[00:00:00] Speaker A: You're listening to the Whole Hog Sports Podcast. And now here's your host, Matt Jones.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: Hey, welcome into the Whole Hog Sports Daily Podcast. SEC is going to nine football games. We're going to discuss that today on the show. Also, we've got a Q and A with Arkansas football coach Sam Pittman from the Hogs Illustrated Sports Club. All of that coming up. But first, a word from our sponsors.
[00:00:20] Speaker C: At Kendall King, we're proud of over four decades of design.
We're continuing the legacy of great creative design by combining our brands of Kendall King, Soapbox and Shopcart. Together, these brands represent a 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.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: Happy Friday to everybody. We appreciate you being in here, back here in our studio. First time in over two months that we've had a show. We've taken. We haven't taken the summer off, but we've taken the summer off from the podcast. Ethan Westerman in here with me. You had good summer.
[00:01:00] Speaker D: Pretty great. Been to. I'm trying to count number of states real quick off my head. I've traveled this summer. Colorado, Florida, airports and differences. I was in Georgia for SEC media days. We. We traveled a lot over the past two months, but good to be back.
[00:01:15] Speaker B: Are you counting airports as the number of states you've been in?
[00:01:17] Speaker D: Well, that's what I was saying. I don't really feel like I can. I feel like if you're going to the people who count how many states they've been to, I feel like you have to have had boots on the ground and an airport doesn't count.
[00:01:27] Speaker B: So you're on the ground, though, in an airport, no.
[00:01:30] Speaker D: If on a road trip, if you drive straight through a state, no. But if you get out and you pumped gas and your boots were on.
[00:01:38] Speaker B: The ground, what if you take pictures next to the state welcome sign? Are you there?
[00:01:44] Speaker D: Just at that point, just put your feet, walk a few more steps and make sure you were there.
[00:01:49] Speaker B: I'm just trying to get a feel for how many states I've been to this year. That would be acceptable to you? I think I've been to 16.
[00:01:55] Speaker D: Wow. Well, plus D.C.
that's really impressive because I thought I traveled a lot this year, and I don't think I've been to 16.
[00:02:02] Speaker B: Well, some of it was vacation. A lot of it's been work. Yeah, there's been a lot of traveling this year. It's been, been fun. It's been a fun summer. Went up to New England for a little bit, got away.
This has been a good time off. You know, one of the reasons we took the podcast on hiatus for the summer is that summer sports talk is so hypothetical.
Like, like everything that you hear in the summer is what if, fill in the blank. We wanted to talk to us about something that was a little bit more tangible. And now we have stuff to talk about. Arkansas getting ready to start the season. We are eight days away now from the season opener August 30th over at Razorback Stadium against Alabama A and M. College football season begins tomorrow. On Saturday, you've got Farmageddon in Dublin, Ireland, Iowa State and Kansas State. There's some other games like, well, you got Stanford and Hawaii. I think Idaho State plays unlv. There's a handful of games tomorrow. Kansas State and Iowa State is the game to watch because both of those teams are in the top 25. While they've shipped that off to Europe, I don't know, but that's what they've done. But we're eight days away from the Razorbacks playing Alabama A and M. We'll spend much of next week talking about that game, talking about what we've seen from the Razorbacks here in the preseason. We'll have some different guests on the show and things like that today. What we want to discuss before we get to the Sam Pittman Q and A that we had yesterday at the Hogs Illustrated Sports Club is we're talking about this nine game SEC football schedule. This has been talked about. I mean, how many years is it that they have been discussing whether or not to do this? I think we're in maybe that this has been discussed quite a bit in public. Four years, five years maybe.
I think that maybe in 2020 when they had to change the schedule due to Covid or they opted to change it due to Covid and they went to a 10 game sec. I think that really planted some seeds in people's minds that they could do this.
But it's been discussed just every year at SEC spring meetings, every year at the SEC football media days.
This has been a real prominent topic of discussion. It's been a big, a prominent topic during the College Football Playoff discussions. And you know, do you expand the playoff and if you expand the playoff, do you expand the number of games that these teams play within their conference? It felt inevitable that the SEC was going to go to nine games. And it felt inevitable because this I think is what television wanted. And when it comes to college sports, as we all know, what TV wants, TV is ultimately going to get espn, cbs, you know, whoever the, the broadcast partner is for your conference. So in the SEC's case, it's. It's ESPN, Disney, ABC, they want more quality programming. And I have a suspicion, I don't know if this is the case, but this is my suspicion is that before all of this kind of came together this week and the ads recommended it and the presidents and the chancellors, they approved it based on that recommendation, have a feeling that ESPN or someone at Disney, they said, you know, we could probably find you a few million in the couch cushions if you'd make this change.
We'll go back to the negotiating table at some point in time. I think that there's going to be a big financial windfall as part of this. And again, it just felt inevitable that this is what was going to happen because now the ACC is probably going to follow suit. It puts these power conferences in a position where now they're all going to play nine games against each other. They're going to have this Power 4 requirement to play a game out of conference.
And it's just going to make everything a little bit more uniform and better programming. There's not going to be as many Arkansas, Alabama, A&M games in the future on TV.
[00:05:55] Speaker D: Yeah. Which is, you know, I'll be curious to hear the, you know, what comes from those small schools that rely on these buy games. You know, what, how the effect trickles down to them. Because, I mean, that's how this always works with this stuff. Whenever there's something that TV can do to get a big, big payday for them, it's taking away from, you know, something else usually. And it's. I just will be curious to see what these FCS programs do as far as, like, can they still get these games against teams like Arkansas?
And if they do, I guess that means that you just have really one other little group of five game every year. It's very similar kind of to what Arkansas did this year, just minus you subtract one of either Arkansas State or Memphis if you're going to keep an FCS game.
[00:06:41] Speaker B: Well, you mentioned this. I think that group of five and it's going to be group of six is how it's going to be referred to next year because the Pac 12 is coming back with a new batch of teams. Like those are the teams, I think, that actually are probably going to be more affected by this because they're able to get in a lot of cases, two or three of these games every year. And now that number I think is going to shrink and certainly going to shrink from the number of games that they can get with SEC teams, the FCS games. I don't think they're going away right now. I mean as of right now, the SEC teams, they can still schedule those FCS games. I don't think they should. And that's a discussion that we can have next week before Arkansas plays one of these teams.
But I think those teams are going to continue to get scheduled for two reasons. Number one, because it gives the teams an automatic, not an automatic win, but almost an automatic win that they can count toward their bowl eligibility. And they're cheaper. They're cheaper. I mean you can get an FCS team to come play you for 4, 5, $600,000. You want a group of five, group of 16, it's probably going to cost you in the million range.
They may want a two for one agreement where they come to your campus twice and you got to go to their place once.
It's just a lot more difficult to schedule those teams than it is the FCS teams.
[00:07:57] Speaker D: Yeah. And so that's the, the other side of this. I'll be interested to see how it shakes out for those other non conference games. But yeah, this felt like the, you know, the yard project that your mom's been asking your dad to do for a decade and then one day he walked outside and gets started. I mean that's what this feels like to me. It's like, oh wait, they actually did it. I mean this is not no longer like the, that can we please do this from all these teams that want it and then you're just sitting around waiting for years because there, I mean the argument on the flip side was, I mean definitely there for a lot of programs too. But I think it feels like you finally got to a point where everybody could kind of agree like and see where this would benefit everybody from. Probably. Yeah. The financial side of it, this is.
[00:08:37] Speaker B: What people want to see. People want to see better games on tv.
Even the people who look at it and they say, well this is going to be more difficult for my team to get to a bowl game.
I still think that those people would say, hey, I want to see more quality games during the course of the season. This should give it to them.
[00:08:55] Speaker D: Well, yeah, and with this, I mean the, it's really going to come from this is College Football playoff discussion of what will merit, you know, a record. Good Enough to be considered for one of those spots. Because I mean, if you're playing in the SEC and your nine games are against really, really good, a really good nine, maybe you have one or two in there that weren't and you maybe drop three of those.
You know, how do you view, how do you weigh that now? It's got to weigh a little bit more.
[00:09:23] Speaker B: That's a good point. We've got a clip from Greg Sankey on Paul Feinbaum show yesterday that we're going to play here in just a second. But what I think is going to have to happen is that you are going to have to reset again.
Readjust your view of how you look at a record and how good of a season that was for teams.
And why I say again is because I think you're already having to have to do that because of the conference.
You know, the expansion to the conference. You know, obviously it's harder to win in the SEC now than it was three years ago. And it was harder to win three years ago than it was 10 years before that. You know, the more teams that you add and certainly the more quality teams that you add, the more difficult that it becomes to win. Right now you can buy a 3 and O record. You can buy a 3 and a record.
Not everybody chooses to do that. There are some teams. You think about Florida. Last year they played three power four teams out of conference by Miami, Florida State and ucf. So not everybody does this. Georgia, they typically play a couple. You know, what I have noticed as I look at the SEC teams is that it's a lot of times it's the teams on the Eastern, you know, from the old SEC east who play an in state ACC team. Those are the ones who typically play multiple non conference games against power four teams like South Carolina. They end with Clemson. But this year they play, I think Virginia Tech right out of the gate.
[00:10:47] Speaker D: Georgia loves to bookend with a big game. Week one and then Georgia Tech. Exactly last week.
[00:10:52] Speaker B: Who's their big game this year?
[00:10:54] Speaker D: I'm blanking now.
[00:10:55] Speaker B: I don't remember either. Georgia Tech, though I know is, you know, that's who they're going to play. LSU has done this a little bit. You know, they'll play a couple of teams every year, but most teams don't.
Most teams are going to take the path of least resistance to a bowl game. So you can buy a 3, 0 record moving forward, you can only buy a 2, 0 record. That's how this works. And so because of that like a 6 and 6 record that's going to be a lot harder to achieve moving forward than it is right now. Same thing could be said of 7 and 5. Something could be said of 8 and 4, of 9 and 3. But what I think is that an 8 and 4 team now or an 8 and 4 season, if you're an SEC team, that's going to be a lot more impressive now moving forward than it was five years ago. Even like last year, think about the playoff. You had Alabama, South Carolina, Ole Miss, they were all nine and three. At the end of the regular season, they all thought they were playoff teams. And before last season, when you've got Texas and OU in the league, I don't know that people would have looked at a 9 and 3. And you had people who thought, hey, they were. A lot of people thought Alabama should have gotten in over SMU.
I don't think we would have looked at 9 and 3 the same before the 16 team conference. So I just think that we have already readjusted how we look at records or at least I think that a lot of people have. And I think it's going to have to happen again moving forward.
[00:12:11] Speaker D: Yeah. And I think that honestly, you look at the schedule that Arkansas has this upcoming season, it's kind of, it resembles. Because you can't tell me that Memphis isn't better than whoever's going to be last in the SEC usually. Like, I mean that's their confidence. You think to Mississippi State. Yes.
You think that whoever finishes, if, if Memphis is what Memphis has been, that'll be better than whoever, the last place SEC team. I mean Mississippi State got run off the field by Toledo last year.
[00:12:34] Speaker B: Like Memphis lost a lot of players. I know everybody thinks that's a trap game for Arkansas this year. That's not the same Memphis. It's the same coaching staff. It's not the same Memphis team that's been on the field the last couple of years.
[00:12:44] Speaker D: Yeah. Well, I'm just saying in general that a season, a schedule like what Arkansas has with Memphis, how Memphis has been just viewing them like that, it could be like a trial run. Just as far as like thinking how you would think about this nine game SEC schedule because really you look at Arkansas State, Alabama A and M as the only two just real, you should win those.
I mean you can view Memphis that way too. But like you get what I'm saying. And I think that honestly this year, if Arkansas was to go 8 and 4 against the schedule that it has right now, how we, how we perceive it, things always Change. Some of those teams will be worse than we think. Some will be better. But against the schedule, how we view it right now, I think an 8 and 4 season for Arkansas. In my head I'd say they could be one of the 12 best teams in the nation, but you just can't.
[00:13:30] Speaker B: They would make a 12 team playoff. But you could make an argument that they. That there's not 12 better team.
[00:13:34] Speaker D: Yeah, exactly. But I mean like that wouldn't get them in the playoff this year.
[00:13:37] Speaker B: Might get him in the 2018 playoff.
You like that proposal?
[00:13:41] Speaker D: Sure.
[00:13:42] Speaker B: 28 teams. Yeah, I got some thoughts on that next week too.
[00:13:44] Speaker D: But it's.
That's. I think that how Arkansas does this year, you can look at that schedule and a seven win with seven win season might be a better team than we give it credit for, honestly. Like that one year that they played, was it Texas and the Texas. Well, by the end of that season I thought that that Arkansas team, the one that just ran Texas off the field was really good. And there's seven. That. That was a seven win season, right?
[00:14:08] Speaker B: That was a seven win season. Yeah. They went two and six in the sec. But they think about that team is that they were really competitive against some good teams. Like they lost to Dak Prescott, Mississippi State by, you know, a touchdown at the end of the game.
[00:14:20] Speaker D: That's. There's some teams that you know, might be in that seven, eight win range. And by the end of the year you're. The eye test tells you like that's a better team than their record indicates. I think that's how Arkansas could if they got to that range.
[00:14:31] Speaker B: Interesting.
Greg Sanke, the SEC commissioner, was on the Paul Feinbaum show yesterday and talked a lot about the schedule, a lot about the playoff. This, this clip though that we've got, the sound bite I thought was really interesting. Listen what you have to say.
[00:14:45] Speaker E: But how do you perform against that schedule?
That's important to us as well and that work is being done.
What I think we have to acknowledge is the CFP process has said don't lose.
I don't think that's healthy for college football. And the ability to take this step to say it's more than just don't lose, it's about playing quality, high quality opponents, that being honored. Yes, you have to win games.
That's some of the work that needs to progress. That's where we have made some progress, but we haven't reached that perfection stage. And I'll be interested to see how the CFP selection committee continues to adapt, how the protocol continues to adapt.
[00:15:28] Speaker B: That was Greg Sankey yesterday on the Paul Feinbaum Show. I like what he had to say because, you know, one of the things that has bothered me and one of the reasons I like the bigger playoff, whether it be 12, team 16, whatever it ends up being, is that I always hated that it felt like once you lost one game, it was pretty much a death sentence. Unless you were, you know, Alabama, they might be able to overcome a loss. If you had a little bit of mystique about your program, you could overcome a loss depending on what happened elsewhere.
But that's one of the reasons I really like the expanded playoff and one of the reasons I thought last year was one of the most fun seasons I've seen in college football.
Just because it felt like there were so many teams when you rounded the corner into November that were still in the discussion to be in the playoff, a lot of them, it was far fetched. But there were like 30 teams that, whether it be as a conference champion or as an at large, you felt like, hey, they, they've still got a puncher's chance of getting into this thing.
[00:16:27] Speaker D: Yeah. And it also made for just fun spoiler games, to be honest too. Like, because Ole Miss loses to Kentucky and Florida and you knew whenever they lost to Florida, the second time you're like, that was, that was what used to be like the thing you couldn't overcome. I mean, they were going to be able to overcome losing to a bad Kentucky team, but it's like a, it was like a two strikes, you're out with losing the bad teams, which I just like that because I think that at the beginning of the year, like using Ole Miss still, for example, losing to Kentucky, that happens all the time to what ends up being really good teams. And I like having that little bit of grace. But yeah, I like an expanded playoff because it allows those teams to maybe have a little bit of a second chance to overcome that and still have a shot at competing in the playoffs.
[00:17:11] Speaker B: It's so hard to be perfect in sports. Like, I mean, even in football. How many 15 and 0 teams have there been? Two, I think, LSU and Alabama. I think those are the only ones that you've had that went out that went 15 and oh, maybe I'm missing somebody, but the point being they're not a whole lot of them. And so I think that what he had to say there, that, you know, this expectation that you don't have to be perfect, I don't know, I just, I really like that going back to kind of have to you reset your expectations or maybe reset your perception of a record. I was thinking about the NFL in college football. They're not the NFL yet, but I think they're getting there and they're never going to beat the NFL. You know, we're not to that point. I mean, the NFL, the access to the playoff is so much greater. When you think about there's 14 of 32 NFL teams. Well, I mean, in college football, there's what, like 12 of 140 they can get into the playoff. And so the access to the playoff is really one of the things that sets those two apart. Not to mention, you know, the way the NFL handles its business is a lot better than college football that's still trying to get its arms around everything that's changing and happening right now. But in the NFL, nine and eight teams, they win their division and they get to the playoffs and they get to host a playoff game. And so I don't know that we're ever going to get to that point with. With college football where you say, you know, you know, one game above.500 was a great team or a team that's going to get to the playoff. I certainly don't think that's going to happen.
But I do think that we're inching more toward that where we view a winning record being an accomplishment a lot more than we do right now.
[00:18:56] Speaker D: Yeah, for sure. And I think that that's.
I still like in call because I don't want college football to completely resemble, you know, the NFL because I think that that's part of what makes college, you know, different and appealing is the differences. But I do think that I like how in college, you.
There is. I like that there is not as much margin for error, to be honest. I think that makes it more fun.
I do like it for teams that they have a little bit more grace. But I don't know, I don't want to expand the playoffs so much that it feels like it's just getting handed out to some teams that don't deserve it ever.
I don't know what the magic number is, because I think you could expand now still a little bit and still get deserving teams in, but it's finding that balance.
[00:19:39] Speaker B: They're going to keep expanding as long as the TV revenue is out there. And they keep saying, hey, if you'll make it, you know, if you'll make the field bigger, we'll give you more money. It's going to keep expanding. Like, if it goes to 16 teams in December. You know, for 26 and beyond.
It'll only be 16 for so long. It'll move to 20. It'll move to 24.
[00:20:00] Speaker D: You have March Madness right now to use as the test case that they keep. I mean, we're at 68 and they're trying to get to 72. It's like.
[00:20:06] Speaker B: And why. Or 76.
[00:20:07] Speaker D: To get to come up. More money games.
[00:20:09] Speaker B: Yeah, more money. I mean, that's, that's the whole deal is, is that, you know, in this era, colleges need, they need. They need an infusion of money right now to offset what's going on with the revenue share.
And they're going to find a way to make that money up. They're going to find a way, whether it be an expanded college football playoff, an expanded NCAA basketball tournament.
[00:20:32] Speaker D: Both.
[00:20:33] Speaker B: I think it could be both. They're going to find a way to make that money.
[00:20:36] Speaker D: Yep. And I, I'm here for it. So long as we don't get to a point where we feel like teams undeserving teams are getting to participate in this tournament that used to. That's should be a little more difficult to get into because I like that part of it.
[00:20:52] Speaker B: I think, I think we're a long way from that with college football. I think you can maybe make that, that case with.
[00:20:57] Speaker D: We were already there. I think that 64 was great.
[00:21:00] Speaker B: I mean, I think it comes down to percentages right now. There's like 8 1/2% of college football teams have a chance to make the playoff or eight and a half percent will make the playoff. In college basketball, college baseball, in the pro sports, you're more into like the upper teens, low 20%.
[00:21:16] Speaker D: And what's funny is they'll make the argument with expanding March Madness that these bowl games, which, let's just be real, bowl games aren't what they used to be.
[00:21:23] Speaker B: The bowl game.
[00:21:24] Speaker D: That's why they need to expand. Because the post season for college football with all these teams going to bowl games makes their percentage so much higher.
[00:21:30] Speaker B: Than the combination of more playoff games and potentially fewer power conference teams getting to six wins.
I wonder what that does to the Bolt system.
That's something worth watching moving forward.
[00:21:46] Speaker D: Yep.
[00:21:46] Speaker B: All right, we've got a q and A with Sam Pittman coming up from the Hugs Illustrated Sports Club. We'll get to that. But first, another word from our sponsors.
[00:21:54] Speaker C: At Kindle King. We're proud of over four decades of design.
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[00:22:21] Speaker B: Hey, welcome back. I want to tell you about our friends at Bentonville Glass. They've been serving their community since 1971. They're committed, professional and 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 Maine in Bentonville or online at bentonvilleglass.com if you're watching us on YouTube or one of our social media channels. Welcome. We appreciate you being here. Again, this is our first podcast in a couple of months we are going to move back to a daily podcast right now. We'll be back on Monday with a new show. Five shows next week, four shows the week after that, the week of Labor Day and then we'll get into that habit of doing five a week again.
You can go to Spotify or Apple Podcasts and find our show. If you just want the audio version, just search Whole Hog Sports on those platforms and again, you can find it on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter by searching Whole Hog Sports on those as well. You'll see on your screen right now there's a QR code that will give you a link to our Whole Hog Sports Daily newsletter. That's free. Hope you'll take advantage of that. You can go to our website wholehogsports.com to see everything that we have to offer. Arkansas football coach Sam Pittman was in Springdale yesterday at our Hogs Illustrated Sports Club. He had a Q and A with Christina Long, our managing editor of Hogs Illustrated. And here it is.
[00:23:45] Speaker A: So I want to start with a couple of other guys. Just, just run through some other guys on your team. I think there's been a lot of talk about Xavian Sori and rightfully so. But I also want to talk about Steven Dix as a guy who is going to be a possible difference maker for this team. What strides have you seen him make since he got to campus last year?
[00:24:03] Speaker F: Steven's lost some weight, which makes him move a little bit better. And so you have Stephen Bradshaw, Xavier, and sorry, those guys played a lot of ball well all the time last year for us.
Xavier Story would be the leader of that group.
He Made the most tackles. Great kid, but I really like that group. And you had Trent Whalen, a guy that we got from Kent State that's played a lot of football.
There's four, but those three guys are definitely the leaders of their group, and Xavian's kind of the leader there.
[00:24:43] Speaker A: Defensively, there's a lot of guys that come up in camp. When we talk to you and talk to your coaches throughout fall camp, there's some names that we end up bringing up a lot. Mike Washington's one, Cam Ball's one. Omega, Blake. Raelyn Sharpe, obviously. Taylor Greene. Is there anybody that you feel like should be talked about more or you think people might be being underestimated or flying under the radar a little bit that you think people should know?
[00:25:05] Speaker F: Well, I think everybody knows about Braylon Russell, but he's in the best shape. You know, there's a lot of confidence comes with being in shape, and a lot of things go through your head when you're not. I mean, it's just that simple. Braylon is in shape, and so I think you're going to see a really good season out of him as well. Jalen Brown is a wide receiver. Seventeen, I think, is his number. And he's really, really fast. Real fast. And highly recruited out of high school.
And then another guy, Monte Harrison, I think we. We hear about him because he's 30 years old, you know, but he also is a good player, you know.
Yeah.
You know what? I'm just going to tell a story.
[00:25:51] Speaker A: Go for it.
[00:25:52] Speaker F: So I'm at Hutch Juco.
I'm the head coach. I'm 30, 31 years old. I can't remember nobody take the job. So they gave it to me.
And so I had a guy in. We had to cut, and I had a guy in, and I didn't really know who he was, you know, I mean, we had 140 guys on the team.
And I brought him in and I said, you know, you know, you're not very physical. You're not very big.
You're really great guy, you know, all this kind of stuff. And he said, coach, what'd you base that on? I said, well, practice, you know. And he said, coach, you never checked me out a helmet. And so I'm like, probably hard to be physical if you ain't got the gear, you know.
But I don't know what reminded me of that story, something I was telling, but I felt bad for that. But, no, I think it was as a fan.
What's amazing is it would be hard to be a fan right now in today's day and age of college football, because aren't you more passionate about the team? If you know somebody on the team or you know you're familiar with, then you. That's when you're passionate. You can be a Hog fan all you want, but you become a passionate Hog fan a little bit more when you know people on the team. You know a coach, you know somebody, right?
So it's hard now because there's so much change and you don't know guys, you know, they haven't been with. Campbell has. Campbell's been here now for five years, you know, so I think it would be very difficult.
All I'm asking you is to if.
And you're here, so I know you're Hog fans. Get involved with the team. You'll like the guys on the team. We have a lot of talent on the team as we're speaking of now, but they're really good kids and work extremely hard. I think you're going to like them once you get to know them.
Miguel Mitchell's another guy in the back end.
Caleb Woodson is another guy that I think you'll like at safety. Our two corners, well, we have more, but Kenai Walker and Julia Neal are exceptional corners that are big six two, six one, six two that can run. I think those will be guys that.
I'm certainly happy they're out there. I think you will be as well.
And then we went out and got a pass rusher and a kid named Philip Lee from Troy, and I think he can.
Quincy Rhodes is another guy I think everybody knows, but he's really doing well now. He's from North Little Rock High School and he's really doing well. I think he'll make some noise this year as well. I could keep going on and on, but I think I answered your question with a story.
[00:29:01] Speaker A: Well, you also touched on something else I had on my list here, which is, you know, we hear a lot from fans about the fact that they feel like it's hard to know the guys on the team. And that's not an Arkansas specific problem.
[00:29:11] Speaker F: Go to the SEC media day with 48 new guys on your team and see how nervous you are.
Somebody asks you about somebody on the team and you're going, who?
I mean, it's terrible.
I mean, it is what it is. But you're. Go ahead. I'm sorry.
[00:29:28] Speaker A: No, it's okay. I mean, I was just going to ask how you approach that. You know, how when you're trying to get people excited about your team. And also when you're trying to get your team, you know, together and get them to know each other, when you've got guys coming in in two different windows, just how do you approach all of that new and in marketing your team and promoting them and also internally?
[00:29:47] Speaker F: Well, first of all, to get them on the football team, you have to know, in my opinion, their parents, whether it be grandmother, grandfather, mom, dad. You have to understand that because most of the time you're going to get what mom and dad are.
And so if you want a guy that is going to stay with you, you better find that out. You get a guy that's going to transfer you, you probably should have already seen that.
So we did a really good job of how interviewing is not the word for parents, but getting to know the parents in that short amount of window of time that we had. Therefore, bringing the guys in, they were, they were good team fits, they fit athletically, but probably as important to that is a fit on the football team. So that, that, that helped us there. What was your, what, what you were asking something else?
[00:30:40] Speaker A: What was it about, you know, how you handle it from a, you know, trying to get people excited about the.
[00:30:44] Speaker F: Team to, well, we've got to play well early. You know, we have to go out and we have to play well. We had to put a product out there that people want to see.
And with that is, you know, playing extremely hard, playing smart, enjoying and representing the name on the front of the jersey more than the name on the back.
You know, Arkansas is very special.
I want every one of our kids to understand that.
I want them to under every fan base is passionate. We just have a little bit more of it and we've got to understand that. It's just like when I first got the job the second day, I brought in Coach Tice and Marty Burlsworth for our staff.
I wanted our staff to feel the passion of the Hogs.
And man, it was a great day. And then in the afternoon, I brought in different historians that could tell us about the history of Arkansas, the state history of Arkansas, the football team. But there is a very unique passion for the University of Arkansas. And our kids have to show that, that they understand it. And if they do, I think we're a state that wants to like people, wants to take guys in. I think our state will embrace our football team, but we need a fast start. We need to go out there and play with the expectations of what we think it is, our team thinks it is, and our State thinks that it should be.
[00:32:25] Speaker A: You said on the radio last night that Keyshawn Blackstock is going to move and look at defensive tackle. Just when did that actually start and what made you think he might be a good fit for that?
[00:32:34] Speaker F: Well, we need a little more depth in there and we need some older, bigger guys.
Usually if you make a move big, most of the time it's been you move a defensive lineman over to offensive line. You know, this one's just a little bit different. We moved an offensive lineman over to defensive line. We did that because, you know, David Okey had, had, had an injury. Not, not a season ending injury, but maybe a game or two injury.
But we also had thought about it earlier than that. It was just a matter of who. You know, we talked about LJ Prudom. LJ Prudom is a very, very physical young guy, but we have some really good young kids. We needed a little bit more age, a little more veteran Blackstocks, played D line in, in high school and, and so far it's worked out well for us. But we probably started that conversation about seven to 10 days ago.
[00:33:32] Speaker A: I remember, I think it was the Mississippi State game last season. And I remember being on the road and asking you about, you know, was, was this in this game? Was this the tail and green that you, you know, have always known was in there? Like, was this the tailoring green that you thought you could get? And you said yes, you were saying that if, if we play right around him, if we play better around him, this is what he's capable of. Do you feel confident this season that you have the pieces around him to go along with the improvements that he has made?
[00:34:00] Speaker F: Yeah, I mean, we haven't went out there, we hadn't rolled it out there yet, but I think we're better in every position offensively than we were last year. That's nothing negative. You asked the question, I answered it.
So I think we are, we have a lot more talent and explosiveness around Taylor than what we did last year. And you know, I don't know. Negative at times. Sales I guess, I don't know. But he was 40 yards from the all time record of total offense last year.
That means he was second.
And we've been playing football for 90 something years. I think that's pretty good.
So I know y' all's right and lay off of him a little bit. You know, if not this group, I wanted to go somewhere else. The guy was hurt and he was 40 yards. So his potential, in my opinion now Everybody knows I'm a huge believer in Taylor Green. Huge.
But his potential is limitless in what he can do for the Hogs this year. In my opinion, he's playing really, really well in practice as well.
[00:35:22] Speaker A: Taylin and Cam Ball both had. They both had kind of interesting responses in fall camp that I thought were really impactful. When they talked, you know, Cam had that clip about, you know, stay down for the come up and why he stayed at Arkansas. And I wanted to ask you, you know, they both talked about how Arkansas as kind of a, maybe an underdog really resonated with them. That was something they liked and they chose that. Is that something that you emphasized? You like kind of an underdog mentality as a coach?
[00:35:51] Speaker F: Oh, yeah. I mean, we call them logo schools now. We got the greatest logo ever, but we call them logo schools and star schools and all that kind of stuff, you know, and all we want to do is be prepared. I've told our. We're not worried about our opponent. We can't. We got to be concerned about us.
When you get to that point, maybe that's coach, maybe that's how you should always be. But when you get to that point, you feel like you've got a pretty good team. When you're concerned only about your team and your development and all this, because what you're telling the team is if we do what we're supposed to do, we're going to win.
And once you get to that point, which we are that point right now, then our team just focuses on us. Now, each week you're going to have something about an opponent that you're trying to fire your group up about. It could be something in the past, something said, something, whatever it may be, that can kind of get you motivated just a little bit more and all those things. But we have a team right now that if we'll be concerned about ourselves, we'll be happy with the results on Saturday. But we do talk about the logo schools.
[00:37:05] Speaker A: You have the logo school of all logo schools on your schedule this season with Notre Dame coming to town. Just how do you view that game when it is such a, such a challenge, but such an opportunity?
[00:37:15] Speaker F: Well, as opportunity. I mean, what a, what a great season they've had. What a, what a huge history.
It's Notre Dame and.
But at the same time, you know, we were familiar with that type of talent because we play in SEC as well. We'd have to play extremely well. And obviously it's week four, five, one, two, five, week five, and so We've got a lot of work to do between now and then. But, you know, my first game here as a head coach, I don't know if y' all remember we were supposed to go to Notre Dame. Y' all remember that? In 20, I think it was 20. And so we said, you know, because of COVID we couldn't go. And hell, they just gave us Georgia, you know, so listen, I knew about their team. I'd just come from there and I'm going, you know, when we played, when I was at Georgia, we played Alabama in a national championship game. And Kirby had mentioned about, you know, how he had helped recruit all those players that were getting ready to try to beat, you know, and second guessing why did I get him to go to Alabama, you know, and all that stuff. Well, then when I got here and I just kept thinking I knew everything about them and I was going, why is that old line going to be so good? You know, and they were. And.
But we substituted Notre Dame that year for Georgia, and now we're finally getting to replay that. What a. What a great opportunity.
You know, you can look at schedules as either scary or opportunity. I mean, you can, you can, but we're all built to look at them as men.
When we do this, this. This. What a season it can be. And so that's how we're approaching it.
[00:39:17] Speaker A: I want to ask you about a guy you mentioned earlier with Monte Harrison. We've talked to you about him a lot this fall campus. He's really made a lot of impressive play plays. When you got him as a walk on last year, did you expect that he would be a real contributor for you or what was kind of the idea when you brought him in? Did you think he would be, you know, you'd be talking about him in this way now?
[00:39:41] Speaker F: Oh, yeah, I knew. No, I mean, the man had been playing baseball. You know, I knew him out of high school.
Limbo called me and talked to me about him, and so I said, sure, we'll have him walk on. You know, and we had a spot.
And then when he came in, you know, he's big, physical guy and. But no, I didn't have any idea he'd be where he is now.
You know, in our two scrimmages, he's had over 100 yards of catching and. And two or three touchdowns. He's done a really good job. So, you know, as it is, you know, sometimes it takes a little bit of time to get used to the system or get used to college football. And then that next year you're, you know, you really take off.
That's kind of where he is right now. But I had no, I had no. I knew he's a good player, but I mean, I knew he's 29 too, you know, and no, I didn't know any of that. But he is the leader of that group and he's done a really good job.
[00:40:47] Speaker A: You've talked before about how offensive line play specifically is so affected by the transfer portal because of how developmental that position is, how it requires so much cohesion.
There's a lot of analysis out there about, you know, our college offensive lines less consistent now. Are they, are they not as good as they were pre transfer portal era?
Have you seen offensive lines, offensive lineman and offensive line play change since the Portal era? And how do you kind of approach that? You said you spent a lot on the offensive line this year.
[00:41:20] Speaker F: Well, yeah, I think.
Let's go back to when I was at Georgia and the guys on the second team o lineman were guys that were eventually first, second, third round draft guys.
So you had them there and you could develop them and you knew the next year that you could go out and get some really good high school kids. They wouldn't necessarily have to play right then and develop and develop. Now you could be, you could say that about every single position as well.
There's just half the team, half the offense is playing up there on one position on the offensive line.
I don't think the success that we had offensive line wise at Georgia or Tennessee or Oklahoma, wherever we were, would have been the same in this day and age because you would always be replacing all the time.
A lot of good ball play is about knowing what you're doing, confidence, understanding each other, all those things. You lose that a little bit now because you don't have that cohesiveness because of the portal. I think we could solve a lot of that if we cut down the number of times you can transfer. I think we're all caught up on the money and that's got something to do with it. But I think if we cut down the number of times you can transfer, the money would get more reasonable and I think our football teams would continue to grow and get better if we could do that. But it does affect the offensive line. And you know, imagine having a portal that opens up after spring bowl. That's what we have right now. And imagine you're starting left tackle, you're starting right guard, your quarterback, your two safeties and a corner go in the portal. Well, you've already had spring ball, so it's very, very difficult to keep the cohesiveness of all of that right now. If they would at least just go to one portal, I think you'd see better play at all positions, especially the offensive line.
[00:43:32] Speaker A: How have conversations changed then, with players who you want to bring into your program to develop? I mean, how responsive are you finding kids to be when you say, I want you to come in here and I want to teach you for a year or two? Are kids responsive to that?
[00:43:48] Speaker F: Well, I don't know. I'll have to try it one day.
I haven't really talked to him about that.
Now, once they get here, we might have a visit. You know, that ain't exactly the recruiting spiel, you know, but you get what I do. I had Taylor and Campbell and sorry and all these different guys, and I had them stand up. You know, you always. You have to be concerned about guys once you start splitting the team a little bit on scout team or the look team, and you're concerned because all of them came here going to be first team All American as freshmen. You know what I mean? It's just. And to be honest with you, you want that mentality. You want guys that want to be good and believe in themselves and all that. But I had those guys stand up and I asked Taylor, I said, what is that? Boise? What string were you? He said, fifth. I said, how many were there? He said, five. I said, okay, where'd you go? He said, I went to scout team. And now he's the talk of the team. Right? I've coached two offensive linemen that went on the scout team. One got drafted, the seventh pick and one the 29th. But they were on the scout team as freshmen. Some guys develop different, faster, slower than others.
So you have to continue to talk to guys about what it could be like, give them some hope, you know, versus what it will be like if you don't go down there and practice hard and do well.
Not many freshmen play a lot of football in the sec, and so I think there is some understanding when they come in.
And it would be most of the time for size, strength, not necessarily the knowledge part of it. With what we're able to do in the summers now, we can catch them up and all that things. Spring ball, heck with coach. When we were starting, nobody came in in January, nobody. Now everybody does. And so you have more time and all that. It's usually the development of physicality and all that that holds them back. But we just have to keep Giving them hope that if you stay with it like Campbell did, then good things can happen.
[00:46:04] Speaker A: When you talked way back in December when you know height of portal season, you talked about, you opened about the financial approach that you were going to take toward building the roster this season, about how you wanted to spend on more guys rather than a few big names or a few big stars. You wanted to be able to kind of make the dollars go further that way. Now that you've been working with the group that you brought in that way, how confident are you in in that approach and how do you feel like that actually went well?
[00:46:31] Speaker F: You have big old piece of pie.
It just depends on how many, how much you want to share it. You know, you won't share it with two people, you and somebody else. Well, you're probably going to have pretty good relationship with that other person but you nobody else is around so.
Well we first of all you have to be get even financially somehow if you're going to compete against LSU. You why is he going? Well, I'll give you 200 extra thousand dollars reason why he's going to LSU.
So now with revenue share, we're right in there amongst them. Not this year, but starting next year.
And so we took kind of an NFL approach a little bit about we're going to pay the younger kids less and we're going to pay the guys on the team, especially the ones we don't want to leave and all that more. And I think that's what happened with the NFL. You remember when everybody's getting mad because the rookies were coming in making more than the fifth and sixth year starting left tackle or quarterback or whatever and they changed it. You know, they gave the guys who had really, really earned the money, they started giving the money to them. And that's kind of our approach has been and I'm going to tell you that this is the best freshman class, the one that's on campus right now that I've been fortunate to have in my going on six years here. So it worked.
Hopefully it'll work again. We've got 26 or so committed to us for next year's class. But we also were able to save a lot of our revenue share for the guys that we need to keep on our team.
[00:48:20] Speaker A: Who are some of those freshmen that have stood out to you? We've heard a lot about, especially the guys on the offensive line. And you mentioned LJ Prudom, all three.
[00:48:26] Speaker F: Of them really good. LJ Prudom, Blake Cherry, Cash, Courtney, all three of them well, heck, two of them's in the two deep, you know, right now. And not because we're not very good, because they're good.
Antonio Jordan would be another guy that down from Warren. That's a really good.
Batten's a good player. Settles a good player at running back.
Defensively. I like all five of those defensive linemen that we brought in. I think they're going to be good players. Tavion Wallace at linebacker, good player.
Pringle is a really good corner.
Just, you know, we just didn't miss much on those guys. And as we all know, you miss every year on something, whether it be talent, work, work ethic, toughness, whatever it may be you miss.
And we didn't miss very many in that. With. With that approach.
[00:49:24] Speaker A: You mentioned some of the in state guys that you've got, there's. There's several that it seems like are going to be contributors this year. From Kobe Branham, who you had on the radio show last night, Charlie Collins, there's several in there in that mix. How important is it having those guys even just in the locker room? We've talked with the baseball staff about how they feel. Like you can really tell how much it means to the in state kids. How much does that help when you have so many players from all across the country, from all different schools that have been at sometimes three schools before?
[00:49:52] Speaker F: Well, I think it helps tremendously, but it helps you more if everybody in that locker room feels that way, you know what I mean? But I think it definitely helps with the Kobe and the Quincy Roads and, you know, the guys that we've gotten from the state of Arkansas have really contributed big time to us and. But I always thought, you know, when the game's on the line, you had guys from the state, they've been raised here, they probably had a little raise her back in their little baby crib and all that. I always thought it meant more.
And I wasn't raised here, you know, but I had an uncle and an aunt and cousins that were over in Dover, and I got the passion from them when I was young. And so I do think it's. I do think it's important. And we're trying. We're trying to keep the kids that we want in the state and play for the Hogs.
[00:50:51] Speaker A: Coach, that's everything I have for you. Thank you so much for being here with us today. We really appreciate it.
[00:50:55] Speaker B: All right, everybody, we hope you enjoyed our conversation with Sam Pittman at the Hogs Illustrated Sports Club. If you're interested on going to the Sports Club. We have luncheons on Thursdays more frequently during football season, but this is a year round thing. Hunter Yurich is going to be up next on September 4th there in Springdale Home2 Suites. It'll be noon when it starts. You can reserve your seat
[email protected] o z a r k s t I x com. Hope to see you on September 4th. One Hunter Eurocheck, the Arkansas ad is our next speaker at the Hogs Illustrated Sports Club. We appreciate you being with us today. We'll see you back here on Monday. Have a great weekend everybody.
