KiloNiner

If you're going to compare any two coaches then you must account for where each began as well as how far they've gone. Malzahn spent one season away from a championship-caliber team whose offense he put together as OC then returned as the head coach. Did that one year hiatus affect the team's composition? Sure. Did it change its character? Absolutely not. Bielema, on the other hand, stepped into a massive rebuilding project with a program that was not simply in a slump—the program had been set on fire by Bobby Petrino then allowed to burn to the ground by John L. Smith. It wasn't a small matter of taking over a healthy program with a culture of winning and changing the offensive focus from pro-style passing attack to old-school smash mouth running attack. Bielema spent his first season tearing down the wreckage and pouring a new foundation. His two SEC wins, when taken in context of where he the program was during the 2013 season and how the team progressed over the course of this season, are far more significant than the record alone would suggest. Malzahn is faced with the task of staying at the top of the SEC West heap, and by that standard this season was a disappointment. Bielema is faced with the task of continuing to build his program and climbing to the top of the SEC West heap, and by that standard this season was a huge success. Taking over from the train wreck of John L. Smith and leading the program to a bowl game with a single season in between is damn impressive. At the end of the regular season, Auburn has only two more wins than Arkansas, and Arkansas' strength of schedule was the toughest in the country. Naming which coach is objectively better at his job (rather than which has the better record so far) is hardly the no-brainer call that Jason Hall makes it out to be, and his chosen criteria are insufficiently predictive. Claiming that Bielema has no chance ever to win the SEC is entirely unsupported and flatly unsupportable.

Missouri played a great game and won. Chris affirmed that both calls he mentions were correct, although they were by definition questionable since they were, you know, officially questioned. He also included some commentary about what might have been different had the calls gone the other way. Your Tigers won the East for a second consecutive year, and you're about to play the #1 team in the nation for the conference championship. What the heck are you complaining about? After an embarrassing loss to Indiana and a blowout loss to Georgia, literally everything that needed to happen for Mizzou happened. Cheer up and take the win, dude.

Other schools play in-state rivals when playing them serves some interest to the program in question. Games such as the Iron Bowl and the Egg Bowl are games between peers which are beneficial to all four schools for a number of reasons beyond bragging rights and conference/division records. ASU isn't in the same league as Arkansas either literally or figuratively, and it's all but impossible to see what benefit Arkansas might gain from the two playing. It would amount to nothing more than another cupcake non-conference opponent for the Hogs, at best. I know ASU fans don't like to hear it, but the Red Wolves don't warrant the shot at playing the Razorbacks. If they want to get to a point where they do, all their work is ahead of them. All things considered, ASU would do much better for itself by dropping to FCS where it has a greater probability of competing nationally because the chances that the program will rise to a level which could justify Arkansas putting them on the schedule as a regular in-state rival are so remote as to be non-existent.

Arkansas has no compelling interest to serve by playing Arkansas State other than to silence the tiny minority of critics in the state who say they should. Such a rivalry would be a boon to ASU, to be sure, but what does Arkansas get out of it beyond an extremely remote chance at an embarrassing loss every season? No one, other than ASU and their fans, would look forward to that game.

I was somewhat confused by the idea of the Arkansas/Wisconsin rivalry, myself. One could argue that Wisconsin would be an interesting match-up (most, but not all, of the time) if for no other reason than keeping the SEC/Big 10 rivalry going on multiple fronts, but there's exactly zero meaningful history between the two programs. Also, the whole Bielema connection doesn't really offer much in terms of making the game more interesting on a wider stage, at least not for very long. The only issue with a Texas/Arkansas rivalry, however, is the fact that while Arkansas always saw playing Texas as a huge game, Texas never really reciprocated that view. Back in the old SWC days, Texas was the 500-lbs gorilla of the conference, and they lead the series record 56-21. The Razorbacks certainly had some memorable games with the Longhorns, but the fact remains that those were the exception rather than the rule in terms of college football at-large. Additionally, there is still some degree of lingering resentment amongst our old SWC opponents over Arkansas jumping to the SEC. While it would be difficult to name a better example of foresight on the part of Frank Broyles, our exit doomed the Southwest Conference. All of that said, Arkansas' program has adapted to SEC styles and standards in the interim, and we are more than we once were so it would be difficult for Texas to go on dominating the series. With that in mind, it's hard to see what would be particularly compelling to Texas about playing Arkansas in a standard home-and-home rivalry series when, as Jason Hall rightly notes in his post, they've got a perfectly good, in-state SEC opponent which features enough history between the programs to warrant insulting them by name in their fight song. I think we'd do better playing Oklahoma or Oklahoma State as our annual non-conference rival. Granted, the Hogs have little significant history with either Oklahoma school, but it would be an interesting SEC/Big 12 match-up between programs in bordering states. It would also be one further step into broadening our recruiting base. Wisconsin would offer essentially none of the above.

Right. Because the fact that two-thirds of the population of Arkansas lives within a two-hour drive of Memphis (and travels) really puts a damper on the appeal of the Razorbacks for the Liberty Bowl.