Who’s Got Your Back? We here at RazorbackExpats are no strangers to bar fights; if it’s Saturday night, chances are that we’re in a scrap at the local watering hole. So we took particular interest in this column by the Sporting News’ Spencer Hall (a.k.a. as Oscar Swindle of Every Day Should Be Saturday). In the piece, Hall lists the college mascots you’d want on your side in a bar fight and those you wouldn’t.

Coming in at No. 2 on the list of those you’d want on your side: the Arkansas Razorback. Says Hall: “Razorbacks can weigh upwards of 500 pounds and are stone cold killing machines with knives in their mouths, incredible stamina and a bloodlust a highway killer would call ‘impressive.’ Ragnar, a former Arkansas Razorback mascot, escaped once and killed seven rattlesnakes, a 450-pound domestic hog and a coyote before being captured. You want the Razorback on your side in a fight if only to keep him from being on the other side. Bonus: He has an extremely low center of gravity and can be eaten if killed in combat.”

And who’s no. 1? Mike VI, the LSU Tiger. But as occasional contributor and frequent commenter J Hawg 3 notes in his e-mail alerting us to the piece: “Yeah, baby, but who has The Boot?”

Derek Fisher: Class Act, Part 2. Last week, we mentioned our admiration of Los Angeles Lakers guard and Little Rock native Derek Fisher. Courtesy of Max Brantley’s Arkansas Blog, we came across this moving piece about how Derek has raised awareness of a rare type of eye cancer and a new treatment for the disease. Much as we dislike certain things about the Lakers, this guy makes it impossible to root against them.

From the DC Fanatics blog, here’s a nice Topps photo shoot and interview with Felix Jones. The best part comes about two minutes in when they surprise him with a first peek at his brand new rookie card. Happy times:

December Madness? According to Brandon Marcello of The Slophouse, John Pelphrey is trying to schedule an early-season invitational that would take place next season in Bud Walton. Sounds like a cool idea, although let’s hope it turns out better for the Hogs than did the last regular-season tournament held in Fayetteville: the John Thompson Foundation Challenge Classic, which took place in November 2000.

The Razorbacks, sporting the talents of one Joe Johnson and ranked 15th in the nation, lost to Southern Mississippi in the finals. Perhaps the guys were just distracted by the ongoing Florida recount.

Peering into the Future. In the June 2008 issue of Pravda Hawgs Illustrated, Harry King does his best Nostradamus impersonation and unfurls his game-by-game prediction of the 2008 Razorback football season. The bad news? A 5-7 record. The good news? No humilating bowl loss.

The wins: Western Illinois, Louisiana-Monroe, Kentucky, Ole Miss and Tulsa. The losses: Texas, Alabama, Florida, Auburn, South Carolina, Mississippi State and LSU.

Before you dismiss his prognostications, you should know that King correctly predicted last year’s regular season record (8-4), although, as he’s quick to point out, he erroneously predicted the Hogs to beat Kentucky and lose to LSU.

Do not doubt Harry King. Stronger people than you have - and been destroyed as a result.

One on One. Bobby Petrino recently sat down for a Q&A with ArkansasSports360’s Chris Bahn; to listen to the interview, click here.

The Pride of Little Rock. Please excuse the non-Razorback item, but here’s a nice article on Los Angeles Lakers guard and Little Rock native Derek Fisher. We here at RazorbackExpats can’t think of an athlete that we admire more than Fisher, and we have been known to gab about the following “What If?” scenario: What if he had been a member of those wonderful mid-1990s Razorback teams?

In some ways, it’s not a terribly gripping discussion: After all, the Hogs did win the 1994 title without him. But, we can’t help but wonder if his off-the-charts leadership qualities might have helped combat the sluggish and unfocused play that frequently plagued the 1995 Hogs. Regardless, we would have loved to have seen a backcourt of him and Corey Beck.

It’s official: Darren McFadden is a very wealthy man. Last night he and his agent inked a 6 year, $60 million contract with the Raiders that includes $26 million in guaranteed money. Not too shabby!

Perhaps most impressively, they closed the deal with speed that resembled one of D-Mac’s bursts to the end zone…it was the first time Oakland had signed their #1 pick before July since Napoleon Kaufman in 1995, and is a notable change of pace from JaMarcus Russell’s interminable holdout from the year before.

Speaking of Kaufman, the former Raiders star is a McFadden fan already, saying “I, obviously, appreciate his speed and his elusiveness, his versatility. He seems to be an athlete that not only is going to contribute in the running game but also in the passing game. So, there’s great potential with this young man. I’m excited to watch him this year.”

As for how the money will affect him or his relationships with his teammates, McFadden stayed true to his Southern roots with a display of good manners: “I just go in there being humble about it. I’m not the type of person that’s going to be in there with a big head, or bragging, or anything like that.” (Read more from the interview.)

My personal favorite D-Dawg news, though, is his blog post about his house hunting process. As someone who’s spent the better part of this year doing the exact same thing (occasionally to the detriment of my blogging…apologies), I can identify with him…the Bay Area housing market is intense. Something tells me he’ll be able to find something good with that $60 million, though.

Other than both being known for their smooth flow at the mic and silky three point shots, Snoop Dogg and John Pelphrey wouldn’t seem to have that much in common. But, in today’s Recruiting Guy column Richard Davenport describes potential Razorback bball recruit Ekpe Udoh as being impressed in Pelphrey’s taste in music, describing him as “bobbing his head” while he listens to Snoop and other hip hop favorites.

Whether it’s enough to lure Udoh to Fayetteville or not, who knows, but that mental image kind of made my day.

Wally Watch: Where we read Wally Hall so you don’t have to.

June 4, 2008: Hail to the chief or get tossed through window.

Primary Theme: Wally makes his highly sought-after presidential endorsement, and let’s just say that Charles Barkley is probably forming his exploratory committee right about now.

Just Try to Say This in One Breath: “[Barkley] missed and hit a little girl, to which he not only apologized, he bought her and her family tickets to future games and when his career ended he said that was the only regret he had from his career.”

Straight Out of the Playbook: As we’ve noted before, a favorite Wally trick is to use the full name of a figure he’s writing about, and it’s on full display here. Apparently Sir Charles’ middle name is Wade.

What Would Hillary Say About This? We try to stay far away from politics here at Razorback Expats, but one thing that impressed us about this year’s primary season was that, for most people at least, the candidates’ genders didn’t seem to be a critical factor one way or the other. Don’t count Wally in that camp, though, as he disqualifies Oprah on the basis that “there are too many countries we must deal with right now that would never accept any woman as a leader and spokesman.”

Possibly a Sign of the Apocalypse: We just spent a few minutes trying to properly phrase a sentence about Wally Hall’s evaluation of Oprah Winfrey as a fictional Presidential candidate.

Grammar Police, Arrest This Man: If you read Wally literally (and we always do), he seems to be suggesting that parents and teachers shouldn’t be raising Charles Barkley. Well, duh! Check it out: “…[Barkley] knew parents and teachers need to be raising their children, not him.”

Our Analysis: When Wally teased us by referencing his upcoming presidential pick in his June 3rd column, it didn’t take long for visions of jokes about Obama and McCain each trying to distance themselves from the endorsement to start dancing through our head. So, when we fired up the computer the next morning and learned that he was choosing between Oprah and Charles Barkley we were a little let down.

In the end, it provided some decent Wally Watch fodder, but it wasn’t the bombshell we’d been hoping for. More than anything, it seemed to reveal an increasing desperation on Wally’s part to find suitable column topics during the football and basketball offseasons (hey, we can relate). For all of our sakes - but especially Wally’s - football season can’t start soon enough.

On Tuesday, we read a wickedly hilarious ArkansasSports360 post about a recent Wally Hall column in which The Old Graybeard boo-hoo-hooed about how tough life as a sportswriter is. (We know that we speak for Razorback fans everywhere when we say we’re grateful that Wally endures such hardships to bring us his inimitable insight on such topics as Mexican food, softball and Charles Baker, to name a few regular subjects.)

But, when we were compiling yesterday’s Pulitzer-winning Hodge Podge, we noticed that the post was no longer on the site. Hmm, we thought. Could it be that our companion cocktail of grain alcohol and Robitussin was making us “remember” something that didn’t actually exist? We then polished off the drink and put our staff of interns on the case.

Through the use of an ancient Chinese secret - okay, Google cache - our staff was able to track down the post in question. So, without further ado … here it is. Enjoy.

* A Sad Chapter in a Sad Life. Few Razorbacks basketball players have seemed as troubled as Ron Huery. The 6′6″ Memphis native, who was so critical to Nolan Richardson’s rebuilding of the program in the late 1980s, wrote a rare feel-good chapter to his life’s story in 2005, when he returned to the U of A to complete his degree.

Well, prepare to lose that warm-and-fuzzy feeling: Huery has just been sentenced to five years in prison for attempting to break into his ex-girlfriend’s home. As you can see by clicking on the link, Huery has compiled quite the rap sheet over the years - and the article doesn’t even mention his various college-era misdeeds, such as pointing a gun at a dude’s head at a U of A frat party.

Here’s hoping that Ron is able to somehow, someway pull his life together at some point, but to be honest, this story doesn’t seem destined to have a happy ending.

* Being a Coach Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry. Check out Peter King’s most recent “Monday Morning QB” column to read two Bobby Petrino-related items. (Thanks to The Slophouse for the link.) Spoiler alert: King is critical of Petrino. Shocking, we know.

First off, King lampoons Petrino’s recent statements that the criticism surrounding his move from Atlanta to Fayetteville was tough on his family. Fair enough.

Then, after reprinting a Lou Holtz quote saying that Nick Saban and Petrino will one day regret leaving the NFL, King writes, “The most incredible thing, to me, is that Petrino has never called Arthur Blank to say, ‘I’m sorry.”’

Boo hoo hoo.

Seriously, what is it with these guys and their obsession with Petrino? We’d be the first to admit that Bobby shouldn’t receive any accolades from Miss Manners for the way he exited Atlanta. But, as we said back in December, this ain’t finishing school; it’s a rough-and-tumble business.

And who’s to say we’ve ever gotten the full story on what went down in Atlanta? Blank appears to be a master schmoozer of the press, though, so if there is another side to the story, don’t expect to hear about it anytime soon.

We’re always suckers here for a good limerick here at Razorback Expats, so we found this 3rd Sunday in Blogtober post pretty amusing. Check it out.

You simply must head over to ArkansasSports360.com and check out Tre Baker’s post about Joe Johnson’s cute little ride, a six-door Ford F650 Super Truck XUV. After reading the details and looking at the photos, we have to wonder if global warming would be completely halted if Joe would switch to a more fuel-efficient set of wheels.

Some of our favorite details, courtesy of Mr. Baker: “[The truck] has front and rear cameras, three flatscreen televisions, a train horn and a seat that folds out into a bed …” Also, it holds a mere 200 gallons of diesel fuel. And the price? Well, you’ll just have to head over to ArkansasSports360 to find out.

[By the way, once we sell our syndication rights, look for John and I to be driving around Oakland and Atlanta, respectively, in Super Trucks. That’s just how we’re gonna roll.]