If you’re going to the game against Troy this weekend, be sure to smile, dress nicely and make yourself presentable at all times…you’ll be on camera. Also, if your resolution for the new season was to show your support for the team by driving full speed into the security barriers around the stadium, well, we advise against that now.

* Technically it’s still the offseason, so why not continue the trend and squeeze in some more off-field drama while there’s still time? Marcus Harrison is suspended after being arrested on a felony drug charge.

* Some dude from South Carolina is calling out Darren McFadden. That’s smart.

* Since when did Arkansas become such fertile recruiting ground for USC?

* The dream of having an AD named “Terry Don” is now dead.

* An early preview of the Troy game…and not a particularly optimistic one.

* The Hogs’ passing game will be led by a couple of Dicks this year. Literally.

* Add another one to your collection of D-Mac YouTube videos.

* This bodes well for our chances in Tuscaloosa in a few weeks…Leigh Tiffin is closing in on Alabama’s starting kicker job.

Sunday’s Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported that former Razorbacks Clint Stoerner, J. J. Jones, Chrys Chukwuma and Anthony Brown have received invitations to the newly formed All American Football League’s training camp in Tampa, Fla. The players received the invites after working out, along with more than 200 other hopefuls, for league officials on Saturday at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock.

Should any of the four make the grade at training camp, he will then be assigned to the roster of Arkansas’ yet-to-be named AAFL team, which will play in Little Rock. The season is scheduled to begin next spring.

The AAFL sounds like an interesting concept, and we certainly wish it well. But, I must admit that I often find it depressing to read about former Razorback football and basketball stars toiling in minor pro leagues years after their collegiate glory. I have to wonder if they are still chasing their dreams of playing in the NFL or the NBA - or if they just don’t know what to do with the rest of their lives.

Razorback-related news to read while putting off those weekend chores:

* One lawsuit is dismissed, another begins. The circle of life.

* Former Razorback basketball star and current Denver Nuggets broadcaster Scott Hastings recently had an epiphany during a helicopter ride. He also says it may be time to point the white-hot glare of the media spotlight firmly on NBA officials.

* Click here and here for a look at how Arkansas and LSU are dragging two-a-days into the modern era.

* The Associated Press’ Preseason Top 25 poll is out. USC is No. 1, the Hogs No. 21. I realize that by posing this question on a new blog with a limited audience, I may be inviting the massive sound of crickets chirping, but what’s your take on the Hogs’ ranking? Too high, too low, or just right?

Growing up in Little Rock in the 1980s, few things gave us more pleasure than Razorbacks sports. Whether we were watching Alvin Robertson on the hardwood or Quinn Grovey on the gridiron, we were captivated in the way that kids everywhere are captivated when watching their athletic heroes. When the Hogs won, we were joyous; when they lost, crestfallen.

In the early 90s, we both moved out of the state (barely) to attend the same college in Memphis, Tenn. You might think that the obsession would have waned; on the contrary, it exploded. Encountering lots of people who didn’t like the Hogs - even some who, horrors, hated the Razorbacks - our fandom kicked into overdrive. It also didn’t hurt that our small liberal arts college’s teams competed in the NCAA’s Division III and thus engendered no real loyalty and that the Arkansas basketball team was enjoying the greatest half decade in its history.

But after graduation, our obsession began to wane. One of us ended up on the West Coast, the other on the East Coast. In the midst of establishing careers and building new lives in new places, following the Hogs fell off the radar a bit.

Within the last year, however, we’ve felt ourselves drawn back to our boyhood obsession. While trading e-mails about Darren McFadden’s Heisman candidacy, Houston Nutt’s various trials and tribulations, and the university’s often tragic and comic search for a new basketball coach, we rediscovered the way Arkansas athletics can so thoroughly captivate, irritate and, especially, amuse us.

Thus, RazorbackExpats.com was born.

We look at the site as a way for two Arkansas expatriates to keep on top of and share our views on Razorback athletics. We plan to do so in a spirit of good humor, balance and perspective. The Earth does not hang in the balance with each Hogs’ game.

Furthermore, we will be filing no Freedom of Information requests for coaches’ cell phone records.

We hope you will join us.