Thanks for your readership and comments…you’ve made writing this blog a lot of fun for us. We’ll be back after the break with thoughts on the Cotton Bowl, basketball and much more.

Christmas appears to have come early for Reggie Herring. According to a report in the Dallas Morning News, he has accepted an offer to become the defensive coordinator for the Texas A&M Aggies after coaching the Hogs in the Cotton Bowl.

We wish Herring the best. His sideline intensity was always fun to watch, and he has handled himself extremely well during the craziness that has surrounded the Razorback program these last few weeks.

We won’t have to wait too terribly long to see him again: the Hogs will begin a series against the Aggies in 2009. And considering the offensive numbers that some teams hung on the Hogs this year, that might be a fun reunion indeed.

 Appalachian State ruins Michigan’s year and ruins Arkansas’ Christmas. Guess the team will be spending the holiday in Fayetteville, after all.

Over the past week and a half, we’ve spent a lot of time discussing the over-the-top media reaction to the hiring of Bobby Petrino (and let’s face it: it’s been a blast; if there’s anything we Arkansans love, it’s believing that the rest of the nation has it in for us).

However, in the interest of spreading good will as the Christmas holiday draws near, we’d like to point you toward the writings of some who must not have received the memo that they were supposed to overdose on outrage. (Big thanks to reader Dave Taylor for the heads up on these pieces.)

First off, head on over to ArkansasSports360.com to catch a glimpse of a piece by Jason Whitlock on the whole Arthur Blank-Michael Vick-Bobby Petrino saga. Whitlock’s bottom line: He doesn’t blame Bobby for leaving Atlanta.

Also, CoachesHotSeat.com is positively ga-ga over the Hogs’ hire, rating the move a 10 on a scale of 10. Sample quote: “[Petrino’s] hiring by Arkansas and his arrival in the SEC alters the balance of power in that conference for as long as Petrino decides Arkansas is the place he wants to be.”

Here’s another: “[Tommy] Tuberville is a very good football coach, but Petrino is a great football coach.”

And finally: “Bobby Petrino is a great hire for Arkansas!”

Does anyone know if Mrs. Petrino works for CoachesHotSeat?

Because it is the official policy of this blog to feature/link to/talk about Corliss Williamson as much as possible, we thought we’d pass along this video clip from an interview Big Nasty did for the next issue of Arkansas Sports 360:

Oh yeah, they have a clip with Joe Kleine, too.

Looking for a satisfying win over Missouri in the Cotton Bowl so that the Reggie Herring era can both begin and end on a positive note?

Then you’re setting yourself up for a big letdown - at least that’s according to Rivals.com. On the site’s “Expert Picks” bowl page, all four experts have the Razorbacks going down. On a positive note, they all predict the game to be fairly close: the largest projected margin of victory is 12 points; the rest are in single digits. Given Arkansas’ ghoulish bowl history, a close game has to considered something of a moral victory, I guess.

Pop quiz: What sports story of the past several months does New York Times columnist William C. Rhoden find the most disturbing? Why, it’s Bobby Petrino leaving the Falcons to take the Arkansas job, of course. It bothers him more than the Michael Vick dog fighting story, more than The Mitchell Report and more than the sexual harassment suit involving Isiah Thomas and Madison Square Garden, among other notable scandals of late.

Writes Rhoden, “Why do I find the Petrino episode more disturbing than [track star Marion] Jones, Vick and the fallout from the Mitchell report? This was a variation of the same lie, of deceit, but more cold-blooded. A trust was broken. The culprit was not a player, who, by definition, is single-minded and self-absorbed. This was “Coach,” the person, much like a shepherd, who is entrusted with the well-being of a group.”

I don’t read William C. Rhoden much, but when I have, he’s struck me as a thoughtful and sober-minded observer of the sporting scene. But, it appears that the ESPN-generated vapors have gotten a hold of him. As I’ve said before, the way that Petrino left the Falcons was definitely less than commendable (it was sort of like breaking up with your girlfriend via text message), and I’m under no illusion that the guy is someone I would want to have a cup of coffee with. But, this story is more unsettling than the Vick scandal, with its revelations about the systematic killing of dogs? To each his own, I guess, but still … wow.

[Thanks to Max Brantley’s Arkansas blog for the link to Rhoden’s column.]

When I learned that (former) West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez had taken the job at Michigan (thus ending the only coaching search more ridiculous and embarrassing than ours), I was eager to see what the national reaction would be.

Although there certainly are differences between his situation and Bobby Petrino’s, there are some similarities too…after all, he is leaving his team in the lurch just days before they play in the Fiesta Bowl (a much bigger game than any of the battles for draft position that the Falcons have remaining). So surely ESPN and the national media would be outraged, right? I mean, isn’t Rodriguez crushing the hopes and dreams of those fine young student-athletes who expected him to finish the season? Doesn’t this signify the downfall of society as we know it? For God’s sake, won’t somebody please think of the children???

Uh, wrong. In fact, readers were treated to a column by Ivan Maisel in which Maisel pronounces the move “justified” and then uses a quote from Rodriguez’s agent, of all people, to prove his point: “It was not about money. It was tough, basically because of the great effort the players gave him over the years, the great support from the fans, and the great support of the Mountaineer Athletic Foundation and the people who made donations through it.”

For those of you keeping score, Rodriguez leaves for Michigan and more money and is a hero because it was a tough decision. Petrino leaves for Arkansas and less money and is a lying scumbag…probably the foulest human ever to walk the earth. I sure am glad ESPN cleared that up for me - otherwise I would have been really confused.

That way, I will almost certainly be in for a long, deep and restorative sleep. Seriously, how can such a seemingly talented group of players be so bad on the road?

I went into yesterday’s game hoping for a signature road win that would announce a new era in Hog hoops, much the way the January 1989 victory over Texas in Austin kicked off the MayDay/Big O era in earnest or the Arizona and Missouri wins in December 1992 jump-started the Corliss/Scotty years.

Instead, what we got was an unpleasant reminder of the preceding five seasons, when Stan Heath guided Arkansas to a truly remarkable 9-37 road record. 9-37!!

What was particularly frustrating about Saturday’s game was how winnable it was. Despite shooting only 22 percent from three-point range and 53 percent from the line, the Hogs were right there until the end. But then, it seems like so many of the road losses in the Heath era were close as well.

Rainer Sabin of The Slophouse has a nice post on this subject, in which he asks, “Has losing on the road become a psychosomatic disorder for the Razorbacks?” I’m confident that Pelphrey will find the cure for these road woes, but the patient may be tougher to treat than expected.

In honor of yesterday’s frustrating loss to Oklahoma, we present this video clip of two Razorback fans watching last year’s Hogs fall to Kentucky, 82-74, in Bud Walton Arena. Good stuff throughout, but the numerous Van Halen posters at the end are the real payoff.