Hog Calls

Miscues put Bielema back to beginning

Arkansas coach Bret Bielema watches from the sideline during a game against Missouri on Friday, Nov. 25, 2016, in Columbia, Mo.
Arkansas coach Bret Bielema watches from the sideline during a game against Missouri on Friday, Nov. 25, 2016, in Columbia, Mo.

FAYETTEVILLE -- Being Bret Bielema isn't apt to be documented with the football offseason mirth ESPN documented last summer.

While a long-sought joy for parenthood awaits Bret and Jen Bielema in July, the football side of the offseason is all business for the Arkansas coach whose annual Razorbacks progress took a step back in 2016.

Most everyone in Arkansas knew Bielema inherited a mess when he stunned the college football world leaving Wisconsin after seven successful seasons to coach the Razorbacks. He assumed a Razorbacks program that first crashed in Bobby Petrino's April Fool's Day 2012 motorcycle accident that eventually revealed he had violated UA hiring practices policy. From that came the 4-8 rudderless 2012 season under interim Coach John L. Smith..

It was no bed of roses for Bielema, who left Rose Bowl-bound Wisconsin for Arkansas and a 3-9 season (0-8 in the SEC) debut in 2013.

But progress in the players' decorum and academics was obvious. The off-the-field progress started getting matched on the field with the 7-6, and 8-5 seasons of 2014 and 2015 capped by victorious bowl games.

And Bielema's 2016 season wasn't a lost cause. It just seems that way.

Beating three ranked opponents, including a convincing 31-10 victory over SEC East champion and Outback Bowl winner Florida, and academically posting the Razorbacks' best ever grade point were notable achievements.

But who remembers that now? Arkansas memories fixate on second-half meltdowns in the regular-season finale at SEC East bottom-feeder Missouri, losing a 24-7 halftime lead and the game 28-24. That was followed by the 24-0 halftime lead over Virginia Tech disintegrating into a 35-24 defeat at the Belk Bowl in Charlotte, N.C.

Worse, in the expressed views of many, the Razorbacks in Charlotte, N.C., not only squandered a halftime lead, but their reputation.

Two regarded as senior stalwarts, tight end Jeremy Sprinkle and receiver Drew Morgan, ended Arkansas careers during which their performances and character had been extolled.

Morgan was ejected from the game for spitting on an opponent, an unseemly lack of sportsmanship regardless whether or not provoked.

Sprinkle never got to the game. He was suspended before his final Razorbacks game following the report he shoplifted from the Belk's department store. That came after the store had given all the players a $450 gift certificates and a 20 percent discount for anything purchased beyond the gift certificate.

Sprinkle and Morgan have tweeted apologies distributed by the UA athletic department. Presumably they have learned as they try to advance to the NFL.

Neither transgression approaches the severity of some issues pervading the NFL and college football, including physical abuse on women, but neither is without consequence to the coach they leave behind.

Because from team discipline to staff, it seems Bielema must start almost from scratch.

Sports on 01/04/2017

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