Dribbling Ink

Arkansas football has bottomed out for 2012. After a last-second 30-27 loss at the hands of the Ole Miss Rebels—the perennial whipping dogs of the SEC West—the Razorbacks truly can’t achieve a lower level of ineptitude this season. Of course, Jeff Long could always rehire John L. Smith as the next head coach. Anyway, let’s just get right to the good part. Ten observations from the Arkansas-Ole Miss game at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock, Arkansas: 10. The music selection still sucks. Apparently so do the speakers now. Except for “Go DJ” when Dennis Johnson was about to return a kickoff, which is almost too easy to even be considered clever, the music was predictably outdated and lifeless. Might as well play “Cotton-Eye Joe.” 9. None of the technology at WMS is ever checked before the game. I have never been to a game in Little Rock in which everything worked properly. This time the video board was glitching the entire time and, predictably—there’s that word again—there...

Bye weeks are fickle monsters. A week that should be neutral in theory never quite works that way. The bye week always creates collateral damage. Sometimes the fallout helps your team and sometimes it hurts your team. That’s because college football is dynamic—everything changes from week to week, which is why the BCS will continue to thrive no matter how many playoff games are added at the end of the season. Bye weeks also provide clarity. When the hectic race from fall camp to the beginning of the season to winning or losing games finally reaches a respite, players, coaches, and fans get a chance to reflect on months of preparation, expectations, and execution. Thus, after a week of washing my hands of Arkansas’s dreadful start to 2012 and watching other SEC teams more closely, I had an epiphany: Arka-Tenne-Burn-y. What is Arka-Tenne-Burn-y? Exactly what it sounds like: the shared state of four programs—Arkansas, Tennessee, Auburn, and Kentucky—that aren’t as different as their f...

Welcome to your Tuesday viewing update—better known as the night after baseball died in Arkansas for 2012 (the Cardinals got beat down by the Giants in Game 7), the night after the final presidential debate (this election can’t be resolved quickly enough), and the night of crappy singing and dancing shows like The X-Factor , Dancing with the Stars , and The Voice . Without Sons of Anarchy and Pretty Little Liars , Tuesdays would be a lost cause. However, don’t fret; it’s Arkansas State’s night to be on primetime on ESPN . The Red Wolves (4-3 overall, 2-1 conference) travel to Cajun Field to take on LA-Lafayette (4-2, 2-1) for a key matchup in the Sun Belt. Both teams are chasing those mighty Warhawks of ULM, who are undefeated in Sun Belt play. The game will be aired on ESPN2 , beginning at 8 PM ET. I believe I read that ULL is a 4.5 point favorite. I hope my alma mater has a solid showing—it’s very important to take advantage of these situations. With that being said, I expect ...

Tonight is Game 7 of the NLCS between the St. Louis Cardinals and the San Francisco Giants. Winner takes all—all being a trip to MLB’s greatest prize, the World Series. Neither of these teams are strangers to postseason play: the Cardinals won the World Series last year and the Giants the year before that. It’s the Rally Squirrel versus the Rally Monkey. The Midwest versus the West Coast. A violet state versus a blue state (don’t worry if this political reference makes no sense). One team’s season will end tonight. The losing team will be banished for five months, unable to call itself the champion, until the quest starts anew in 2013, when the season begins in April. There is nothing more exciting in sports than an elimination game. Every aspect of the game is exaggerated. Nothing goes unnoticed. Every detail matters. Hyperbole abounds. First pitch is slated for some time after 7 PM central time. (Via Forbes.com) Fittingly, the third and final presidential debate is...

With the Razorbacks searching for their next head football coach, I’ve heard a lot of people talking about the positives and negatives of the state of Arkansas. It’s an often-cited fact that Arkansas doesn’t have a professional sports team, which makes the Razorbacks the state’s pro team by default and consequently increases the attractiveness of the football head coaching position. (I don’t think there’s any question that Arkansas would struggle to support a professional sports team—the population just isn’t large enough. I think there would be a core of rabid fans, but not enough casual fans to make a consistent profit. And professional sports teams are all about the money.) This led me to consider an important question: If the state of Arkansas had to vote on which professional sports team to adopt as its own, which team would Arkansans pick? Regional proximity was one of the most important aspects I considered, so I included how many miles each team is from Little Rock...

Watch this before you read today’s blog: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4GwrEuULwY Pause. Deep breath. Commend yourself for your (insert degree). Now you’re ready to read. I’ve never been the kind of guy to plan out my entire life. In fact, though I am organized and a little OCD about my living quarters, my future has never been something that I’ve bothered to give much though to…so I got a B.A. degree in English. Why? Well, because it’s what I enjoy: I love to read and I love to write. Isn’t that what life is about? Finding that something you love and exploiting it for all its worth? People used to ask me—they don’t now because the only organism I mingle with, besides a iguana that runs around in the halls, is my wife –“What are you going to do with that degree?” Then they’d smirk and drum their fingers on the table, thinking Checkmate! I always cringed at this question, because I didn’t know—I still don’t know—but I always had an answer: non-traditional teaching licensure…graduate...