Is it premature to assign letter grades to our top four college football programs, knowing full well there is still work to be done?
Yes. But we'll do it anyway, just to let them know where they stand.
CENTRAL ARKANSAS
GRADE A-minus
UCA is beginning to gain attention for something other than its purple and gray striped field.
The Bears finished the season 10-3 after a loss to Eastern Washington in the second round of the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs. UCA placed second in the Southland Conference standings and beat Division I rival Arkansas State 28-23 on its home field.
You want progress?
How about UCA coach Steve Campbell, who's taken his teams from 6-6 to 7-4 and now 10-3 after three years. Campbell built the Bears with plenty of help from in-state players, including former Bentonville standout Desmond Smith, who was selected first team All-Southland Conference after catching 70 passes for 893 yards.
UCA has a major opportunity next season when the Bears open at Kansas State.
ARKANSAS STATE
GRADE C+
It doesn't say much about your conference when your co-champion goes 0 for 4 in nonconference games.
That's Arkansas State, which won at least a share of the Sun Belt Conference for the fifth time in the past six years. The Red Wolves can finish 8-5 with a bowl win over Central Florida, a respected program that slipped to 6-6.
ASU got off to a poor start with losses to Toledo, Auburn, Utah State and UCA. The Red Wolves need to be much better next season when they face Nebraska, Miami, Arkansas-Pine Bluff and Southern Methodist in nonconference play.
At least Blake Anderson will return after being rumored for the head coaching job at Baylor.
ARKANSAS
GRADE C-minus
I'm assuming country music star and Hog fanatic Justin Moore knows the words to "A Little Less Talk And A Lot More Action."
If so, he should pick up a guitar and sing a few lines to Bret Bielema, a quote machine who can be entertaining when things are going well. But no one is smiling after Arkansas sputtered uphill and crashed with its 28-24 loss to Missouri.
Perhaps Arkansas can regain some momentum with a victory over Virginia Tech in the Belk Bowl, which my wife tells me is sponsored by a clothing and cosmetics store. If so, there are some Hogs, especially on defense, who could use a makeover in the worst way.
Bielema is knowledgeable and likable, and the vast majority of Razorback fans want him to succeed. But being Bret Bielema is better when Bret Bielema is being better than a .500 (25-25) coach at Arkansas.
By the way, people. Quit complaining about how difficult Arkansas has it in the SEC West. It's what Arkansas signed up for when Frank Broyles announced in 1990 he was leaving the Southwest Conference and taking his Porkers with him.
"Who cares if they want to leave?" former Texas Tech coach Spike Dykes said at the time. "Let them go. I don't think we should go out and slit our wrists since Arkansas is leaving."
I'm guessing Arkansas fans don't want those who criticized the move to claim they were right. Surely, not.
ARKANSAS-PINE BLUFF
GRADE F
Not much was expected of the Golden Lions, and they delivered by losing 10 of 11 games.
Oh, for the days of Archie "Gunslinger" Cooley. Could it be you are unfamiliar with the "Gunslinger," who was 27-13-2 in his four years at UAPB?
I went to work at the newspaper at Pine Bluff in 1991 the year after Cooley was fired. I heard all the stories about Cooley, who instructed eligible players to switch jerseys with ineligible players and then put them into games. He even used some players who already had exhausted their four years of eligibility.
When the full details emerged, Cooley was fired, and UAPB received a two-year "death penalty" that was later reduced to one year after an appeal.
The sleaze balls who brought down the Southern Methodist program in the 1980s had nothing on Cooley, who was brash, colorful and a Grade A cheat.
Sports on 12/11/2016