Hubert J. Farnsworth said:

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NyAggie said:

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Hubert J. Farnsworth said:

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Bielema has done a very good job with that program. They were garbage when he took over.

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I still don't understand why he left Wisconsin for Arkansas.

I remember hearing something about whisky not wanting to pony up for assistants, but Arkansas is not a place in the sec you can have sustained success

Just too many other sec programs that are better options for players to the point where ark will always be a bottom half of the sec roster

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Arkansas should be better than they are. I wonder if they just have bad leadership and meddlesome boosters. At one point, it looked like they had turned a corner under Bielema, and then they completely collapsed.

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Pigs were looking good with Petrino as HC. Wasn't the university's fault that he was pulling that crap and they had to fire him

agent-maroon said:

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Hubert J. Farnsworth said:

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NyAggie said:

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Hubert J. Farnsworth said:

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Bielema has done a very good job with that program. They were garbage when he took over.

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I still don't understand why he left Wisconsin for Arkansas.

I remember hearing something about whisky not wanting to pony up for assistants, but Arkansas is not a place in the sec you can have sustained success

Just too many other sec programs that are better options for players to the point where ark will always be a bottom half of the sec roster

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Arkansas should be better than they are. I wonder if they just have bad leadership and meddlesome boosters. At one point, it looked like they had turned a corner under Bielema, and then they completely collapsed.

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Pigs were looking good with Petrino as HC. Wasn't the university's fault that he was pulling that crap and they had to fire him

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That was Petrino. We all know what happened there. I was talking about Bielema.

vet93 said:

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And yet…when he played our type of schedule…his results were not so stellar (29-34), 11-29 in conference over 5 years.

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That is because he didn't have the players. Arkansas is resource poor and has no natural recruiting base. When they left the Southwest conference they cut themselves off at the kneecap from the Texas high schoolers who would have carried them. They were never going to compete with Georgia, Florida, Alabama etc ...

At Illinois, he's able to recruit enough players to do decently well against Big 10 competition. Arkansas is at a competitive disadvantage, as is Oklahoma.

Hubert J. Farnsworth said:

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agent-maroon said:

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Hubert J. Farnsworth said:

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NyAggie said:

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Hubert J. Farnsworth said:

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Bielema has done a very good job with that program. They were garbage when he took over.

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I still don't understand why he left Wisconsin for Arkansas.

I remember hearing something about whisky not wanting to pony up for assistants, but Arkansas is not a place in the sec you can have sustained success

Just too many other sec programs that are better options for players to the point where ark will always be a bottom half of the sec roster

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Arkansas should be better than they are. I wonder if they just have bad leadership and meddlesome boosters. At one point, it looked like they had turned a corner under Bielema, and then they completely collapsed.

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Pigs were looking good with Petrino as HC. Wasn't the university's fault that he was pulling that crap and they had to fire him

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That was Petrino. We all know what happened there. I was talking about Bielema.

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Thought you were talking about why Arkansas should be better and was offering another example of Petrino to go along with your Bielema comment. Didn't mean to imply that they were mutually exclusive (if that's what you thought) and think them both to be true.

SA-AG72 said:

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Fat men can coach!

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. Solid

Aggie Apotheosis said:

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vet93 said:

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And yet…when he played our type of schedule…his results were not so stellar (29-34), 11-29 in conference over 5 years.

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That is because he didn't have the players. Arkansas is resource poor and has no natural recruiting base. When they left the Southwest conference they cut themselves off at the kneecap from the Texas high schoolers who would have carried them. They were never going to compete with Georgia, Florida, Alabama etc ...

At Illinois, he's able to recruit enough players to do decently well against Big 10 competition. Arkansas is at a competitive disadvantage, as is Oklahoma.

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The schedules that he's had at Illinois are much easier than the ones he had when he was coaching in the SEC West. When he was at Arkansas, they were at a clear talent disadvantage against 95% of the conference opponents they faced. That isn't the case at Illinois due to the lesser competition. If he still had an SEC West type of schedule, he'd be getting the same kind of results that he got at Arkansas.

sbag said:

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That Illinois team would have done just fine in the SEC.

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Yes and know Not beating Bama or the class of the SEC anytime soon which is why delusional pig fan fired Bielemma

Saban got a lot of good coaches fired Bielemma is one of them

Prior to this season, his best year at Illinois started 7-1 and in control of their own destiny in the Big 10 and then they lost four of their last five to finish 8-5.

So every time a team has a one off, the coach somehow is declared good/great?

Good/Great coaches do not just have one good year when the stars align, they have it every year where bad years are good for most.

JournoAG said:

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Prior to this season, his best year at Illinois started 7-1 and in control of their own destiny in the Big 10 and then they lost four of their last five to finish 8-5.

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Aggie Apotheosis said:

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vet93 said:

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And yet…when he played our type of schedule…his results were not so stellar (29-34), 11-29 in conference over 5 years.

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That is because he didn't have the players. Arkansas is resource poor and has no natural recruiting base. When they left the Southwest conference they cut themselves off at the kneecap from the Texas high schoolers who would have carried them. They were never going to compete with Georgia, Florida, Alabama etc ...

At Illinois, he's able to recruit enough players to do decently well against Big 10 competition. Arkansas is at a competitive disadvantage, as is Oklahoma.

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This doesn't explain Bielema losing to teams like Rutgers, Virginia Tech, TCU, Texas Tech and Toledo at Arkansas though. Those don't play in the SEC.

Believe it or not, Arkansas was around top 5 in the SEC in amount of players drafted under Bielema. There was actually a lot of talent on his rosters like Alex Collins, Hunter Henry, Frank Ragnow, Trey Flowers, Jonathan Williams and others like Brandon Allen who are still hanging around the NFL. He just lost a ton of close games and couldn't capitalize on it.

On paper Arkansas recruits about 20 spots higher on average than Illinois and his old Wisconsin teams and at the time Arkansas had more money to spend and was one season removed from finishing #5 in the country when he left Whisky. I think he just got too into the alcohol and made some bad assistant hires that led to his downfall.

"You're not a winning a national championship with a bunch of two and three star players. See TCU against Georgia a couple years ago"

Tcu made a playoff. More than we have done. And as much as anyone criticizes their loss to Georgia, they beat Michigan in a playoff game to get there. More than we have done. I keep hearing about how Tcu didn't belong in a playoff, but beat a big brand school when they did.