Off Season Program Discussion: Arkansas

2,593 Views | 31 Replies | Last: 5 yr ago by bobinator
mdanyc03
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I thought it might be interesting in the long off season to discuss the status of some of the other programs in the SEC or other interesting programs from around the country. Starting with Arkansas.

Recent history- Some of us remember when Arkansas was a top 5 program in the country. Pretty amazing that it has now been 22 years since their last Sweet 16 appearance. That is a pretty bad run. I think it is the second longest Sweet 16 drought in the SEC. In seven years under Mike Anderson, they have been to the tournament three times and are 2-3. Five seed in 2015, eight seed in 2017 and seven seed in 2018.

2018- 2019 outlook- The good news for Arkansas is that Gafford surprised almost everybody by passing on the draft to come back for his sophomore year. Really talented player. Bad news (for them) is they lost almost everybody else who matters. They were heavily reliant on some really good college guards. Barford, Macon and Beard are all gone. There is nobody else returning besides Gafford that averaged more than 6 points or 4 rebounds per game. I don't think there is a ton of high end talent coming up right behind either. I believe Gafford is the only top 100 national recruit on the roster. They signed one fairly highly regarded JUCO named Mason Jones. Recruiting JUCO's is kinda their thing; Barford and Macon were both JUCO's as well. But this looks like a bottom third of the SEC team to me.

Medium Term Outlook- The 2018 signing class is very good by recent standards. Five guys ranked between 100-200 nationally. Those are the type of guys that you wouldn't expect to be plus SEC players their first year, but if most of them stick around and develop, could be the core of a good team by the time they are upperclassmen.

Long Term- I thought for a long time that Arkansas was the second best "basketball school" in the SEC based on fan support, etc, and it would only be a matter of time before they were back to being one of the top 3-4 programs in the SEC. At this point, I just don't know what the formula for high level success is there. They don't recruit that well because they just don't have that much in state talent. I don't think they will ever have the cachet to be a big national recruiter. In their glory days in the 90's, they mostly relied on in state guys (Corliss Williamson) and guys in the general region (Scotty Thurman was form N Louisiana, Todd Day from Memphis, Lee Mayberry from Tulsa). Recently they have just gotten modestly rated recruits that fit in their system and patched in with JUCO's. Good enough to get you into the tournament most years but maybe not much more.

Your thoughts?
bobinator
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I think it's hard to really say for most programs long term. College basketball is so volatile that a program's entire trajectory can change in a really short amount of time. Look at Texas Tech for example. But Arkansas could decide to make a coaching change, bring in the right guy, and suddenly they're a power program again. They do seem to have good enough fan support that making a decently big hire wouldn't be that surprising. Like if Arkansas was able to pull Marshall it wouldn't be that shocking.

But under Mike Anderson, I definitely agree with your assessment. They've been in the tournament three of the last four years, but haven't made it out of the first weekend. I don't see any particular reason why they'd be much of a threat to do it this year either.
mdanyc03
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Quote:

College basketball is so volatile that a program's entire trajectory can change in a really short amount of time. Look at Texas Tech for example.
So I guess my thing is that having a good coach isn't enough, you have to have good players. And you have to have a way to consistently re stock the supply of good players which means having some type of sustainable competitive advantage when it comes to roster building.

I am sure Chris Beard is a fantastic coach. But he isn't going to have a lightly regarded true freshman like Zhaire Smith show up and become a freshman first round draft pick every year. He will have to find a sustainable way to recruit. Can he consistently beat out the other schools in Texas for kids from Dallas that everybody wants, or will he recruit nationally, etc? We will see. So far he has signed/ committed one top 100 recruit in his time at Tech.

Every consistently successful program has their way of getting good players. That ranges from being a national brand that is a top client of the shoe companies like Duke and Kentucky to the St. Mary's Aussie pipeline and a dozen other strategies in between. I am just saying that I am not sure what the path is for Arkansas to be a top 4 SEC program even if they had a high end coach because I think they will always be at a disadvantage to other programs (Kentucky, Florida, even Georgia and A&M) from a recruiting standpoint, all other things being equal.
bobinator
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I actually kind of think the other way. I think there are enough good second level players in the southeast that a good coach can consistently field a really good team.

A good Arkansas coach wouldn't need to beat out the Kentucky's and Duke's of the world. He'd probably establish a solid floor for his program by developing fringe players from the Dallas area, Louisiana, etc. Then every now and then grab a top flight player or two here and there to put them over the top in certain years.

Like if Arkansas went out and hired Stansbury, Marshall, Musselman or someone along those lines, they'd be a pretty good regional recruiting force fairly quickly. Hell they've had some decent recruiting classes recently and I think Mike Anderson kind of sucks.

I just don't think there's any sort of systematic reason that Arkansas is forever stuck in mediocrity. That's not to say that there wouldn't be some short term struggles in recruiting, especially if SMU and TCU stay competitive, Memphis becomes good again and LSU starts improving. But if we're talking long program trends, I don't think they're at a huge disadvantage for any reason.
_lefraud_
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For long term stability, Beard needs to utilize the JUCOs in that area for starters. But the beauty of a guy like Beard, is that he won't need lots of talented kids to be competitive year in, year out. If he can snag one top 10 player from the state each year, and/or establish a pipeline through an AAU, he will be just fine.

Arkansas needs to throw money at Marshall. I don't think recruiting to Arky is as difficult as you make it sound, especially if you get a coach that can put together a decent NCAA run. It's still one of only two venues that will routinely get 15k+ to watch basketball in the SEC, and that's with them being pretty meh for the past decade plus.
hogfan14
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They don't recruit that well because they just don't have that much in state talent.

I think the in-state talent is a lot better for basketball than it is football. In the last 5 years you've had Bobby Portis, Malik Monk, Daryl Macon, Archie Goodwin, KeVaughn Allen, Daniel Gafford, etc. Three first round picks and some all-SEC players in there. A few years ago there were players from Arkansas on about 6 different SEC teams. Pelphrey did have a top 10 class his last year but none of them turned out to be that great.

Arkansas basketball is kinda like Tennessee or Nebraska football at this point. Anderson has been just good enough to not get fired, but not quite good enough for fans to be satisfied. If (when) he has a bad year this next year it could get dicey for him, especially with a new AD. Some of the incoming freshmen may be pretty good but having that many new players on a roster is never good.
bobinator
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Good points, one thing I didn't mention in my post because it's kind of an understood is that locking down the players that do come out of Arkansas is obviously important.
DukeMu
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_lefraud_ said:

For long term stability, Beard needs to utilize the JUCOs in that area for starters. But the beauty of a guy like Beard, is that he won't need lots of talented kids to be competitive year in, year out. If he can snag one top 10 player from the state each year, and/or establish a pipeline through an AAU, he will be just fine.

Arkansas needs to throw money at Marshall. I don't think recruiting to Arky is as difficult as you make it sound, especially if you get a coach that can put together a decent NCAA run. It's still one of only two venues that will routinely get 15k+ to watch basketball in the SEC, and that's with them being pretty meh for the past decade plus.

Nolan Richardson had no problem snagging great talent.

Beard won't be at tceh in another year or two.
_lefraud_
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Yea, I'm just not buying into Beard going to Texas. He's getting a state of the art basketball facility, is well compensated, and is in a place he is comfortable. The only thing Texas has over Tech is a brand that attracts more players, and perception of being a more prestigious job. Again. I just don't see it happening.
bobinator
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_lefraud_ said:

The only thing Texas has over Tech is a brand that attracts more players, and perception of being a more prestigious job. Again. I just don't see it happening.
Texas is objectively a better job than Tech in every sense of the word, also, Beard went there. But we don't need to turn this into another Beard thread.

I just don't think the "can they get players" question holds much water these days. Good coaches can get players anywhere, and Arkansas isn't in like Wyoming or something anyway. No reason that with the right coach they couldn't be a team that's in the tournament more often than not and every few years sets up to make a deep run.

To varying degrees I think that's true of pretty much everyone in the SEC, but Arkansas has really good fan support so I think their ability to hold a good coach if they hired one is probably better than a lot of the others.
_lefraud_
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Better facilities and better fan support make it more subjective than you think, but to each their own. Also, other than Bob Huggins (and to a degree, Roy Williams), give me the list of coaches that left a good situation to coach at their alma mater? Aggies more than anyone get way to caught up in the "he went to school there".
bobinator
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So other than two extremely high profile examples, find others? Aren't those enough of an example to show that it can be a factor?

I don't think it's an end-all-be-all, and for all I know he might have hated his time at Texas and he's got crazy exes in Austin or something, but it still could be a factor. It's definitely at least worth mentioning in the "only things Texas has over Tech" when it comes to Beard.

But fittingly for this thread, Mike Anderson is one. He was doing just fine at Missouri. Also Jamie Dixon.
_lefraud_
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I think Huggins is really the only good example. He had things going in the right direction at Kstate.
- Roy Williams left KU for UNC, sure it was his alma mater, but it was always clear that UNC was his dream job
- Jaime Dixon was looking to leave Pitt, as it was no longer a good situation for him. Just so happened TCU needed a coach
- Mike Anderson played at Tulsa...

I'm just not sure Texas is a "dream job" for anyone, including Beard (an alumnus), but who knows. Either way, I'm not sure the "yea, but it's where I went to school" plays much (if any) on where guys choose to coach, especially when they are choosing to leave a good situation.
bobinator
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For some reason I thought Anderson finished his playing days at Arkansas, but you're right. I knew he had some sort of tie there but I guess he was just a long time assistant there under Richardson and people really liked him.

Still, I don't think you can hand wave away Dixon. He's a prime example. TCU was a garbage program and he could have gone to a lot of better places. And Williams definitely counts. I guess you could say that North Carolina might be anyone's dream job, but he was still an alum and he left another blue blood program where he'd made the Final Four a few times to do it.

I think it depends on the person, but it obviously can make a difference, which is why I think it's worth noting. Does Beard even like Texas? I have no idea, but maybe he does. I don't think it's a huge deal, but even if there are only a few examples, it can matter.

I can definitely see Beard staying at Tech for a while, but until he actually turns down what looks like a better job it's hard to say for sure. I just don't buy into any coach wanting to stay at a second tier job long-term until they actually prove it, just too much evidence to the contrary.
Pumpkinhead
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_lefraud_ said:

I think Huggins is really the only good example. He had things going in the right direction at Kstate.
- Roy Williams left KU for UNC, sure it was his alma mater, but it was always clear that UNC was his dream job
- Jaime Dixon was looking to leave Pitt, as it was no longer a good situation for him. Just so happened TCU needed a coach
- Mike Anderson played at Tulsa...

I'm just not sure Texas is a "dream job" for anyone, including Beard (an alumnus), but who knows. Either way, I'm not sure the "yea, but it's where I went to school" plays much (if any) on where guys choose to coach, especially when they are choosing to leave a good situation.
Because I was curious just who was currently coaching at their alma mater, and Google exists:

https://www.ncaa.com/news/basketball-men/article/2017-10-03/college-basketball-which-current-coaches-have-had-most


Quote:

Roughly one in every 10 men's college basketball head coaches is employed by his alma mater.

Some Guys they mentioned:

Patrick Ewing (Georgetown)
Chris Mullin (St. Johns)
Jamie Dixon (TCU)
Kevin Ollie (UConn)
Bob Huggins (WVU)
Mike Cronin (Cincy)
Matt Painter (Purdue)
Roy Williams (UNC)
Jim Boeheim (Syracuse)
_lefraud_
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Pretty cool list to see, although it needs to be updated, as it has few coaches that have actually LEFT their alma mater for better jobs (Mack, Cronin).
Most of the list is full of guys that got their job because of who they are, or because they went there. Again, only Huggins (and maybe Williams/Dixon) really fit the situation that Beard might be in a few years.

But yes, alma mater can play a role on the decision making process, I'm just not sure how high it is on the list, especially when deciding to leave a good situation, or in Beard's case, somewhere he has been virtually his entire career.

Alright, enough about this dumb hypothetical, that probably won't even take place.

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I still believe Arkansas is the 2nd best job in the league, but I do believe they need to make a change at head coach to maximize and realize their potential. Agree that Arky isn't some desolate place that can't get players, or the pickins' are slim, and they have a great fanbase that is second only to Kentucky in the SEC.
bobinator
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Most of them were an assistant at their alma mater before becoming head coach. Also RIP Kevin Ollie. And Penny Hardaway went to Memphis, but he didn't leave another college job to go coach there. Neither did Ewing or Mullin.

The actual situation that we're talking about is somewhat rare, which is why I don't think you can handwave guys away that count like Dixon and Williams.

You need:
A) The alum to be a current sitting college head coach: Right away that trims the list down significantly. A lot of coaching hires are guys that are currently assistants. Once you get to the high major level, there just isn't really that much movement between head coaches at second tier jobs.

B) A coach that's doing well at a reasonably good job: For example Mick Cronin left Murray State to go to Cincinnati, but anybody would leave Murray State for Cincinnati, so we're not counting that one.

C) The alma mater itself has to be a decent job: So really the only coaches this could even possibly apply to are coaches that attended high-major schools. Noone with success is leaving a high major program to go back to coach at Abilene Christian or anything.

So yeah, it's a pretty rare situation that you have a high major school that needs a head coach that has an alum out there that's doing well.
Pumpkinhead
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I guess another side scenario, is when a school happens to hire an 'up and comer' type who is an alum, and turns out they do really well, then perhaps that guy sticks around a bit longer.

In A&M's case, just curious, is there any good college basketball coach out there who is a graduate of A&M that would apply to this 'If only he would come back home' sort of conversation?
bobinator
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Yeah, I think it's hard to rank jobs in the SEC because I think they're all basically the same except for Kentucky, just to varying degrees.

I'm ranking them based on two hypotheticals. 1) If all of the jobs were open at the same time, who has the best resources/salary to offer a new coach? and 2) If a coach were successful there, would they be able to keep them?

Thinking of it that way, I think Arkansas is probably in a tier right below Kentucky with Tennessee and maybe Florida.

I think everyone else is basically a tier below that. Us, LSU, Missouri, South Carolina, Mississippi State, Vandy, Alabama and Auburn are all about the same to me.

I think there's maybe a fourth tier of Georgia and Ole Miss, but even they made pretty respectable hires.

bobinator
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Not in men's basketball that I know of.
_lefraud_
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Only name out there that I can think of is Dustin Clark...who has been Turge's right hand man for a decade+ now. He was promoted to assistant a few years back at Maryland, but he is FAR from getting an opportunity to coach D1 basketball, much less P5.

Mitch Vanya does video for the Rockets, so that might be a name in the way distant future.
bobinator
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Yeah, isn't Acie coaching in the D-league now? Bryson Graham is the scouting coordinator for the Pelicans. But both a long way off.
mdanyc03
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Agree that Arky isn't some desolate place that can't get players, or the pickins' are slim,
So just to clarify, this was never the intent of my comment.

As far as position for player acquisition goes, Kentucky is the strongest because of national brand. Nobody else in the SEC really has a national basketball brand that allows them to get the attention of any recruit, anywhere in the country. So who is best off after them?

Florida had basically zero basketball history prior to 1994. Three (vacated) NCAA tournament wins in school history and zero before 1987. Since the mid 90's Florida has been one of the five most successful programs in the country by almost any metric. 9 Elite 8's, five final fours, two national championships. Over that time, three different coaches have taken them to the elite 8. That type of overwhelming success with three different coaches at a school with almost zero tradition and not much of a pre-existing basketball culture or great basketball specific fan support wouldn't have happened at Ole Miss or South Carolina or Auburn. It happened at Florida because they are the most prominent school in a state with a ton of talent. Other schools in the SEC with something like that type of potential include A&M and Georgia, imo.

So to summarize, I think that long term Arkansas may very well have the second best basketball fan base in the SEC but may not be in the top three in long term outlook because there are other schools with better potential or in a better position for player acquisition.

Fan support is nice but really not all that important in basketball (football is different, I think). New Mexico and Dayton get great, consistent fan support. Much better than UCLA. UCLA is still a much easier place to win.
bobinator
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Taurean Green, Chris Richard and Walter Hodge were the only contributing players on the national championship teams from Florida and they were role guys. Their best players were all from out of state: Humphrey was from Tennessee, Noah from New York, Horford from Michigan, Brewer from Tennessee. They've recruited Florida well, especially after that run, but it's not like they've just locked down their home state and that's why they've been successful.

I actually think Florida is a pretty good example of a school that benefited from college basketball not being nearly as territorial as football. Another is Texas, they started pulling people from all over the place despite also having good talent in their home state.

I actually think you make a good case for what I'm saying, which is if you hire the right coach, your history doesn't matter much. Lon Kruger and Billy Donovan are obviously good coaches. (Mike White still has to prove that he can do it long term, we'll see.)

It all just comes down to your ability to hire and keep good coaches. If you can do that, it doesn't matter where you're located. And that ability comes from your fan support, which is why I think Arkansas has just as much ability to be a good program long term as Florida or Tennessee.
bobinator
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I do get what you're saying, that proximity to players can play into the long term projections for a program. And it can, certainly it's helped us.

But I just think there's too much volatility in college basketball to make any sort of "long arc of history" program rankings except into pretty broad tiers.

You mention us as a team that has Florida-like potential, but we lost two successful coaches. Florida couldn't hold on to Kruger, but then they were able to hold onto Donovan for a long time. That's the difference that support gives you. Can you find the resources to hold onto a great coach when you have one.

Florida did, we couldn't, could Arkansas? I think they'd have a much better chance than we would.
mdanyc03
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Quote:

And that ability comes from your fan support,
If by fan support, you mean people attending your games, fan support really isn't a major factor in retaining coaches. Basketball ticket sales just aren't a really materially significant part of revenue generation at major athletic departments and money is what retains coaches.

Let's take Michigan. Obviously a great basketball program with very good support. And basketball generates less than 10% of athletic department revenue and of that, most is TV money. Basketball ticket sales are probably something like 3-4% of revenue.

http://www.businessinsider.com/schools-most-revenue-college-sports-2016-10

Same reason Florida can retain Kevin O'Sullivan even though Florida is bottom third of the SEC in terms of baseball fan support.

Quote:

I do get what you're saying, that proximity to players
Proximity to players is just part of what I am saying. More broadly, a large and influential alumni network, especially in places with lots of talent, is part of the 'branding' that makes player acquisition easier at some places than others, all other things being equal. That branding comes from everything from kids seeing Tim Tebow on tv to listening to Gator sportscasters to talking to, say, the high school principal or neighbor that is a Gator. Florida has a brand advantage from in that their home turf is better, they also have a better brand throughout the country and world. The two things (strength of state and strength of out of state brand) are correlated.

To summarize where I think we are diverging here, let me summarize it this way.

Florida is better positioned for success than Arkansas. Florida has more money and a better brand. Arkansas has (or at least had) better basketball history and better fan support. But Florida is Florida. It is easier for them to acquire coaches, to retain coaches, to acquire players both because they have a better state but they can also leverage all of that outside of their state.

All of that doesn't equal destiny. It means an advantage. There is nothing really special about Villanova besides Jay Wright. I concede that. But if I were to make 30 year projections for SEC basketball, Arkansas would not be in my top 3 or 4 even though they are in the top 3 or 4 in terms of fan support. Again, doesn't mean destiny, just where I would set the over/ under.
mdanyc03
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You mention us as a team that has Florida-like potential, but we lost two successful coaches.
I will avoid bashing Turgeon in my response here, but let me also add that this is ancient history. We led the country in revenue generation last year. We were in a very different position in 2008. And like I said in the post above, that have very little to do with how many people show up at Reed.
bobinator
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I didn't mean it in terms of attendance. That's part of it, but it's also willingness to pony up for things when the coach wants them. Facilities improvements, assistant salaries, whatever. That's where Florida has been extremely strong.

I think there's also probably something to be said for having enough support (maybe support is the wrong word, more like involvement) that if it's time to fire a coach you have people that will pay to do it because they demand excellence. Florida has clearly shown that they'll cut ties with coaches that aren't getting the job done pretty quickly.

I get what you're saying with Florida, and I agree that, right now, Florida is set up better for success than Arkansas. I guess my opinion is that those advantages don't matter nearly as much in basketball as they do in football.

I just think basketball is too volatile to really make long term predictions about basically any program is what I'm saying. Like if a time traveller told me that Arkansas fired Mike Anderson, hired Gregg Marshall, and had a strong decade of success with some final four appearances I'd think "yeah, I can see that."

That's why I think they're in a tier with Florida and Tennessee for me. If any of those schools hired a coach and went on a long run of success I wouldn't be that surprised.
bobinator
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And maybe we are in a different position now, but we have to prove it. The facts are that we lost our last two decent coaches to better jobs and our last three hires were all from the mid-major ranks. We certainly haven't proven that we have the ability to keep a great coach.
mdanyc03
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Honestly I see a kinda strange disconnect between how our current success is viewed and how the potential of our program is viewed by many posters on this board.

In other words, it seems strange that two sweet 16's in three years isn't good enough (we are one of just a handful of programs to do that), and yet many of those same people are kinda down on the long term potential of our program.

I don't mean this to be to you specifically Bobinator, just a general comment.

This board is perpetually frozen in the mid to late 2000's like how the south was frozen on the Civil War for two generations. Everything that happens in Aggie basketball is always viewed through the prism of those six years from late Acie Law through Donald Sloan.
TXAggie2011
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Florida's athletic department is what it is across the board because of its leadership. They've developed an ambitious, but very clear vision of where they want to go, what they want to be...and they've had and shown, by an large, a unity of purpose within their athletic department. It makes for a productive and attractive environment for both coaches and athletes.

They're doing what LSU did and achieved in the mid-1990s to early 2000s.

I know its sappy sounding, but I think it's accurate.

I know Bill Byrne takes, and maybe deserves, some crap for some things but that period is about as close as we've come to having a truly broad, comprehensive vision for the athletic department.

Maybe once the hoopla and interest payments on Kyle Field die down, we can move back in that direction.
_lefraud_
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The last 3 years the Ags have finished T7th, T9th. T1st with a whole lot of talent. Now said talent is gone, or about to be, without much talent coming in. I'm not sure how anyone could feel remotely good about the Ags longterm outlook.
bobinator
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So I think we wrapped up Arkansas, who's next?
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