Reflections of a Razorbacks Fan (at 53) After Yesterday’s Win Over Georgia

We have been wandering in the wilderness, lo these many years.

Our 3-8 "Farewell to the SWC" tour (I know we were 6-5 in our last year, but this was the last time we went to many SWC venues).  We lost to everybody except Tulsa, Colorado State, and SMU.

Our "Welcome to the SEC" tour, complete with loss to The Citadel (We were 3-7-1 that year).

Jack Crowe (who is absolved as of last week).

Worrying about beating SMU (all through the 90's).

Wishing we could go to Shreveport for a Bowl Game.

Sitting in the stands at the 2nd or 3rd game of the year and hearing people talking excitedly about basketball season.

Having our entire coaching staff not know that we had scored a touchdown (I'm not over that one yet).

Watching Danny Ford slap the ground in frustration.

Enduring 63-20 and 70-17 losses, with the associated 12 hour trips home.

Enduring Smoke Draw on 3rd and long.

Losing to UNLV.

Sneaking into the rankings only to get the shit kicked out of us by a no-name.

Watching game after game slip through our fingers.

Losing games we should win.

 

Winning one game a year that we should lose, thus giving us all renewed hope.

Watching QB after QB get actively worse from year to year.

Wondering why we had 6 QB's and no OL's.

Watching assistant after assistant get thrown under the bus.

"I called that play, brotha!"

Abuse of Joe Ferguson.

Abuse of Coach "Mal-A-zahn"

Donna Bragg.

FOI.

Hearing from other Razorbacks fans that “You should be loyal to the coach, no matter what” and “You must not be a REAL Razorback fan” and “You shouldn’t expect any better than this, we’re JUST Arkansas….”

Hiring a GOOD coach with NOTHING in the cupboard to offer him.

Watching millions of our dollars go down the road to Oxford.

Enduring verbiage from Ole Miss fans on their way to the Cotton Bowl.

 

It's NICE for this tired, fat old Razorback to be, one more time in his life, anxiously checking the newspaper to see where we are in the polls; to be looking forward with great anticipation (not fear and terror) to the #1 team in the nation visiting Fayetteville; to be watching the schedule, counting up W's and L's and trying to figure out which upper-tier Bowl Game will host the Hogs.  It's also fun to rest secure in the knowledge that a Heisman-hopeful QB will not REGRESS due to coaching.  It's fun to say "Heisman hopeful" in connection with an Arkansas player.

It's fun!

I know it’s too early to get excited, and there’s a lot of football to be played yet, and Alabama may clean our clock Saturday.  I know all that.

We may not be quite there yet, but at least I can look over the Jordan and see the Promised Land.

 

Hope springs eternal in the human breast;

Man never Is, but always To be blest:

The soul, uneasy and confin'd from home,

Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

-Alexander Pope,
An Essay on Man, Epistle I, 1733