[00:00:00] Speaker A: You're listening to the Whole Hog Sports podcast. And now here's your host, Matt Jones.
Today on the show, we're going to take a deep dive looking at Arkansas's agreement with War Memorial Stadium. Should the game stay there? What's been the history of the Razorbacks with the stadium? Tom Murphy from the Arkansas Democrat Gazette will join me. We'll also talk about his AP poll, talk about Arkansas playing Texas Tech in Las Vegas and much more. But first, a word from Kendall King.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: 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 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.
[00:00:50] Speaker A: I would never say never with War Memorial Stadium, but it feels like this is the end. Just, just everything that we're hearing this week and all the stories we're reading, it's kind of like it's like obituaries for War Memorial Stadium and the Razorbacks as Arkansas gets ready to play Arkansas state Saturday, a 4 o' clock kickoff down in Little Rock. Tom Murphy, who covers the football team for the Arkansas Democrat Gazette is here in studio with me. And Tom and I, we have reported on War Memorial a lot. Eight years ago we wrote a real detailed story about the renovations that the Razorback said that the stadium was in need of. And we're going to go kind of in depth today talking about the stadium, talking about just kind of the state of the Razorbacks with War Memorial. And Tom's got good perspective on this. And Tom, you and I talked about this earlier. You covered Alabama for 10 years. You covered Alabama when the Crimson Tide left Legion Field in Birmingham.
And if there's another, if there's any comparison out there that can be made to a program and a stadium that is not their, you know, quote unquote home stadium being intertwined, it's Alabama and Legion Field. That's as close as you can get to saying Arkansas and War Memorial Stadium.
As you kind of think back to what you saw in Tuscaloosa and Birmingham during those days, obviously, you've covered the Razorbacks now for several years.
Do you see parallels?
What did you learn from what happened at Legion Field that may prepare us for what's happening or going to happen with War Memorial?
[00:02:20] Speaker C: Right when I first got on the beat there, it Was in the works already. I think the final game had already been contracted. I can't remember. I think it was South Florida in 2003 is how they ended up. But they had lost in upset fashion to Southern Miss there a few years before that. And of course, the Iron bowl had been played there until they decided to go on each other's campuses. And I think that was probably the signal that this thing's going to come to an end. Parking was just such a huge hassle there. I won't draw a parallel between the parking at Legion Field, which is horrible, versus the tailgating at War Memorial Stadium, which is great, in fact, one of the big lures there. But just it's the comfort of being at home, not having to travel, not having to make the extra plans and bringing all your equipment.
In their case, it was one hour away, Tuscaloosa to Birmingham. And in Arkansas's case, two hours and 45 minutes away. And it's a bigger deal. I mean, when Bobby Petrino was the coach here, he talked about how it's basically like getting ready for a road game. And so look, I understand the allure. I was in high school when a lot of games were still being played in Little Rock, and it was easy and convenient for our booster club to send us up to Little Rock. A lot more easy than it would have been to come all the way up here. So the central part of the state. I get that. But also, there's always issues, whether it's parking, whether it's Internet connection, the clocks and all that at War Memorial, year after year, it's something.
And so I guess the writing had been on the wall for Little Rock to lose the games. In a way, I hate it. I wish every four or five years there would be something special down there and maybe, maybe down the road something like that could crop up. But it would take some kind of a groundswell of support from within the U. Of A, I think, for that to happen.
[00:04:07] Speaker A: Two years ago, they ran out of water in the second quarter at some concession stands in the stadium on a really hot day to open the year.
Last year, they had plumbing problems in the stadium. I kind of chuckled a little bit. Christina Longwood earlier this week, she had interviewed the stadium manager and he said that they had the Little Rock Catholic football players after one of their practices, they used War Memorial as their home stadium. They had them all go in and flush the toilet simultaneously after a practice because they said that that was about as close to a game day recreation as you could possibly get. They had plumbers on site.
[00:04:41] Speaker C: They.
[00:04:42] Speaker A: These are the kinds of things that happen, though, with War Memorial. That. And I give the people there, you know, credit for trying to make it as good of an experience as they possibly can. They're working with a shorthand to begin with, but these are the kind of things that just really kind of hammer home that antiquated view that people have of the stadium.
[00:05:04] Speaker C: It is. And it's just that I guess they're just not used to that volume of like they're used to maybe doing high school games and there's a certain volume of fans. And then when that volume show up, everything gets magnified. The amount of concessions you have, the amount of water you have and flushing. I had not seen that from Christina. I read a lot of good pieces from Christina lately, but I had missed that one so far.
[00:05:25] Speaker A: Yeah, that was on our website earlier this week. And you know, and they haven't had a capacity crowd in Little Rock in a long, long time. The teams at Arkansas scheduled their.
Either people haven't been interested in those games, uapb, Western Carolina, or they've been SEC teams like Missouri at the end of the Chad Morris disaster, where people have just checked out and they don't want to be there on a cold day for a game that doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.
I'm very interested to see how this is going to go this weekend because it's been maybe Georgia, maybe Toledo, since we've really seen that stadium for. For a game.
[00:06:05] Speaker C: Yeah, that's a good point.
It may be. I can't remember what the attendance was for Toledo, but God, I've thought about that game a few times.
[00:06:13] Speaker A: It was pretty full. There was a. There was a Brad Paisley concert actually after that game that I think attracted some people there. And then I guess they got to drink their blues away.
[00:06:22] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean.
And I guess There'll be 45,000 plus. I'm not sure. Is the capacity still over 50?
[00:06:27] Speaker A: 54, 120.
[00:06:28] Speaker C: Yeah. So there could be 50,000 plus. And you know, Arkansas State. State fans are going to be riled up and they will show up for.
So it's. I guess it's kind of a call to Arkansas fans, hey, if this is the last hurrah, let's see what you got.
[00:06:41] Speaker A: We talked about this with Kara Richie yesterday from Jonesboro. I'm really interested to see what the turnout looks like inside the stadium on Saturday because a state got 10,000 tickets. Usually a visiting team might get about 3 or 4,000 they got 10, which probably offset the guarantee that Arkansas made to them. The razorbacks are paying $900,000 for a state to play this game, but the tickets were available for a long time this summer. Like when they went on sale through the Razorback ticket office. It took several weeks for them to sell out. And so they were sitting there. For the people from Arkansas State who want to go to this game, who this is a very big, important event for them playing Arkansas, I don't know, Tom, but it's not going to surprise me if we get there Saturday and there's 15 to 20,000 Arkansas State fans in that stadium. I think it's going to be unlike anything Arkansas has ever experienced playing at Little Rock because when they go to Little Rock, it is a full throated, passionate Razorback crowd. When it's full, this is going to be unlike anything they've seen in terms of the other team having people in the stands.
[00:07:49] Speaker C: I think there's going to be a lot of big reactions on their good plays in this game and so it is going to have a little bit of a different feel.
I certainly don't recall that kind of reaction when I was in high school. I think we saw Baylor there when Mike Singletary was a linebacker. Colorado State, it was the Lou Holtz years.
So, yeah, you're right.
Razorbacks are going to have to get used to. There's going to be some big cheers and such when there's big plays for Arkansas State.
[00:08:16] Speaker A: I want to kind of go through the history real quick, just, just a couple of minute overview of War Memorial Stadium because I don't want to assume that everyone knows the history of the Razorbacks with War Memorial and how we got to this point. Maybe you're a student who's come in from out of the state and like, what does all this War Memorial Stadium talk about? Maybe you're, you're a younger person who doesn't quite have a. A grasp for what the history is. Just a few bullet points here. Arkansas has been playing in Little Rock or at war Memorial since 1948. They've been playing pretty much annually in Little Rock since 1932. They used to play over at Quigley Stadium on the Little Rock Central campus.
War Memorial was where they wanted to play their big games in the 1950s, 1960s, even into the 70s and 80s. You got to a point in the 60s and 70s and 80s where they would rotate their big games. Texas would be in Fayetteville one year and then two years later when Texas came back, it would be in Little Rock and then go back to Fayetteville and then back to Little Rock and so on and so forth. They even did this early in the SEC years.
First year they were in the conference, Alabama went to Little Rock, then they came to Fayetteville, then they went back to Little Rock and all of this happened.
You know, Little Rock was the population center. Little Rock had an airport. Little Rock had an interstate. You know, at a certain point in time that went to the city. Certainly they had the best roads in the state going into Little Rock because that's the power, you know, the power seat of the state, so to speak.
And Fayetteville's caught up. Northwest Arkansas is caught up. Now you've got an airport and now you have an interstate. Now you have lights at the stadium. Razorback Stadium didn't have lights and Little Rock did for about 20 years before Razorback Stadium did 25 years ago. There was a great stadium debate. And ever since that point, Tom, there have been a number of amendments made to the agreement between the Razorbacks and War Memorial Stadium. And every time it has been to lessen the number of games and to lessen the influence that War Memorial has on Arkansas schedule. At first it was, they had 15 years, 11 of them, they were going to play two games, four of them, they were going to Play three games. And then, you know, they, they, they modify it where they don't have to play three games in a season and so on and so forth. Then it becomes one game a year and then it becomes there's no SEC games there. And then it becomes you got to have a certain number of tickets sold and a certain number of ticket revenue. And now we get to the point where they're not playing. You know, anybody really up note there? Arkansas State, it's an interesting game because there's a lot of novelty to it. It's the first time they've ever played. But it goes back to what we were saying. The writing, I feel like, has been on the wall for Little Rock for a long time. It's been on the wall in terms of how the Razorbacks feel about War Memorial Stadium and how they feel about their on campus stadium for a long time. But it just feels like for a lot of years there's been a lot of kicking the can down the road and nobody really wants to take leadership and ownership of saying, hey, it's time for this to end. It is going to end at some point in time. That's not me making an opinion about it should end. That's just I think that's just the bottom line and the reality that we live in the way college sports are nowadays.
I think Hunter Jureczyk might be the guy. Jureczyk, you know, say whatever you want to about his leadership decisions. He's been the guy that has. He's the one who said, hey, we'll play in state schools.
You know, he's the one who said, hey, we'll fire Mike Anderson because we think we can do better with our basketball program.
So there have been a lot of, I think, unpopular decisions that he's made. Some have worked, some have not worked.
I get the feeling that after this game, I don't know if they're going to make a big grand announcement about it. I don't know how this. Maybe they just don't schedule anything there and they let the conversation die.
At some point. I just feel like he's going to be the one who. He kind of sees this as. This could be part of his legacy. I don't know that. But I think when you look at some of the decisions he's made, he's made decisions based on finances. And I think that this was. That's basically what this comes down to is it is way more financially beneficial for Arkansas to play games in Fayetteville than it is to play games in Little Rock.
[00:12:33] Speaker C: Well, there's no doubt about that. And I'm with you. I don't think there might ever be a definitive. Well, this is it, you know, definitive statement. This is over. I'm not sure if they did that at Alabama. And I was.
I was still covering the team at the time. It just went away. But also, if I can make comparisons, you know, Little Rock is the state capitol. There was so much political juice and willingness.
And you're right, the stadium was larger, had lights, all those things.
In Birmingham, it wasn't the state capitol. There was a lot of pull from there. But I think when the Iron bowl was determined to go back to campuses, that was basically the signal to the end of it. And so that's the. Maybe the end of the parallels with this situation. But with Arkansas, I think you're right. I think between size of the stadium and I 49 and the lights and.
[00:13:29] Speaker A: The number of luxury seats. Luxury, that's the big one to me.
[00:13:32] Speaker C: It really is. And amenities is a simple way to put that. And little. Little Rock War Memorial just hasn't been able to keep up. I mean, there's a lot of money that goes into having to put in a bunch of luxury suites and Put in some of the stuff they've had to do. I think they had to address the locker rooms, locker room. I think they've had to address the replay.
SEC had mandatory requirements on what the replay booth needed. So there's a lot of things that they've just kind of skimped by.
And even though there may not be some major formal announcement about it, there's nothing in the. I know there's talks coming up, but there's nothing predicted that it's going to go back to Little Rock.
[00:14:11] Speaker A: You talk about the politics of it. Asa Hutchinson, when he was the governor of Arkansas, this in his second term, War Memorial kind of became a, I don't know if I'd say pet project for him, but it became something that he put a lot of time into. He took the stadium, put it under the Parks Department umbrella, which now I think is Parks Heritage and Tourism was able to get some grants for the stadium to pay for some of those things. Like you said, the locker rooms. I think they got a new scoreboard at some point in time, a video board.
But it's been 700,000 here, 900,000 there, a million here.
When you and I wrote in 2017, at that time, Jeff Long had told the UA trustees that in their view War Memorial was in need of up to $10 million in upgrades. And then it wasn't. Five, six months later, the War Memorial Stadium Commission actually had its own survey done that found that the stadium was in need of up to $17 million in upgrades. And when you look at those two reports, there wasn't a whole lot of overlap on them, like what the, what the stadium commission's report found were a lot of back of house type things, you know, unsuitable space for concessions and things like that. Whereas what the Razorbacks were focusing on were those things like you were talking about better communications, better replay technology, you know, so $27 million, and that's in dollars eight years ago. That's a lot more now.
You know, these little Band aid million here, 2 million there. It hasn't really. It's helped, I think, and it's helped the people who are kind of maybe behind the scenes, but just the people who buy the $65 ticket to go to the game this weekend, they don't see that stuff for the most part.
[00:16:01] Speaker C: You're right there. And you know what? It's just really been a very slow motion divorce, death by a thousand cuts.
And I think it's because there's so much fondness and compassion and passion built up over the years for some of the great moments that have happened in War Memorial Stadium. And so it's not like anybody's real happy to like let that go. But all of the modern day realities with finances have led to where we are right now with this whole situation.
[00:16:30] Speaker A: I think Danny Ford even said on his way out in the late 90s, it said, you're going to have to figure something out about this War Memorial Stadium thing. And then Houston Nutt comes along and he's from Little Rock and they have such great success there. So many big wins. They beat LSU several times.
And it just, it, I think it probably put on pause what would have been set in motion had there not been that 10 year span without all the success there.
[00:16:56] Speaker C: That's a good point. And Houston, I think is on record. I saw somewhere this week that he wants games to still be played.
[00:17:01] Speaker A: That doesn't surprise me.
[00:17:02] Speaker C: He's very connected to Little Rock. He wants games to still be played there. And maybe, just maybe once every X number of years, they could schedule something special down there. Arkansas State, uca, somebody. But an in state game would make sense.
[00:17:15] Speaker A: Here's something, here's a stat that jumped out to me this week. It was something else. Christina looked up between Arkansas and Arkansas state, there are 41 Arkansans on these two rosters out of. What's the roster limit? 105. 110 for both. I mean, so you're talking about over 200 spots.
That's less than 20% of these two rosters. And there's a whole other conversation that can be had there about the two big Football Bowl Subdivision schools in Arkansas only holding 20% of their roster spots for Arkansans. We can have that discussion at a different time.
But part of what made War Memorial so unique, I think whenever it was in its heyday, was that you were recruiting all these kids from Little Rock and the surrounding areas or from southeast Arkansas or from East Arkansas. And that was a way for them to go home, so to speak. And I'm sure it's a big deal for Omarion Harris to go down there and play this week. He grew up in Little Rock. His dad played for the Razorbacks. He's got the history with the stadium. But I don't know, and I suspect there probably just are not a whole lot of instances like that where this matters to players going back and playing at War Memorial like it did 25, 30, 40 years ago.
[00:18:30] Speaker C: So you're adding all these little pieces of the puzzle into the big picture. And this is one of them because we spoke to Brandon Russell last night. He'd only played the Salt bowl there, had not gone to any Razorback games at War Memorial. Kobe Branham from Fort Smith had not been, has not played a game at War Memorial before. But you're right back in its heyday, so many kids had been recruited out of Little Rock or even south Arkansas, Camden and so on El Dorado. That that's just a nice medium middle of the state place for everyone to meet up. And the composition of modern day rosters. Arkansas's rosters in the 60s and 70s was probably 80 to 90% Arkansas and Texas and some years well into the 90s I would think. Now lead running back is from New York.
[00:19:15] Speaker A: Think about 2006. They had an entire defensive line that was made up of players from the Little Rock school district on their SEC west championship team.
[00:19:23] Speaker C: That's amazing.
[00:19:24] Speaker A: I don't know that they've got four players in the starting lineup this year from the state of Arkansas.
[00:19:27] Speaker C: Well, you know you got Quincy, I mean you got Braylon, there's some few key guys, C.J. brown from Bentonville. But modern day rosters now because of the way things move around the nil running back from New York, we got several players from California on this team. So it's, it's a nationwide type roster. And I've talked to a lot of folks about what's happening with Arkansas football. What's the key to getting back to being very, very competitive. And there's a lot of them, finances included. But one of them is having more kids who understand what playing for the Razorbacks means. And Sam Pittman talks about it a lot but they haven't had super big success at keeping some of the bigger names in the state.
[00:20:08] Speaker A: You can get the latest breaking news on all razorback
[email protected] Most in depth source for all Arkansas sports. We've got analysis, latest in recruiting, unique stories on all your favorite teams. Subscribe today@whole hogsports.com when we come back we're going to continue our discussion about War Memorial Stadium. Also this new Razorback contract with Texas Tech. I want to talk to Tom about his AP poll but first a word from Kendall King.
[00:20:30] Speaker B: 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 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 designed.
[00:20:56] Speaker A: 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 want to tell you we're going to have Hunter Jurecheck at the Hogs Illustrated Sports Club tomorrow. That's going to be our entire podcast tomorrow and it'll be a Q and A with Hunter up there at our luncheon in Springdale. So make sure that you tune in for that. Lot of questions to ask the Arkansas ad, obviously, War Memorial, Arkansas State.
You know that we'll spin the hits talking to him. We've got a poll up on our Whole Hog Sports Twitter page right now. Pretty simple. It says, should this be the Razorbacks last game at War Memorial stadium? Right now, 83% of you say yes, 16.8% say no. We'll continue to keep a look or keep an eye on this throughout the week. That poll is going to stay open until kickoff on Saturday. But right now, 83% say that this should be Arkansas's last game at War Memorial Stadium.
Arkansas announced today they're going to play Texas Tech in Las Vegas in 2030.
This is going to replace a game that was already on the schedule where Arkansas was going to go to Lubbock in 2030. And then the Razorbacks and the Red Raiders have actually added a third game to their future series.
So now Arkansas and Texas Tech will open the season in 2030 in Vegas. Texas Tech will come to Fayetteville in 2031. Arkansas will go to Lubbock in 2034.
And I was thinking about this game in Vegas, Tom. It's at the Raiders stadium.
And kind of thinking and as I've got War Memorial Stadium on my mind, you know, I think back to this last week. You've got Cincinnati and Nebraska, they started the season at Arrowhead in Kansas City, S.C. and Virginia Tech, they started the season at the Falcons stadium in Atlanta. Say what you want to about Arkansas and A and M playing in Arlington, but that was a game that fired up the players whenever they got to go down there because 90% of them are never going to get to play in the NFL. And so this is an opportunity for them to play in a world class stadium, an NFL stadium. And, and it's probably going to be during that four year window, if they stay with the program for that long, that's going to be the only times they ever get to play on a professional football field in a professional football stadium.
War Memorial doesn't have that feel, I feel like. And it goes back to the, to the Arkansas kids. It's when you bring in a bunch of guys from out of state and they're only here for a year or two years and they want to play those games at NFL stadiums and they say, well, why are we going to War Memorial and playing here where pretty much the only other tenants are high school teams and the high school state championships?
It feels to me like this Vegas thing, this is what players want a lot more than playing in a Little Rock, playing in a Birmingham or a Jackson like some of these SEC teams used to do.
[00:24:03] Speaker C: Yeah, I think so. And it'll be an interesting. Hey, if I'm still kicking, I guess I'll be excited to go out to Vegas at that time. I haven't been since.
[00:24:10] Speaker A: You can take an allegiant flight to Allegiant Stadium.
[00:24:12] Speaker C: Could do that. It's been since I covered the Big West Conference when Louisiana Tech was a member for a few years, the early 90s, that I've been to Vegas and it's changed a lot since then. But hey, that's a draw. I'm not saying that's a huge recruiting tool, but it's a draw. Hey, we're going to be playing in Vegas in 30 and so it'll be fun to go out there.
I think the Razorbacks haven't been since the Las Vegas bowl.
[00:24:37] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:24:38] Speaker C: Maybe two, 2,000.
So yeah, that'll be a fun one. I'm looking forward to that. And I think you're right that that's a little bit more exciting for the players to get ready for than say home opener against Western Carolina.
[00:24:51] Speaker A: It's a draw. I think whenever you're recruiting players on a year to year basis it's like, hey, come play for us next year. You can come play at the, you know, this beautiful stadium in a vibrant city like Las Vegas. Now we've said a lot about the case against War Memorial. Here's the one big case for War Memorial is that college football is all about tradition and it's all about being unique like Texas A and M. If you're not an Aggie, you wonder what the hell are these people doing? Like, what possesses you to do all of the things. But that's part of their. It's part of their tradition. It's part of their culture.
For Arkansas, there's nothing like we said, Alabama left Birmingham and Ole Miss left Jackson and Ole Miss left Memphis. They used to play Memphis a lot.
There's nothing left like this. It is extremely unique.
Like that's an oxymoron, I guess, but it's unique. There's nothing else like that. And if you pull that away, you pull away a little bit of what makes college football so great is just the uniqueness of we have this and nobody else does.
[00:25:58] Speaker C: I get what you're saying and I agree with that. However, I guess. And look, I understand the passion of Arkansas fans who've been to Little Rock, who've seen so many, witnessed big wins over Texas and lsu. I get all that. But I think it really boils down to what's the advantage of trying to win a game. Bobby Petrino laid this out one time back when he was head coach.
What do you like about going to Little Rock and what are the negatives? And one of them is it's like a road game. And he laid out, I think, I can't remember the year, but they had a road game at South Carolina. They were finishing up the year and a game at Little Rock was one of them. And they weren't going to be at home for a three or four week stretch because they had a game in Little Rock. And so it's the comforts of home. It's not having to travel and bring all your equipment.
And it's different. One hour is a little bit different than a two hour and 45 minute bus ride. And that's just the bottom line that's.
[00:26:53] Speaker A: Lost on a lot of people is that it's Arkansas's longest travel time of the year. They fly everywhere else. They bust to Little Rock, you can fly to Alabama in an hour, hour and a half takes you to 45 to 3 hours to bus to Little Rock. And that's. They're running into that this year too. I mean, they play in Little Rock, then they go to Ole Miss, then they go to Memphis. This is three straight weeks where it might not be three straight road games for Arkansas. They may have more people in the stands in Little Rock and in Memphis, but it's three straight weeks of travel. And I think that's what irks the coaches. And it's also, it's a home game where you don't get to have all of the benefits of being on campus for your recruits.
[00:27:32] Speaker C: Exactly. And I know surely it irks the coaches some that happen, especially when they're looking at the schedule of Missouri, which opens with six games at home. And Ole Miss has had some years where they had a ton of their first six games at home. And when you can get, you can get kind of a momentum going if you've got six home games and one of them is against Kentucky or Vanderbilt or something. And Ole Miss and Missouri, quite frankly have had much easier schedules and you know that's what you're up against.
[00:28:01] Speaker A: Bottom line on Little Rock, it comes down to finances, I think in 2017, and we've tried to get updated numbers, we haven't been able to get them. But in 2017, Jeff Long told the trustees, he said at that point in time there was a $3.7 million average difference in game day revenue between Little Rock and Fayetteville and it was projected to go to 4.7 million after the north end zone was enclosed in Fayetteville. I would suspect that number has not gotten any smaller. If anything, it's probably gotten a little bit bigger with the type of games that they played in Little Rock and the type of attendances and ticket revenue they've had there.
And when you're looking for $5 million in the area in the era of rev share, that's a huge deal.
[00:28:41] Speaker C: It really is. And you don't make it up with the discrepancy between what your guarantee is to the visiting. For instance, it's 900,000 for Arkansas State and they've had some 600s and stuff with some other teams like Western Carolina maybe. And right now the guarantee in Fayetteville I think is around 1:5 or 1:6 on stand on average in recent years.
[00:29:03] Speaker A: All right, want to ask you a couple of non War Memorial questions before we get out of here today. Looking at your AP poll, you've got Ohio State number one this week. The rest of your top five, Penn State, Georgia, Oregon, you had Ohio State. You were one of the few who had them number one in the preseason.
[00:29:18] Speaker C: Yeah, nothing against Texas, but they were the defending champion.
Even though I know there's a change at quarterback with to say in and a lot of personnel changes, they still recruit really well and they were opening the season at home against Texas. I picked them to win the game.
I did not know that Arch Manning was going to be so maybe off his game as he was. But yeah, I thought why not have Ohio State number one? I just didn't want to just go with the flow and go, yeah, Texas is going to be the best team because I didn't feel it nationally.
[00:29:47] Speaker A: What was your big takeaway from week one?
[00:29:49] Speaker C: Let's see that North Carolina is not back with Bill Belichick for number one.
And by the way, I did that poll at about 10:30, 10:45 Monday night as North Carolina was getting crushed by Kendall Briles and tcu.
But takeaways, let's see. The LSU defense is for real. That. That was a nice. I thought it was neat that some of the big matchup games were relatively low scoring. Lsu, Clemson was Texas, Ohio State and Notre Dame and Miami. Miami was relatively low scoring.
So, you know, defenses were a little bit ahead. I didn't drop Texas or Notre Dame or Clemson that far in my poll because I still think they're really good teams.
I guess my outlier vote is byu. I think they're on the fringes of the poll and I have them around nine and I know they lost their quarterback, but I really like the infrastructure that Kalani has in place.
Plus, we went to a game out there and it was really nice. So I like byu.
[00:30:54] Speaker A: Speaking of byu, Arkansas soccer beat BYU last night one to nothing. The ninth largest attendance this year at a college soccer game. BYU was number 11, Arkansas was number 13 for that game. So a big win for Colby Hale's team. Let's get you out of here on this time.
What did you see From Arkansas Week 1 that was good? And what did you see that needs to be cleaned up as they go into this game this weekend?
[00:31:15] Speaker C: Yeah, good question.
That was good. I think the receiving core, Taylor, has some trust in them and I don't think they had any drops. I can't think of a drop. But in other words, Omega Blake showed up and sharp and all these guys and CJ Brown had a big game and so he's got a lot of weapons. I think they need to hit their tight ends more moving forward, and I think there's a whole lot offensively we didn't see that we're going to see in the next two, three weeks as they get into the meat of their schedule. Defensively, we had concerns about the front and they were not allayed after that first game.
Not a ton of pressure. They got one really nice third down, sacket or two. Quincy Rhodes had one solo and then everybody converged on that second one. But there just wasn't a ton of pressure on the quarterback. Didn't get him off his point very much.
And they went after Julian Neal to start the game and things settled down. There was apparently a bunch of missed assignments early on, but their pass coverage is still something to be, you know, watchful for. And Jalen Rayner and Arkansas State have the experience with Rucker and company at wideout to take advantage of that. So to me, that's going to be one of the biggest focal points of this game, is how the Arkansas defensive team will stack up against Arkansas State.
[00:32:28] Speaker A: Arkansas is about a 21 and a half point favorite. You think that's about right?
[00:32:32] Speaker C: You know, before I knew what the line was, I put a text out to some guys like, I haven't seen the line, what is it? And I said I would make it 19 5, so I would have it a little lower.
[00:32:41] Speaker A: All right, Arkansas and Arkansas State at 4:00 clock on Saturday. We'll have more about that game on Friday. Again tomorrow on our podcast, we'll have Hunter Yurichek, a Q and A with Arkansas's athletic director. You won't want to miss that. Tom, great to see you. Tom's one of the best. Arkansas Democrat Gazette. You can also read him at our website, whole hogsports.com we hope you have a great day and we hope to see you again on our podcast tomorrow.
