2008 Woodie Awards
Scheduling woes
The Shortstop
Cory Crawford
Issue date: 10/3/07 Section: Sports
- Page 1 of 2 next >
66,343.
66,343?
Really?
How much of those empty seats, which seems very underestimated from reports I've heard, had to do with Arkansas' 1-2 record?
How much was because of the more exciting football on television, including five top-10 upsets?
How much was because of the absolutely dreadful competition, a North Texas team employing a first-year coach out of high school, playing in the worst conference in America and ranking last in the country in defense?
Well, probably all three contributed, but looking at the schedule before the season, unless the Hogs started 3-0, the likelihood of a poor crowd was overwhelming.
When Troy is by far the most impressive nonconference game on the schedule, Razorback Stadium has a strong chance of displaying prominent areas of silver bleachers.
Next week the Razorbacks get to see how many silver bleachers are shining in Little Rock as the ferocious Tennessee-Chattanooga - well actually, I don't really know what the mascot is so we'll just call them the Blanks - visit the banks of the Arkansas River.
Not all of the poor scheduling can be put on the Arkansas coaching staff as plans for bigger competition fell through. But while I was skipping the game - thankfully, I wasn't covering it - I decided to check out Dickey Nutt's, you know the brother of Houston Nutt, schedule for the Arkansas State Indian basketball team.
Apparently, scheduling mind-numbing, thought-vacuuming, eye-gouging games runs in the family.
The Indians will play MacMurray College, Central Baptist College (both as regular-season games) and Utah Valley State - twice - making possibly the worst looking basketball schedule to ever hit the NCAA.
But even Dickey threw in a trip to Memphis. Houston's lone trip is three hours down the road to his hometown of Little Rock to play a team that doesn't even compete in the same subdivision.
So I started thinking about why Nutt would give fans such a horrendous schedule.
66,343?
Really?
How much of those empty seats, which seems very underestimated from reports I've heard, had to do with Arkansas' 1-2 record?
How much was because of the more exciting football on television, including five top-10 upsets?
How much was because of the absolutely dreadful competition, a North Texas team employing a first-year coach out of high school, playing in the worst conference in America and ranking last in the country in defense?
Well, probably all three contributed, but looking at the schedule before the season, unless the Hogs started 3-0, the likelihood of a poor crowd was overwhelming.
When Troy is by far the most impressive nonconference game on the schedule, Razorback Stadium has a strong chance of displaying prominent areas of silver bleachers.
Next week the Razorbacks get to see how many silver bleachers are shining in Little Rock as the ferocious Tennessee-Chattanooga - well actually, I don't really know what the mascot is so we'll just call them the Blanks - visit the banks of the Arkansas River.
Not all of the poor scheduling can be put on the Arkansas coaching staff as plans for bigger competition fell through. But while I was skipping the game - thankfully, I wasn't covering it - I decided to check out Dickey Nutt's, you know the brother of Houston Nutt, schedule for the Arkansas State Indian basketball team.
Apparently, scheduling mind-numbing, thought-vacuuming, eye-gouging games runs in the family.
The Indians will play MacMurray College, Central Baptist College (both as regular-season games) and Utah Valley State - twice - making possibly the worst looking basketball schedule to ever hit the NCAA.
But even Dickey threw in a trip to Memphis. Houston's lone trip is three hours down the road to his hometown of Little Rock to play a team that doesn't even compete in the same subdivision.
So I started thinking about why Nutt would give fans such a horrendous schedule.
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 2
Joe Miller
posted 10/03/07 @ 6:50 AM CST
Actually playing weak teams hurts someone like McFadden. He can only play half the game and he must run for at least 150 yards in a half or the Heisman voters will not think him worthy since he did not go for 200 yards against a mediocre team. (Continued…)
John Leguizamo
posted 10/04/07 @ 6:37 PM CST
The Super Mario Bros. had a harder time beating the first levels in all of its games than the Razorbacks do beating Florida International, North Texas and Tennessee-Chat. (Continued…)
Post a Comment