Football and MBB get the most criticism because they have the most fans who care about how they do...most fans mostly care only (or maybe 90%) about wins and losses...that is a truism whether you are in Conway, Fayetteville, Columbia (MO), Stillwater, Tallahassee or anywhere else....each has had their challenges the past decade and sometimes it was just bad luck, sometimes losing a good coach, sometimes player transfers or injuries, sometime administration....or many other reasons....
UCA, like other D1 schools, has lots of sports (I believe we now have 18) in different phases of the program.......in today's world win/loss is no longer the only important metric....Title 9 changed that and is more true now than ever before....plus graduation rates get lots of behind the curtain attention....the ADs these days have lot of constituents to keep happy.....still, I have never met a D1 AD that did not understand that football and MBB get you more bad attention than others give you good attention....plus managing 18 head coaches plus the off field management (like development, academic support, budget, NCAA compliance, broadcast contracts, etc) is no small chore....I had 12-15 direct report managers much of my career in business and that was nothing compared to what D1 AD's have to deal with...
As to football, the recent records post-Coach Campbell have been documented in an earlier post but are repeated below:
Football: 2018, 6-5 2019, 9-4 2020, 5-4 2021, 5-6 2022, 5-6
I was glad to see Coach Campbell get a chance to move to FBS level but wish we could have afforded to keep him...I was certainly shocked that he was not able to be at USA long-term but it is a tough world to get wins...as Mizzou's former Coach Gary Pinkel used to say after every Tigers win..."It's really hard to win a football game..." and Pinkel had a storied career as MU's winningest coach including two SEC East championships...of course, all that did was set up Barry Odom to have to win two more which is VERY tough to do.... (note.....call Fayetteville to confirm)...now a former Alma Airedale at the helm has the clock ticking...
I thought Bret Bielema might be a good move for hogs as he and Wisconsin have long had very good o-lines....what they learned, among other things, was that Big 10 o-lines are maybe a couple steps below SEC o-lines...except for The OSU....Bama and UGA are just way above the rest of the SEC as to o-lnes (and virtually all other aspects of football)...along comes Sam Pittman and hope springs eternal that he will get it done...so far better but still not there....19-17 so far....note Mizzou's coach from Alma is 17-19....it's really hard to win in D1....UCA is not the only D1 program that has had some hard seasons recently....look up Florida State and see what Mike has to overcome....
The record shows 15-9 in the first two years post-Campbell....not what UCA is used to but a pleasant surprise for a first time D1 head coach...
I think the 2020 pandemic was a disaster for all teams with all the distractions and we happened to eke out a 5-4 including a weird loss at Fargo ....I'm willing to give all these coaches a pass for 2020 as long as they kept working to build the program...given the caliber of recruits we have seen over this period that seems obvious for UCA...
So that leaves 2021 and 2022 with 5-6 records....
Think about what happened in 2022....first, probably a controllable was we did not have a ready replacement for Breylin Smith who graduated...we were fortunate the transfer portal led to Will McElvain who was an experienced FCS QB at Northern Iowa...however, he did not know our offense and players like Breylin did through no one's fault.....he was a quick study as the offense got in gear in H2 of the SEMO game but the hill was too steep to climb out for a win...second we lost huge in the transfer portal when Tyler Hudson went to Louisville..I cannot blame the guy for moving to a much higher profile P5 program and helping his NFL stock...I really believe had he not transferred we would have beaten Mo State, SEMO and Lindenwood and would have ended up 8-3 rather than 5-6 and made the FCS playoffs even as an at-large team....we would all be ecstatic....happy days are here again and all...our receiving corps was pretty good nonetheless but TH was AA level and as we saw led Louisville receivers....AAs are not easy to replace...he alone would have made life much easier for McElvain to get going...
Next fall will be a tough schedule but I feel like we will be much better on offense early in the season with a returning solid QB, our potent RB corps and a slew of capable receivers even if not AAs...the schedule with Ok State and North Dakota State is a challenge for sure.... we do get Abilene, SEMO, SFA, EKU and Tarleton on The Stripes with UAPB in PB....
That leaves us with 2021.....to refresh our memory, the schedule is below...
L @ ASU, 21-40 (2-10 but they wore our DBs out late in the game) L @ FCS #23 Mo State, 34-43 (8-4 .... they also wore us out late) W over UAPB, 45-23 L to Sam Houston, 35-45 (11-1 in D1 games) W @ Abilene, 42-21 L to EKU, 35-38 (7-4..... heartbreaking loss) W @ Lamar, 49-38 W @ Jacksonville State, 38-14 (5-6) W over Texas Wesleyan, 63-3 (wish we had another FCS team instead but we got an open date with the WAC/SLC mess and pickings were slim to none) L to SFA, 14-27 (8-4 in D1 games) L @Tarleton, 3-24 (6-5...we did not play well)
The late losses at Jonesboro and Springfield were disappointments that showed we needed to shore our DBs depth which I think we did going into 2022. Sam was really very good in 2021 and we gave them a very good run for the money. SFA was pretty solid and we had our chances. Tarleton was the mystery game. EKU seems to have a knack for pulling out games at the very last...probably also shows our DB depth issues in 2021. Losses were mostly to solid teams. We were certainly very competitive in all games but Tarleton where we just got run over.
Maybe things are not as bad as the 5-6 records would imply but need to turn close losses into wins and not have another Tarleton debacle in a game that could have led to a winning season.
PS....we do not like losing season for sure...if you ever want to hear about a program with a bitter taste in their mouth just listen to Drive Time the week of the Mizzou/Arkansas game...while hogs won last season, they are 2-6 vs Mizzou since Mizzou joined the SEC.....and that does not include a couple big bowl losses to Tigers in recent years before that...not sure that Ark fans would not rather beat Mizzou than Bama...there is also likely a fair amount of rumbling in Jonesboro after 2-10 and 3-9 seasons...
Will try to tackle other sports next....
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