There was one overarching theme with Arkansas this past weekend at Auburn – if they got knocked down, they got right back up.

The same maybe could not have been said last season, as evidenced by a 3-9 record. Whether it’s the additional year under head coach Bret Bielema or the motivation from last year’s tumultuous season, it’s clear there’s an edge to this Razorbacks squad. As Bielema said last week, they’re “angry.”

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“We took our beatings last year a couple times,” Bielema said at Monday’s press conference. “We took the worst two probably in the Alabama and South Carolina games. We took that as an opportunity to say it’s not going to happen again.”

The Hogs lost by a combined score of 104-7 in those two games, but dating back to Nov. 9, the Hogs hadn’t lost by more than seven points. On Saturday, that changed with a 21-point defeat at the hands of the defending SEC Champions, but the score doesn’t indicate the whole story, nor the progress the team’s made from last season.

Several times during the game, the Hogs found themselves trailing Auburn in front of a sellout crowd at Jordan-Hare Stadium, a situation in which perhaps last year’s team doesn’t climb back from.

But not this year.

They came back to tie the game twice in the first half, including once with a 14-point deficit in the second quarter. If it wasn’t for a dropped pass from wideout Keon Hatcher, they very well could have been leading by a touchdown going into half.

Regardless, Bielema harped on the team’s never-say-die attitude, even in the face of some pretty tough circumstances throughout the game.

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“I think the fact that we play in a game like that and you lose it and you’re not talking about anybody this week missing a game, that’s big,” Bielema said. “Because there are teams that take a beating, as we did in the fourth quarter like there, or do something and you’ve got guys that quit or don’t have part in it.”

“Maybe those guys that we talked about, they came to the sideline and they’re not going to be back this week, but there’s no quit in this dog,” Bielema added about his team. “We’ll be out there.”

For any rebuilding team, it’s not usually an instant turnaround. It takes talent, of course, but it takes a commitment to a changing attitude. If the attitude of their head coach and their play against Auburn is any indication, it’s clear that this year’s Razorbacks won’t accept being the pushovers from last year and are on their way to being whole again.