a lot of fun, but. [00:44:54] Speaker B: That'Ll be the only time that you see them between the start of the season and when Tennessee comes for the start of the SEC season and January. [00:45:01] Speaker D: Yeah. Yeah. Which, you know, I. I do remember it kind of bothering John Caliperi a bit last season, you know, so. [00:45:09] Speaker B: Because he's not used to it. [00:45:10] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:45:11] Speaker B: I mean, he's been in Kentucky for 15 years previously. [00:45:13] Speaker D: Yeah. And, you know, it's. You know, we'll see how it goes. You know, I'm. I'm still, you know, I'm. I'm. I'm very excited. I might My, my excitement is very tangible and I think, you know, in, in general, I think the excitement for basketball in Fayetteville is, is, is, is high. Even if the, if the, the attendance isn't going to be the best in the world. [00:45:34] Speaker B: But yeah, give me one big thing you're looking for tonight. [00:45:38] Speaker D: I'm looking for first off, you want to put a team like this away early. Just don't give them the opportunity to, to, you know, hang around and let themselves believe they can pull the upset. So I think if you're Arkansas, you want to, you know, really, you know, put this game to bed early. I think you, I think one thing that I want to see more, I guess better of from the exhibitions is, you know, I think, I think Southern is going to try to play, you know, a high tempo defense, you know, kind of in your face a little bit like Memphis did. Obviously they're not going to have the athletes Memphis did, but you know, they had the second best defensive efficiency. Deficient second best defensive efficiency, which is. [00:46:16] Speaker B: Like the opposite of a defensive deficiency. [00:46:19] Speaker D: Yes, exactly. In the SWAC last season. So, you know, it's a team that can play defense, you know, so it's, you know, I'm looking forward to see how they would deal with that just because they did, you know, struggle a little bit with that early against Memphis. But like I said, you know, Memphis is, or Southern is not Memphis. So that's another, that's kind of one thing I'm looking or the second thing I'm looking for and then another thing I want to look at look at is, you know, can you get DJ Wagner more involved in the offense? You know, the, the game against Cincinnati he had two points on three shots. You know, he was a bit better against Memphis, but still had more turnovers than assists in both of those games. And you know, maybe it was more of an emphasis on getting guys who aren't as used to the system kind of to play in it more, be more involved in it. Just because he's obviously the most experienced guy in a John Caliperi system that they're, you know, that there is in college basketball right now because it's his third year with John Calipari. But I think, I think that's going to be another thing that I'm looking forward to seeing is, you know, can they get D.J. wagner more involved, you know, in, in, in the offense. So I think those are my three things to watch, I guess only ask. [00:47:26] Speaker B: For one, by the way. [00:47:27] Speaker D: Oh, well, well, you know what you get me, yapping. I'm gonna get yapping. I'm gonna be watching Chris Amory or Cam Amory play basketball tonight. [00:47:34] Speaker B: Arkansas and Southern tonight at 6:00 clock on SEC Network. Hopefully you don't have Michael Jacobs. Hopefully you don't have one of those or the TV provider where you can get SEC Network. Right now. That little spat still hasn't been resolved. 6 o' clock on SEC network. We'll have plenty of coverage on our website, WholeHogsports.com we'll talk about the game tomorrow. Hope that we see you then on our show or at our website, wholehogsports.com have a great night, everybody.