During the weekend of the South Carolina game, I had the pleasure of returning to the Natural State (Little Rock, to be specific) for the first time in about a year. While there, I managed to make note of a few blog-worthy observations:

* The Clinton Presidential Library has some neat tidibts for Hog fans. My favorites were these notes back & forth from Pres. Clinton and Nolan in March 1994 (plus this other page with all the signatures from the 1993-94 bball team). The best part, obviously, is the handwritten “Win the NCAA!” at the end of Clinton’s letter…I guess the team took that Presidential order pretty seriously. And am I crazy or did Nolan misspell “tough”?

* I really should watch games with my dad more often. Before the South Carolina game, the most recent Razorback game we had watched together was last year’s triumphant win over Tennessee (which seems like ancient history now, of course). Is it a coincidence that the Hogs’ only two quality wins in the last 365 days occurred when I watched games with my dad? I think not…you are all welcome to take up a collection to fund me returning to LR more often.

* Wally Hall looks different than I remembered. I’m so used to the bearded Wally in our iconic Wally Watch graphic that I barely recognized the shaved, glasses-wearing Wally staring out at me from the Democrat-Gazette. For a second, I thought Leonard Maltin had taken over the “Like It Is” column (and yes, I know Leonard Maltin has a beard…just bear with me).

As noted below, today marks the start of college basketball’s early signing period - and the folks over at Rivals.com have wasted absolutely no time in ranking teams’ recruiting classes so far.

The Hogs clock in at No. 27 on the site’s list of the top 30 classes. Decent enough, I guess. But here’s the not-so-great news: Eight SEC teams made the ranking and only one - Georgia at No. 30 -is lower than Arkansas. The other conference teams to make Rivals’ list: Florida at No. 5, Alabama at No. 10, Mississippi State at No. 12, LSU at No. 18, Kentucky at No. 19, and Tennessee at No. 23 (what recruit could possibly resist Bruce Pearl’s patented brand of extra-wacky zaniness?).

As also noted below, I take all of this with a Rock of Gibraltar-sized grain of salt. After all, Stan Heath’s recruiting classes were very well thought of.

(Speaking of Stan, our friend The Hog Blogger notes that he is up to his old tricks in Tampa; like Razorback fans everywhere, we wish Heath the best, but we have to wonder how long it will be before South Florida fans are saying something like, “He’s a very nice, classy man, but …).

As you attempt to wipe away your UT-induced football funk (John and I are looking for any helpful tips) and get ready for Pelphrey & Co.’s appearance in Puerto Rico this weekend, gaze upon these items of interest:

• Move over, Atkins. Eat your heart out, South Beach Diet (brilliant play on words firmly intended) and make way for the Charles Thomas Fitness Plan.

• Richard Davenport of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette has a nice primer on the four basketball recruits expected to sign national letters of intent with the Hogs today. The list includes Courtney Fortson, a 5-11 point guard from The Patterson School in North Carolina; Brandon Moore, a 6-9 forward from New Orleans; Terrance Joyner, a 6-2 point guard from Genesis One Prep in Mississippi; and Andre Clark, a 6-10 forward who is also from Genesis One. After these guys sign, Pelphrey will have two more scholarships to hand out.

It will be interesting to see where the basketball gurus place Pelphrey’s signees, although I learned in 1995 not to put a whole lot of stock in the hype surrounding a recruiting class. That was the year Nolan brought in Jesse Pate, Kareem Reid, Sunday Adebayo, Pat Bradley, Derek Hood, et al., to try and continue the success established over the preceding decade. There were some nice players in that group, but, by and large, I think it’s abundantly fair to say that class failed to meet expectations.

• Tip of the Day: If you haven’t checked out the new Basketball Prospectus Web site, you should. It’s the companion site to Baseball Prospectus, which started about 10 years ago and uses all sorts of fun, geeky statistical tools to analyze the game and blow away much of the long-standing conventional wisdom surrounding it. Click here to read the site’s preview of the SEC West. Teaser quote: “the Arkansas D ain’t broke but the new coach has promised to fix it. And that is what might be called a gamble.”

• For the “Where are They Now File?”: Former Hog QB Ron Calcagni will coach Arkansas’ All-American Football League team.

That’s it for now. Here’s hoping Patrick Beverley is not late for the team bus to tomorrow’s game.

Although Houston Nutt continues to show up at the office and collect a nice paycheck for coaching the Hogs, that hasn’t stopped rumors from swirling about his fate after the season. Certainly, the lackluster effort against Tennessee upped the volume of the chatter that had grown quieter after a string of wins.

The Slophouse blog reports today that the Butch Davis-to-Arkansas rumors are still floating around in North Carolina, at least to the point where he’s still being asked to comment about them. With his string of winning seasons at Miami (and, to be fair, notably less successful tenure with the Cleveland Browns), Davis is definitely a ‘big name’. However, a highly unscientific study of comments in the Razorback blogosphere indicates that the dream candidate for many Hog fans is another ex-Miami coach with Arkansas ties (and a significantly better NFL record): Jimmy Johnson.

To be honest, it’s not that clear why Johnson would want to return to coaching period, much less at Arkansas. Every article I’ve read about him in the last several years always makes a point of mentioning how content he is spending time on his boat in South Florida, etc. And it’s been an open secret that he’s had a major grudge against his alma mater after supposedly being snubbed by Frank Broyles during the coaching search that eventually produced Ken Hatfield.

Now that Broyles isn’t calling the shots, maybe that factor is less of a big deal, but I’m still skeptical that Johnson would want to give up the cushy retirement lifestyle. I mean, maybe he would enjoy fishing and boating on many of the fine lakes in Northwest Arkansas, but that’s still not quite the Caribbean. And even if he could be lured back with an enormous armored truck full of money, would he have the same fire that made him a success earlier in his career?

Having said all that, it’s still fun to speculate about Johnson (and does it ever seem that for such a small state, Arkansas produces more than its share of big-time football coaches?). In the end, though, if Nutt does move on I think Hog fans should set their expectations on getting a young up-and-comer…to put it in familiar terms, a John Pelphrey rather than a Billy Gillespie. In the end, though, it’s very possible that the always-tenacious Houston Dale Nutt might have a few tricks still left up his sleeve. The next couple of months should be interesting, to say the least.

Peyton Hillis has always seemed like a straight shooter, and I found this comment (with regard to reasons for the Hogs’ poor showing in Knoxville) in today’s Dem-Gaz particularly interesting:

“I mean, they’re D-I coaches and they get paid millions of dollars a year to figure out that stuff and [we ] hoped that they would,” Hillis said. “It’s also, if we run our plays to the effect that we can, there’s no way they can stop them and we didn’t do that tonight.”

It’s pretty rare to here a college player, much less a star, call out the coaches like that. I wonder how many other players feel the same way?

I am in the process of moving, and these days I feel like I’m either always working or packing boxes and driving them over to my new place. My stress level is definitely elevated, and I was looking forward to watching Saturday’s game and getting away from it all for a few hours.

Instead, all I found was another source of irritation. Afterwards, I was asking myself why I ever thought the 2007 Razorback football team would be the de-stresser that I needed.

But the stress I’m feeling these days is smaller than minuscule compared to what Houston Nutt has to be feeling. His tenure as head coach has absolutely no margin for error now. And with a revitalized Mississippi State and the number one team in the country looming on the horizon, the opportunities for error are enormous.

According to the folks over at coacheshotseat.com, Houston should just go ahead and call the movers. Saturday’s limp noodle of an effort has him back atop the site’s weekly ranking of the coaches in the most trouble. Here’s what the site’s blog page has to say about Nutt’s spot in this week’s poll:

“Houston ‘Oh Houston, where art thou ‘Oh Houston? Houston is up the creek without a paddle, a boat, anything to eat, and those guys that got after Ned Beatty in Deliverance are rustling around in the bushes, is where Houston Nutt is at. It really is time to end this silliness in Fayetteville, and we have no doubt that Houston wants out as much as the Hog fans do, but 2 pesky games remain on the schedule … Houston can either hang around and let those Deliverance boys do their business, or he can get out of town while the getting is good. Houston is smart enough to make that decision.”

It’s unclear to me if the site is saying that Houston should resign before the season is over or, once the season is over, simply quit before he’s fired. Regardless, the end of an era is almost surely at hand.

I don’t think anybody is feeling very good about this one. More thoughts later.

In case you need any extra help getting fired up, we’ll be providing a handy pre-game cheat sheet detailing why you should hate each one of the Razorbacks’ opponents this fall. Some weeks will be easier than others…

1. They’ve Pretty Much Kicked Our Ass. Arkansas and Tennessee have met 15 times on the gridiron - and the Vols have won 12 of those games. The losses have ranged from agonizingly close (see 1990 Cotton Bowl, the fumble in 1998 and the 6 OT loss in 2002) to humiliating (see 55-14 defeat in 1996). Add in an 11-8 series edge over Arkansas in basketball since the Hogs joined the SEC, and it’s easy to see why some Razorback fans may have some anger management issues when it comes to Tennessee.

2. The Song … That @##^!!!! Song. As anyone who has attended, watched or listened to a UT game can attest, the song “Rocky Top” will be played by the school band approximately 5 million times during tomorrow’s contest. To quote a line from the “Family Ties” character Steven Keaton, it’s enough “to make a killer out of Gandhi.”

To make matters even more irritating, we hear that Vols fans revel in our “Rocky Top”-induced misery. We suppose we could at least partially thwart these diabolical individuals by maintaining a Zen-like, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi-endorsed calm during the endless performances of the song. But, it’s just not that easy, is it?

3. That Certain Je Ne Sais Quoi. Pardon our French. And we know this list is supposed to be specific. But there’s some intangible quality about the Vols that make them annoyingly hateable. For as long as we can remember, every last thing about that team has bugged us. A lot. Perhaps we’ll put our finger on it one day, but for now we’ll just point to their undefinable sucktitude.

4. The 1990 Cotton Bowl. It’s a bowl game, so of course Arkansas lost. But the Hogs actually played well in this wild shootout. The Razorbacks entered the fourth-quarter trailing 31-13 but staged a furious late-game rally before ultimately falling by a score of 31-27. When all was said and done, the Hogs had accumulated 568 yards of total offense, and Tennessee had notched 470. Doesn’t sound so bad, considering Arkansas’ truly horrible bowl history.

So, why is this game on the list? Because it marked the beginning of an awful period in Razorback football history. Within days of this loss, Ken Hatfield had bolted to Clemson, and the depressing Jack Crowe era was underway, which was followed by the depressing (but brief) Joe Kines era and the depressing (sensing a trend?) Danny Ford era.

We blame then-UT coach Johnny Majors. Oh sure, he might look the squarest of squares, the most mainstream of mainstreamers, but we’re convinced that the ex-Razorback assistant is a secret shaman who cast some sort of evil spell over his former employer. Perhaps Frank Broyles once tried to steal his chick or something. Whatever the reason, the curse wouldn’t truly be broken until Houston Dale Nutt arrived in 1998, which leads us to our final reason:

5. Just Ask Clint Stoerner. 11/14/98, Knoxville, Tennessee. With just under two minutes remaining, the Razorbacks were on the verge of extending a magical undefeated season by pulling off a major upset of top-ranked Tennessee. We all know what happened next. For the sake of everyone’s mental health, we won’t rehash all the gory details, but watching the Vols and their fans dance on our graves meant we would forever have at least one reason to hate UT.

The Tennessee game is a big one, so we here at Razorback Expats have felt the pressure to take our blogging ‘to the next level’, as they say, this week. In order to do that, we reached out to the excellent UT blog Rocky Top Talk to get his perspective on the matchup. We hope his answers will both educate and entertain you, but beware…if you follow his links there’s a little math involved.

We also answered some of their questions, so head on over to RTT to read our side of the story.

1. As you might have heard, there’s been a bit of drama around the coaching situation here at Arkansas, so we’re naturally a little obsessed with the overall concept of coaches on the hot seat. Speaking of that, how are things looking for Phillip Fulmer? Will he be back next year? And if not, who are the likely candidates to replace him?

Well, nobody’s commissioned a plane to fly around the stadium dragging a banner that calls for his head, so there’s that. Fulmer seems to be pretty well insulated from fan anarchy, which has been quite nasty at times this season. He’s got a lot of friends in high places with fat wallets and the benefit of a level-headed athletic director that has said repeatedly that he wants to see how the season plays out before he makes any decisions regarding the coaching staff.

My guess is that Fulmer will be back next year, provided we lose one or none of our remaining games. If we lose two, it’ll be a toss up, and if we lose all three, it’ll be tossing out time. Who would be the candidates if it comes to that? Who knows? I’ve heard everything from John Gruden (but see, Charlie Weis, Bill Callahan, et al.), to Jim Leavitt, to Greg Schiano, to Bucky the Tap-Dancing Mule. I hear Houston Nutt might be available, too.

2. What are the keys to a UT victory on Saturday?
Hmm. See here, where I put the teams’ relative stats side and side and concluded:

On offense, we might be able to run, but we won’t be able to pass. On defense, we can stop the pass, but we won’t be able to stop the run. Ergo, running the ball and stopping the run, usually keys to big games, are even more likely to decide the outcome of this one.

So what do we do? On defense, rush four and have all three linebackers and both safeties focus on limiting McFadden’s and Jones’ rushing yards. Tell the corners to play their respective receivers man-to-man from snap to whistle and to never, ever, ever even glance in the direction of McFadden because if they do, they’ll get suckered into the Wild Hog play action. On offense, run the ball. Chew the clock. Score, score, and score some more. Keep McFadden off the field and out of a rhythm.

All easier said than done, of course, but that’s what I think we’ll need to do if we’re going to win.

(Read on …)

In an effort to generate some positive energy before Saturday’s big game, we thought it would be fun to review Arkansas’ wins over Tennessee. Unfortunately for the Razorbacks and their fans - but fortunately for the purposes of this post - there are only three of them. Each was truly one to savor, so let the savoring begin:

1. Arkansas 25, Tennessee 24 - Knoxville, Oct. 10, 1992. This is, without a doubt, my favorite all-time Razorback football victory, in large part because it was so shocking - and also because I was there. I was in college in Memphis at the time, and a number of friends thought I was nuts to make the six-hour drive to Knoxville. After all, Arkansas came into the game with an interim head coach, a 1-4 record that included a season-opening loss to The Citadel (that loss being the reason there was an interim head coach) and a freshman quarterback (Barry Lunney Jr.) making the first start of his career. The Vols, on the other hand, were ranked fourth in the country and had a 5-0 record.

My decision to go to Knoxville wasn’t looking so great with about two and a half minutes left in the game. Tennessee had a 24-16 lead and appeared to have victory well in hand. Then, Orlando Watters returned a punt 71 yards for a touchdown. After a failed attempt at a two-point conversion, the Hogs recovered an onside kick and gobbled up enough yardage for Todd Wright to attempt a last-second 41-yard field goal.

Johnny Majors, then the coach of the Vols, called a timeout or two to try and ice the kicker. During one of the timeouts, a UT fan sitting one row behind me and quaking with a whiskey-fueled rage turned to the woman with him and growled, “I can’t believe we’re about to lose to this chickenshit team!”

Seconds later, Wright’s kick was good, just barely if I recall correctly, and that “chickenshit team” had pulled off a truly stunning upset.

(Read on …)