Razorback Blogs

Posted by ‘whatsshakinbacon’ at www.hogville.net

Roller Coasting With Houston
Volume LXXX
November 11, 2007

Many times before on this board I have held off on posting after a loss.  The disappointment skews my perception of what just happened and I find myself regretting statements a day or two down the road.  Such is not the case tonight.  In the waning moments of the game in Knoxville I watched with little interest.  In fact, I’ve watched Sunday afternoon golf with more passion than this SEC match-up.

Sure, I wanted to win.  The kids donning Razorback gear deserve my support and will never find me rooting for them to lose.  But when the outcome of this game became painfully obvious in the second quarter I put my brain in neutral and went through the mechanics of yet another poorly coached loss.

In the decade long tenure of Nuttin’ but Fun football we’ve gone from an exciting multi-dimensional team to a volatile, undisciplined band of guys closely mimicking the emotion of their head coach.  One week we will come out high as a kite and the passion spills over into good on-field reactions that overcome our lack of fundamental training.  But all too often the very next week we play fearfully and without confidence, resulting in frustrated players who make bad decisions.  These frustrations manifest themselves as personal fouls, interference calls and missed assignments.

Every organization has a culture.  The culture is set by the leaders of that group.  And the culture of the Arkansas Razorbacks apes that of a teenage girl - all nervous and giggly one moment, crying and fearful the next.  So with all due respect to teenage girls who frequent hogville.net our football program has become as adolescent, emotive and petty as a junior high bunkin’ party.

Saturday I saw perhaps the most unprepared and lackadaisical Razorback team of the Nutt regime.  One has to go back to a Danny Ford coached loss to SMU in Shreveport to find anything that compares.  Our game-plan was sophomoric, at best.  We likely once again this week set the SEC basement with only 8 completions to wide receivers and tight ends.

That we threw a fade route to diminutive (well, in height) and double-covered Peyton Hillis is a sign that Houston Nutt simply doesn’t understand the passing game.  And when Arkansas lined up on a crucial first half 4th down Darren McFadden paced the sideline.  Did anybody in North America not expect Peyton Hillis to get the call between tackles?  Western Union surely would name this the “telegraphed play of the week” should such an award exist.

And on defense, just how many offside penalties does it take to chew someone’s butt out?  Nutt blames this on execution, but as Marcus Elliott said on the fifth quarter radio show, back when he was on the team you played in fear of such mistakes.  Is that true anymore?

Last year Gus Malzahn made this offense work by adding about two or three misdirection plays that helped disguise the straight ahead running.  It opened up our offense just enough to keep defenses off balance.  Last week these misdirections mysteriously re-appeared but somehow were lost just as quickly.  Why?  The misdirection is simply an attack contrary to offensive line movement.  It’s not that difficult and obviously is on the B side of our playcard.

But, alas, Gus was not Nutt’s BFF, and like a teenage girl Nutt resorted to petty name-calling and isolationism, followed by the back-stab of hiring David Lee to run him off.  I think I saw this once in a “Saved By The Bell” episode.  But I digress…

The failures in play-calling include the fact that our vaunted passing attack surfaced far too late in the game.  By the time we opened things up we were buried beneath Rocky-Top mountain.

The LFS announcers bragged on our defense.  Unfortunately they didn’t take time to dissect the fact that our low average of points given up was padded by weak opposition in Troy, Chattanooga, Florida Atlantic and North Texas.  You could argue Mississippi fits right in there as well.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d have to say Nutt knows the writing is on the wall and he doesn’t really care anymore.  His demeanor was rather tepid on the sideline, and players that usually get an earful were left undisturbed as they walked off the field.  The fact that Nathan Emert was inserted from ole quick-trigger (wink, wink) when Casey’s numbers weren’t actually that bad makes one wonder what the thought process was.

In the end I am not surprised today.  While I hoped for the victory I have come to expect volatility under this coaching staff.  One week we block well, the next week we don’t.  One week the play-calls are aggressive, the next week fearful.  In two weeks we will begin a coaching search to replace Nutt.  I wish him the best in his future endeavors.  And I hope they are many miles away from my beloved Hogs.  After all, my daughter will someday be a teenager…I don’t think I can handle both at the same time.

Bacon out…

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