HOOVER, Ala. - Arkansas Coach Bret Bielema said he has essentially not unpacked his football items since moving into his office in the Broyles Athletic Center more than seven months ago.
The reason is the Arkansas coaches are moving in Monday to their new offices in the $35 million-plus Fred Smith Football Center on the other side of Reynolds Razorback Stadium.
“It’s going to be one that I think is off the charts,” Bielema said.
The Razorbacks held their first team meeting in the facility on Friday, after which the players got to see their new locker room and tour the facility.
“I’m not saying we’re going to be in the top in the country, but we’re definitely in the upper division now both in the locker room, the training room, equipment room, players lounge,” he said. “We have a players lounge with 20 chairs for like a private movie. I feel like slapping our guys. They have it way too good.
“They have a training room that is basically about five or six times the size of the one we have currently.
They’re going to go from what they’ve been doing and having success to one of the best facilities in the country.
Now we just have to put a product on the field that matches it.”
Good scars
Bret Bielema said at SEC media days last week in Hoover, Ala., that the frustration of 2012 could be an inducement for Arkansas football in the coming years, based on his memories of his first team meeting in early December.
“Everybody sat in that room with a different story,” Bielema recalled. “Yeah, they had all just gone 4-8. …Everybody went through it.
Let’s put our arms around it, embrace it for what it is, move forward.
“Everybody says scars are a bad thing. To me, scars are a good things. Scars are a daily reminding of things you’ve persevered.
If you can accept what’s happened in the past, we move forward together, take every day for what it is, you’re going to have this be a growing experience rather than a dying experience.”
Bret and Bobby
Bret Bielema’s .739 winning percentage (68-24) from his seven seasons at Wisconsin ranks eighth nationally among Football Bowl Subdivision coaches with at least five seasons, according to the Razorbacks’ media guide.
The coach directly ahead of Bielema at No. 7 on the list is Western Kentucky’s Bobby Petrino, who has a .743 winning percentage (75-26) in eight seasons at Louisville and Arkansas.
Other SEC coaches in the top 15: Georgia’s Mark Richt (No. 5 at .747), Alabama’s Nick Saban (No. 9 at .736), LSU’s Les Miles (No. 10 at .729), South Carolina’s Steve Spurrier (No. 11 at .728) and Texas A&M’s Kevin Sumlin (No. 14 at .708).
Big SEC
Arkansas Coach Bret Bielema, asked to compare his new home in the SEC to the Big Ten, where he was head coach at Wisconsin for seven seasons, brought up a recruiting example in Razorbacks signee Damon “Duwop” Mitchell.
“We got a quarterback out of Egg Harbor, N.J. that we tried to recruit at the previous institution I was at,” Bielema said. “He reached out to us once I switched because he wanted to play in the SEC. I said, ‘Well, I got a heck of an opportunity for you.’
“He switched, decommitted from another school, became a part of what we did. That was all because of the SEC on our shirt.”
Sports, Pages 31 on 07/21/2013