HOG CALLS : Hogs know difference between swagger, confidence

Posted: September 8, 2009 at 5:31 a.m.

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FAYETTEVILLE — Bobby Petrino was asked last week if a productive preseason has returned his Razorbacks' "swagger."

The Arkansas coach kind of grimaced, mumbled briefly, and disparagingly, it seemed, about "swagger" before answering the question like swagger means confidence.

At least a start, a coach's briefly revealed distaste for "swagger." Better still for some coach somewhere to give a "swagger" advocate a vocabulary lesson ending with, "No, we don't have our swagger backbecause I hope we never had it in the first place."

"Swagger" is an all too common buzzword applied by media apparently clueless about the word's definition.

It does not mean confidence.

A glance at dictionary.com revealed this swagger definition: "ostentatious display of arrogance and conceit."

Gee, Coach, do you think your team has its "ostentatious display of arrogance and conceit" back?

Too many do. The nation saw a season's worth of "swagger" from LeGarrette Blount, the University of Oregon running back now suspended for the season.

Blount swaggered into last Thursday night's nationally televised Oregon-Boise State game in Boise, Idaho trash talking about owing an "a** whipping" to Boise State since the Broncos beat Oregon last year in Eugene, Ore.

Like most who swagger, Blount unraveled when another's swaggering came at his expense. Briefly confronted by a boorish Bronco after Boise State blunted Blount and won 19-8, Blount sucker punched his adversary then had to be restrained from taking his swagger gone mad into the stands.

So much for swagger.

Now as for real confidence, the Razorbacks displayed it start to finish last Saturday night for the first time in the Petrino era.

Admittedly it was in a 48-10 rout of overmatched Missouri State in Little Rock, but last year's 5-7 Hogs never won by more than seven points.

Neither offensively nor defensively did the Razorbacks appear tentative last Saturday.

Last year they seemed too often tentative regardless if the opponent was a power likeTexas or Alabama or a no-name like Western Illinois or Louisiana-Monroe.

Arkansas players and coaches noticed the difference versus Missouri State. Many pointed to a 6-foot-7 source.

With his big arm and even bigger personality, sophomore transfer quarterback Ryan Mallett seems to have changed this team from thinking maybe we can to yes we will.

"He has great confidence," Arkansas offensive coordinator Paul Petrino said postgame Saturday, "and carries himself that way. That's contagious. You could even see it in our locker room today. You could see it in the clapping we do before the game. He's confident and makes everybody around him confident."

Time helps, too. This defense, so young last year with so many seniors departed from a 2007 team going into a new regime,got two turnovers and stopped a running game in the 2009 season opener.

It couldn't do either in last year's 28-24 escape of Western Illinois.

"We're a whole lot farther along than we were last year," Wendel Davis, the senior middle linebacker said after his interception versus Missouri State. "We know our coverages, we know where to drop. It's just paying off. We're not the same team as last year. ... I knew we were going to come out on fire, and that's exactly what we did."

The defense, particularly, still seems to have a long way to go, but it's a start.

These 2009 Hogs took a step they couldn't take in Game 1 of 2008.

However they must take a much bigger step to win Game 2. Georgia, Arkansas' next foe after this bye week before the Hogs' Sept. 19 SEC opener in Fayetteville, is light years better than the Louisiana-Monroe team Arkansas escaped, 28-27 in Game 2 last year. Then comes Alabama, Texas A&M, Auburn, Florida and Ole Miss.

A real gauntlet requiring real confidence.

Nate Allen covers the Razorbacks for the Northwest Arkansas Times.

Sports, Pages 9, 10 on 09/08/2009

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