Reasons for optimism behind 8-4 prediction

FAYETTEVILLE — Predicting Arkansas would go 8-4 in 2024 caused a lot reactions around the state going against the standard 3-9 or 4-8 national predictions.

First off, no one knows what Arkansas’ record will be this season. But here’s some reasons behind my prediction beyond the standard he has been drinking the Kool-Aid. If it had been Coke, Red Bull or Gatorade I would be guilty of drinking it, but haven’t had any Kool-Aid.

There’s actually some reasons behind my prediction based on what I have since they reported and attending the press conferences with coaches and players.

First, Arkansas won four games last season with one of the worst offenses in college football. So they are going to go from Dan Enos to Bobby Petrino and there’s no improvement? Not sure how that can be explained. Enos was a mistake when Sam Pittman hired him and Petrino is among the elite offensive coordinators in college football in my opinion.

The chemistry and leadership that was bad and missing last season has been changed completely. The players like each other this season and that wasn’t the case last year. The leaders are emerging this season when they were missing last year.

One thing I downplayed at the time last season at the beginning, but then realized it was a bad mistake on my part was the sources who said Pittman missed Barry Odom. Pittman would bounce things off Odom, who had been a head coach, and he didn’t have that last season. And, honestly, it showed. This year there’s no Odom, but he has Petrino who was a very successful head coach at Arkansas as well as other places. That is an important resource for Pittman.

Arkansas improved dramatically on defense last season before appearing to letting go of the rope or just completely worn down at the end of the season against Auburn and Missouri. This season Travis Williams, Deke Adams, Deron Wilson and Marcus Woodson all return. Keeping the staff intact was huge for Pittman and Williams considering three were new last with only Adams being at Arkansas previously. Don’t think keeping the staff intact on defense was important? Ask Williams.

“It’s an unbelievable difference because you don’t have to reteach it,” Williams said. “And even though these guys have been coaching 20-plus years, it’s like, it’s different systems. So you’re not reteaching something and saying ‘Okay, this is how I like it,’ and they had a different way. Like, no, this is the way we’re going to do it. Everybody is on the same page of exactly how we want it to be done, and it’s always good to retain those guys.

“So, I mean, it’s outside of football. Even the wives. Like, okay, my wife, she’s expecting. September 14, hopefully the baby will come sooner than that. Well, they had the baby shower yesterday, that Chastity Woodson and then Deke Adams, Miss Alexis Adams, they put on and had all the wives there. So the football part of us staying together is awesome on the field, but it’s awesome for the wives to be together as well. So the whole thing is, you know, the wives got to be happy as well. But man, we got a good group of guys that love to come to work. We get in there each morning, we’re gonna pray, we’ll do our devotion as a defensive staff, and then we get into football. So it’s fun being around those guys and being around good people.”

In addition, Arkansas signed a very good transfer portal class. Ben Sowders will attest to the talent Arkansas brought in from the transfer portal.

“And I’ll say it again, we did not miss one kid in the portal,” Sowders said. “From adding to our program, making our program better, making it competitive, guys that play with passion, guys that hold each other accountable, that’s what we missed last year.”

The offensive line was horrendous last season in large part because of the predictable play calling and the fact the chemistry between the linemen and certain other players was horrible. Pittman hired Eric Mateos who went to the transfer portal to fix the offensive line.

“I think we made tremendous strides on the o-line,” Sowders said. “We’re definitely stronger as a whole unit and a football team. We got numbers to prove it. But, you guys know that at the end of the day, the weight room only gets you so far. You have to take what you did and what you made and you got to put it on the field. The biggest thing I can say is we challenged them both physically and mentally, we got them stronger but I tell them all the time, ‘If it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you.’ So, my job is to put them in adverse situations and see if you can accomplish what we’re asking for you to accomplish. We made it very tough on them this summer, tougher than what we did last summer. Tougher than what it was last offseason and we’re stronger, so now we have to take what we’ve done and apply it to the field. But, all our numbers are up.

“Coach Pittman and Coach Mateos up front, phenomenal job. To have those guys in our program coaching guys every single day only makes us better. Did a great job getting out of the portal. You’re talking about (Keyshawn) Blackstock, (Fernando) Carmona, (Addison) Nichols, who else out of the portal, Joe More has gotten a lot better. They’re strong, they’re powerful and to be honest, they’re good athletes. If you’re strong and powerful and you’re a good athlete up front, you should have success.”

The truth is if a kicker comes through it appears the team has not gotten worse at any position from last year and is better at many spots. The staff on offense has four new coaches and honestly that was probably needed. There was no doubt the coordinator spot had to be upgraded and Pittman got possibly the nation’s best there. If not the best, certainly one of them.

The atmosphere around Arkansas is simply better this year. Of course how will they handle adversity when it hits? That will determine a lot of things.

Much of the doom and gloom nationally is because of Arkansas’ 4-8 record in 2023. Used to one could put stock in how a team did one year and not expect overnight success. But when teams are flipping half their roster over from the previous season how last year went becomes less significant.

As noted earlier, no one, myself at top of list, knows what Arkansas’ record will be this season. But my prediction of 8-4, probably should have gone 7-5 to be honest, had reasons behind it. I honestly think this team will be pretty good this season. I will be much more surprised if they end up 4-8 than 8-4.