The Razorback nation is hurt...but we are not dead. Petrino was NOT Razorback football. We will once again find a coach who will bring us to the top, and this time with dignity and class. As for me?
I'm a true Razorback fan thru and thru.
Easter is this Sunday, and I feel like Spring has already left. Yes, the weather is getting warmer, the grass is getting greener, and flowers are just starting to bloom. But spring football for 2011 is officially in the books.
The past 5 years, The Wife and I have gone to Fayetteville for the Spring Red & White Game. This year, we weren't able to go. It was just bad timing, and we were in between checks at the time and couldn't afford the gas there and back, plus meals and possibly a hotel. So we opted to stay home.
However, this year, the game was televised on ESPN. Coach Petrino said he divided the teams pretty evenly, but Tyler Wilson stole the show. Wilson was Mallett's predecessor last year and at times showed that he could take over the leadership role. When Mallett was knocked out of the Auburn game last year, Wilson stepped in and took control and nearly lead the Razorbacks to a miracle come back victory. But we all know the story... Late interceptions ended the game, and Auburn eventually went on to go undefeated and win the National Championship.
Now, Mallett is headed for the NFL to be a superstar. Tyler Wison was a shoe in for the starting quarterback position. Although nothing is set in stone, Petrino always has a game plan in mind. We’ll see what all happens before fall camp and eventually the start of College football in August.
Here is a video of Tyler Wilson’s performance in the Auburn game last year to give you a sneak peak of what is in store for the Razorbacks in 2011.
So the 2010 Signing day has come and gone. Yet again, the SEC leads all other conferences at getting the most ESPNU 150 top recruits. The SEC led and ended up with eight Top 25 Classes. Unfortunately, Arkansas didn’t have a top 25 class. They were in the mid 30’s-40’s which isn’t impressive, until you understand what kind of players they recruited.
The coaches this year said the main focus was to recruit those position’s that needed to be filled right away and recruit players that could jump in and compete for a starting position. They needed defensive players for up front in the “trenches” and in the secondary. According to Scouts.com and rivals.com, Arkansas had the number 3 top defensive class in the country…woah.
Let’s hope our defense improves drastically than last years. And with almost ALL of the big offensive players returning, there could possibly be a big BCS game next year for those Razorbacks. And a possibly Heisman candidate…Go Hogs!
The Wife and I have had a pretty crazy last couple months. Nothing really new happened but we did a lot of traveling this year to more football games than I’ve ever been too! It sure was a LOT of fun. We ended up going to the Alabama vs. Florida International game, the Arkansas vs. Georgia game, the Arkansas vs. Eastern Michigan game, the Arkansas vs. Troy game, and the Arkansas vs. Mississippi State game! Sheesh, that’s a lot of traveling on the road!
The Hogs did as good as expected this year. They had a better season that last, had a LOT of improvement from last year, and came close to winning a couple of the games that they lost. They went 7-5 this year as compared to their 5-7 record last year. And if Ryan Mallet and all the talented players come back next year, who knows what will happen?! But they GOT to work on their defense! All in all, it was a pretty good year for Arkansas Football.
Other than traveling a lot, nothing much else has happened. We stayed home, enjoyed ourselves, went to Little Rock a couple times, and have been raking leaves and gumballs when we have the time.
That’s all the updates I have for now. I haven’t been fishing lately because of all the traveling we’ve been doing. But I may go just one more time before the really cold weather hits. Below are some of the pictures from some of the games we went to this year
And although it hurt...
Sigh… What can I say? Probably nothing that hasn’t already been said. Wow! That quarterback is really something. Ryan Mallett has got so much talent and athleticism it’s not even funny. The hogs REALLY have a stellar offense this year!
On the other hand, the Arkansas defense just plain sucked. No other way of putting it. They gave up 52 points to a Georgia team who, up to this game, was struggling to find out what kind of team they were since they lost their star players from last year to the draft. Although, if you look at the other side of this, the Georgia defense gave up 41 points to an unranked and untested Arkansas team. The Razorbacks have a long road ahead of them. They have some tough road games coming up and if Coach Petrino and Robinson don’t figure out something, we’re gonna have another year like last year.
Now, with that said, although we lost the game, it was one heck-of-a game! There were big plays the whole night. The Hogs and Dawgs went back and forth all nice in a scoring shootout! That stadium was rockin let me tell ya! At multiple times during the game, the crowd got so loud, I could hardly hear myself scream myself! Even though we lost it was a great game! We have really improved from a year ago, but we still have a lot of things to work on.
The Wife and I had a great time at the game. Here are some photo’s from the game!
Well, Arkansas had a bye week this last weekend, so they’ve had 2 weeks to prepare for Georgia’s game. Georgia, currently ranked #23, lost their season opener to OSU. This past weekend, they won their first conference game against South Carolina. In week 3, Arkansas (1-0) plays Georgia (1-1) in the first conference game for the Hogs. Most Razorback fans would say this could make or break the whole season for the HOGS. They were a re-building team last year with a LOT of freshman. Now this year, we’ve got more experience and more talent, the guys are more physical and have fine tuning their abilities since last season.
The bulldogs are a favorite by a touchdown I’ve heard, but we’ll just have to see. This first home game in Fayetteville will let everyone know if the Razorbacks will be a contender again in the SEC. Let’s all keep our fingers crossed…
Oh, and by the way, I just found out that I get to go to the game this weekend!!!
Aren’t you jealous…
We headed out on Friday afternoon and hit the road since the Tuscaloosa campus isn’t too far of a drive from us. We didn’t leave until around 1:30 or so. We stayed in Tupelo which isn’t too far outside of Tuscaloosa. Just a side note, no hotel rooms are available in Tuscaloosa on game day…So in case you are ever going for a game, just a little info for ya.
We made a couple stops on the way, and eventually made it to Tupelo Mississippi. We got checked into our hotel and check out some of the hotel amenities. Then, we took off into town to find some dinner. We ended up eating at Red Lobster. We all ordered the endless shrimp dinner. I won’t tell how much shrimp I ate, but they about tapped me out ;) Love that shrimp scampi!
After dinner, we went back to the hotel and went swimming. The pool was outside and it wasn’t anything fancy, but we had it all too our selves! We swam and then got in the hot tub and then back in the cold pool, and back in the hot tub, then back in the cold pool, etc… It was fun! We ended up swimming for about 3 hours and went to bed kinda late.
The next day, we slept in a little bit and got up and grabbed a quick bite to eat at McDonald’s before heading across town to see the birthplace of Elvis Presley! The admission was a little more than we wanted to spend to see the chapel, museum, and his house. Although, we did pay to walk through his house and we went to the gift shop. One of the most interesting facts is that Elvis’s dad got a loan from the bank for $180 for materials to build their house. After being built, they couldn’t afford to pay it back. CRAZY!!! Anyways, we stayed there and took the little tour and checked out the gift shop.
After the Elvis thing, we got gassed up and headed to Tuscaloosa! Once in Tuscaloosa, we went shopping for some Alabama souvenirs and such. The best place to look….yep, you guessed it. WAL-MART!
We went to Wal-Mart and found a couple things. I usually get a souvenir junior football from whichever team we go see. I’ve got a Tennessee and Alabama football. I haven’t been able to get an Arkansas or Auburn one yet, but I will soon! We also got a couple of other things. The Wife got some ribbon to put in her hair and a few other things.
After Wal-Mart, we headed over to Dreamland BBQ (http://www.dreamlandbbq.com/default.aspx?id=5) for some game day tradition! Before we saw anything we smelled it and knew we were getting close! We saw the smoke before we saw the place! When we pulled up, we saw a big tent set up next to the building. So we headed that direction and there were outside tables and chairs and people eating so we had a seat and asked the lady what she recommended.
It was SO GOOD! The ribs were amazing and the potato salad was excellent! Definitely worth the trip! We ate outside with a live band. It was a fun atmosphere, however, when we left, we noticed that people were going inside the building as well to eat. I bet there was a more historic atmosphere in there than there was outside in the tent. Oh well, maybe next time.
From there, I still hadn’t found an Alabama hat that I liked (I’m picky about hats…don’t judge me, women! It’s the only accessory we men have. You have shoes, purses, and earrings!) So we headed to the closest Hibbett store that our iPhone led us to! It just happened to be in a Mall. So when we arrived at University Mall a few minutes later, we pulled in the parking lot and noticed that there were shuttles to the game! About 10 or 15 Greyhound size busses all ready to go! We got lucky on that one. We still had a few hours before game time. So we headed inside the mall, paid for our round trip shuttle bus ticket and took a gander in the mall. We walked around a bit and found the Hibbett Sports store. Inside I finally found a mass selection of Alabama hats to choose from. I got one.
Afterwards, we still had barbeque taste in our mouth and I just needed that sweet tooth something after the rich BBQ. So we stopped at the Great American Cooke and got a cookie. After enjoying our desert, we headed over to the shuttle. We didn’t have to wait too long but by the time we left, there was a long line forming. The 2 mile drive was a tight crammed squeeze, but we finally arrived and saw the Stadium. It was awesome!
The bus drove us right up to the front of the stadium. We got out and still had a little bit of time left. There was a LOT of people there, but there was also some booths and vendors and things outside the stadium so we window shopped for a while and ended up buying two little “stick-poms” for a $1 a piece to cheer with.
Then we headed toward the stadium. First, we headed to the first gate, thinking we we could just go in and walk to our seat. The first entrance we walked up to the lady was telling people NO CAMERAS! Ain’t gettin’ by me with a camera! And we said, well what do we do? Why no cameras? She was like, I don’t know, but you can’t bring it in here. This is the first stadium I’ve ever been to that didn’t allow cameras! That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Maybe not professional telephoto lens, but a regular digital camera? Stupid!
Anyways, we walked away and huddled for a meeting and The Wife and my friend were like what now? And I stuffed our camera down in the bottom of Jennifer’s sling bag and said lets find another entrance. The next entrance we came to we snuck by the camera checkers (this wasn’t hard because of all the people) and go the to guy checking the tickets. He then told us that we couldn’t get to our seats from that entrance, so we had to walk back around. Long story short, we got in with our camera and found our seats.
When we walked in to the stadium, we walked out on field level and on the ground. Then we walked up to our seats 25 rows up. These were great seats. We enjoyed the game and took lots of pictures too!
We left in the 4th quarter and got on the shuttle and went back to the mall. After getting back to our vechicle, we went to get some dinner and stop by Krispy Kreme because the Hot and Ready sign was still on!
The next morning, we got up and checked out of our hotel and went and got breakfast at Cracker Barrel. After that we hit the road and came home.
It was a fun trip but I was dog tired morning. There is just something about driving that makes you really tired and wears you out. It was a GREAT trip and was a blast. The trip was great, the game was a lot of fun, and we just had an all around good time. Hopefully, we’ll get to go back again one day!
Raining on the way! It rained almost the whole way up to Fayetteville.
