Ask Mike: Fans React to DVH After Another Series Loss, Impact of Sunday’s Bounce Back, & Can Softball Get to OKC?

Q. For the second week in a row our first question is from HillCountryRazorback who asks: Which was the bigger problem at LSU, pitching or hitting? Both were disappointing but I think hitting was a problem in all three games where pitching was only really bad in game two.

A. I would tend to agree with that. Technically the game one loss was on Aiden Jimenez because he lost a 4-2 lead in the 7th. It became 4-4 and LSU won in extra innings but you need more than 4 runs in that situation. Arkansas left 9 runners on base in that game, 28 in the three games.

Nobody played well in game two. The pitching, hitting and defense were all bad. But in game three Arkansas used six pitchers and only two of them were scored upon.
Dylan Carter, Christian Fouche, Cole Gibler and Parker Coil gave Arkansas 5 2/3 innings of shut out baseball. Coil in particular was amazing. He hadn’t pitched in six weeks. He came in with one-out in the bottom of the 9th, two on with the tying run at the plate, trying to avoid a sweep and he got those two batters.

Q. Razoralex88: says: Good, Bad, Ugly kind of series. Bad, losing in extra innings on Friday night, Ugly getting hammered Saturday but the Good, holding them off in the 9th to win the series finale! Lost the series but didn’t get swept!

A. Avoiding the sweep is everything right now. Arkansas remains all alone in 2nd place in the SEC. These guys control their fate at home this week against a struggling Tennessee team. Win the series and I could see them as no worse than a national 5 seed. Probably better. Lose that game and lose the series to Tennessee and Arkansas might have ended up with a 9 seed or 10 seed where if you win your regional you go on the road for a super.

Q. Hawgredneck asks: It this wrong? Arkansas did in Baton Rouge what Texas did in Fayetteville. They walked in unprepared for what they were about to face and they got embarrassed.

A. This question was submitted before game three and once again it emphasizes how important avoiding a sweep was. Unlike Texas Arkansas did not get swept on the road. In fact, since 2017 Arkansas has only been swept in a series twice. Every other SEC team has eight or more. The game announcers mentioned that.

Texas, by the way, just lost two of three to Florida so they still haven’t recovered from getting swept by the Hogs.

D1 baseball has dropped Arkansas to 8th from 7th but D-1 baseball is not the selection committee. I don’t know how Arkansas, it finishes second over all in the SEC, is going to be a national 5 though 7 seed.

Q. chalde44 wants to know: Why is Van Horn not correcting the following: Wehiwa is not swinging at first pitch strikes and is getting behind in the counts early. Kuhio needs to go down swinging more often, not watching third strikes.

A. I agree with you. You could see a similarity with all of LSU’s pitchers, how they threw to the Aloy brothers and Brett Iredale. The typical pitch breaks just off the plate to the outside or it drops to ankle level across the plate. Clearly they were trying to use the aggressive swings of those three to get them to strike themselves out. You can see other Arkansas hitters who don’t swing at those type pitches. Ryder Helfrick and Justin Thomas Jr. are good examples of that.

Hitting comes and goes. Arkansas is still leading the SEC in hitting by a big margin. The Hogs dropped to 5th in E-R-A because of that run-rule game but Arkansas is tied for first place nationally in fielding percentage.

They are in better shape right now that a lot of fans realize.

Q. Mousetown says: Last week you predicted that it wouldn’t be long until the Van Horn haters came after him again. Wow. It didn’t take long.

A. Actually I never used the term, it won’t take long. I didn’t know how long it would be. It was easy to predict that his critics would return the next time his team had a disappointing weekend so yes, it didn’t take long.

Here is just a small sample that popped up on Facebook over the weekend. I’m not going to use the names because these people were not addressing Ask Mike.

Statement on Facebook: Four series out of five we got out aces kicked. You’re so full of excuses DVH. We will never get that World Series win with your old BS.

Statement on Facebook: DVH I’ve defended you for years but it’s time to show up with the coaching and stop making excuses like Friday night. You should be past all of this but it’s the same thing every year.

Statement on Facebook: All you haters…shut up. The Hogs swept Texas last week. It’s baseball. You don’t win every game. Love you DVH.

Statement on Facebook: Sounds like we need some better fans WPS4L….period.

A. I scanned social media a lot over the weekend. The negative comments are more common that the positive. To me that’s typical. People who post on the Internet tend to react negatively to negative developments. They’re not there to support. They’re there to say, I don’t like this. I want something done about it.

Some people post because they want a certain coach fired or the AD fired and they believe they can help make this happen. I also think there are some on the Internet who are just trying to start a fight because they like arguing with other fans or the media. Others do it as a form of therapy. Blowing off steam makes them feel better.

Q. Hogman80 says: 1-32 seeding is needed in baseball and softball. I am tired of Arkansas getting screwed because of all the good programs that are within 500 miles of Fayetteville. Ridiculous how some lower seeds have easier regionals than a Top 4 seed

A. Technically the committee should seed every team one through 64 and place them based on that. The national one seed’s regional would have the lowest rated 2 seed, 3 seed and 4 seed. You take that all the way down to the 16 regional and you would have the highest rated 2 seed, 3 seed and 4 seed.

However, enter ESPN. They televise these games and they don’t want a bunch of blowouts. So they throw in some teams that shouldn’t be in a particular regional to make for more competitive games, games that might produce and upset. They also very much value regional seeding over technical seeding. Bringing in teams that are close by produces bigger crowds, more energy in the ballpark.

Think about the 2022 regional where Arkansas was sent to Stillwater. That ended up hurting Oklahoma State because huge numbers of Arkansas fans showed up. The place was packed. Arkansas got a jump start from that and ended up going to Omaha. The ESPN people love stuff like that. The host school, too bad for you.

Q. Papi Ramon on Discord asks: I feel like we’ve seen in years past Courtney Deifel teams like this that struggle in regionals and the supers, so I have to ask, will this be the year we finally get a team who goes to the women’s college world series?

A. Along the lines of what we’ve been discussing, based on the last 8 weeks of the season to me Arkansas should have been a national 3 seed. Instead they are a 4 and guess what? Oklahoma State ends up coming here. So it will be tougher than maybe it should have been to get to a super. Then the super, you could argue that Arizona is one of the hottest teams in college softball right now. Arkansas is too. The matchup would make for good TV outside of Arkansas but could it derail Arkansas’ chances of going to OKC? Maybe.

I like the way the Arkansas women are hitting, especially at home. I think they’re going to OKC but hey, I’m wrong a lot.

Q. WVHogfan asks: Which team (softball or baseball) do you think will have the best success in the post season?

A. I can’t say because I don’t know the field for baseball. I don’t even have a good idea of where the Fayetteville Regional will fit in. Eight? Six? Three? That makes a big difference. I will say that Arkansas is due and this team plays really well at home. I think Arkansas baseball will be in Omaha and softball will make it to OKC but if that happens I think the baseball team has a slightly better chance of winning it all because the program as been to the national tournament many times.

The first trip like that is enjoyable but it’s rare for such a team to do a lot of damage.

Q. Woopigmak says: I watched Courtney’s interview with Kelsi Musick. I really enjoyed it. However, it’s not gonna be easy competing in the SEC. Will they be able to win some conference games with this roster?

A. Yes, she’s already done enough to make Arkansas more competitive than last year. This team had stagnated under Mike Neighbors. Defense and a lack of inside scoring was a huge issue. I think Musick will field a much more physical team. I don’t know if they’ll make the NCAA Tournament but there will be an improvement in year one.

Q. KyHog wants to know: Anything new on Cal’s recruiting? I will keep bugging you guys until you give me an answer.

A. Nothing new. Supposedly Karter Knox is coming back and there will be one more surprise addition to the roster, maybe another big.

Q. CajunHog wants to know: Is this the season when Yurachek finally fires Pittman? There’s a part of the fan base that is never going to accept him. Seems like it’s going to happen eventually.

A. I’ve been told he wants to coach two more years and leave the program in better shape than it was when he took the job. The team will be better this season but the schedule is ridiculous. If they only win 4 or 5 games yes, there will likely be a change. If they go bowling again and win that game, going maybe 8-5, then he’d probably get another year.

I’ve heard some stuff about Rhett Lashley possibly coming back once revenue sharing kicks in and the big NIL stash that he currently has at SMU is capped. Making that move in two years, after Pittman retires, makes sense to me but that’s a long time off.

Q. Arnold Zieffel says: We lost a great one in Harold Horton last week. He exemplified Arkansas football in so many levels. Any good stories about coach Horton you care to share?

A. He was as plugged into Razorback athletics as anyone I knew and he was a great source of information for me. We had a system. There were some things he’d tell me but I could not use that information unless I got it from a second source. He trusted me to play it that way and I did.

Interesting story? Okay around 2004 or ’05 I was interviewing Frank Broyles in his office one day. He seemed agitated. After we finished I asked him what he was upset about. He said that school chancellor John White was trying to get him to retire mentioned making Frank sign a contract. Frank knew what that meant. Sign a contract and at the end of it White would not have to fire Broyles. He could simply not renew Frank’s contract.

Several months went by and Frank was still on the job. I saw Harold. I mentioned the conversation I’d had with Frank. I said something like, he most have pulled some strings because I know he’s still not under contract.

Harold explained to me what happened. Frank called Jim Lindsey who was chairman of the school’s board of trustees and asked for help getting White off his back. Lindsey made a conference call to both White and University of Arkansas’ system president B. Allen Sugg. On that call he told White to back off or he would have his job, explaining that he controlled six of the ten votes on that board. He told Sugg he included him in he conversation as a courtesy just so he knew what was going on.

Obviously the conversation worked, at least for the time being, because White waited a couple of more years before finally forcing Frank’s retirement because it had become clear at that point that it was indeed time for Frank to retire, something Lindsey accepted.

A few weeks after Harold Horton told me this story I saw Jim Lindsey and asked him about it. He affirmed that they story was true. He also said he didn’t to what he did lightly. What had simply left him with no choice. He also said the incident was so upsetting to him that he had to go to the hospital for a few days.

The interesting thing to me is this, if White had forced Frank to sign a contract for say three years, then he would not have been fired. He simply would not have been renewed. Would that not have been better for Frank?

Probably but I knew Frank well enough to tell people that there was only one of two ways he would not be the AD. He could pass away on the job or be fired. He would not willingly give up the job. It was too important to him. It was his life.