Has Our Time in Hog Heaven Already Ended?
If 2021 was Hog Heaven, then 2022 looks poised to be purgatory.
There may never be another year like the last for the Arkansas Razorbacks.
Ten SEC championships.
A Top 10 women's soccer team that advanced to the Elite 8.
An indoor track and field national championship.
A season of dominance in baseball nationally.
An Elite 8 run where the Hogs were the only team to give eventual national champion Baylor a semblance of fear.
A football season that hasn't been seen in the Ozarks in a decade.
Recruiting across the board at eye-popping levels.
But with the turn of the calendar, came that old familiar feeling that Arkansas is gonna Arkansas.
We're two games into the SEC season and the basketball team feels like it's one loss from irrelevancy.
It's not even been a week since the high of a dominant bowl win over Penn State, yet red flags are popping up everywhere and they're not Razorback pennants.
Dave Van Horn and Chris Buckman might want to quarantine their players because something is going around in Fayetteville and it's not good.
There's not a lot to talk about on the basketball front. It was clear from the first game that Musselman has a group of ill-fitting parts not suited for what awaited once SEC play began.
Chemistry can't be forced, players aren't going to grow physically over the course of a season, and a thirst for the kill can't be conjured out of thin air.
However, one step in the right direction that might buy the team time with fans would be to lose the Harlem Globetrotter music, bench the unicycles and dancing cheerleaders, drop the juggling, and start preparing during pregame warm-ups with the focus and intensity of a hungry prize fighter.
There's a time and place for the circus atmosphere, but it's time to read the room and realize this isn't it.
Fans are already looking forward to next year. Don't push them into completely abandoning this year.
On the football front, everyone knew players were going to have to leave. The math wasn't going to work out otherwise considering the Hogs needed to get down to the 85-scholarship limit.
The problem is that something feels off about the last couple of days. There are names hitting the transfer portal that simply don't make sense.
Defensive backs Greg Brooks, Jr. and Joe Foucha, a team captain, should have been in line for for starring roles on the Arkansas defense with the full spotlight available should they want to claim it. Yet, both are in the portal looking for a new home.
The stream of players announcing they will no longer be Razorbacks has become so steady over the last couple of days that former Hogs baseball player Matt Goodheart couldn't resist poking fun at the absurdity.
This sent Arkansas fans scrambling to see if Goodheart was indeed still on the team, only to realize they had forgotten in the time-warped haze that are the COVID years that Goodheart technically already hit the transfer portal this past summer when he chose to sign with the Philadelphia Phillies rather than return to Arkansas.
If many more tweets come out from defensive players announcing they won't be playing in Hog uniforms next season, the infamous Hud Island may soon literally be Hudson Clark all alone practicing as the entire defensive backfield this spring.
It's a situation that could legitimately turn ugly.
With things playing out the way they are, it wouldn't be a surprise to hear that, after assessing what will be left of the defense next year, Bumper Pool decides he'd rather enter the NFL draft rather than risk putting out unflattering tape because of a lack of supporting cast.
If that happens, there's nothing to stop safety Jalen Catalon from taking one look around the room and determining there might be better situations for him also. After all, his brother Kendall is no longer in that room providing a natural connection
At that point, defensive coordinator Barry Odom could very well decide to strike while the iron's hot and leave rather than risk damaging his current level of respect by suffering through a rebuilding season on defense.
Then there's the quarterback drama. Back-up quarterback Lucas Coley, who has drawn a lot of attention over the past few weeks with his reported growth at the position, opened Thursday morning by putting everyone on the quarterback depth chart on notice with this tweet.
There's nothing wrong with a quarterback candidate putting a picture out showing he's working hard to compete when spring rolls around.
However, the interesting thing is the dramatic emphasis on the word work. It almost comes off as a dig at something that might be going on behind closed doors in the Arkansas quarterback room.
It could almost be put off as reading too much into it if it weren't for the unusual tweet that came from fellow back-up quarterback Malik Hornsby's account just a few hours later.
Apparently Hornsby has decided to leave, but a tweet with such an unofficial feel left a lot of room to doubt its legitimacy.
For those who haven't been following the formalities of hitting the exit doors, there is usually a classy statement drafted thanking a variety of people that ends with either a declaration for the draft or entrance to the transfer portal. A nice graphic is usually added to give it that high quality Instagram feel.
The tweet is also often pinned to the top of the player's Twitter page so it's the first thing any fan or prospective coach might see.
That's not the case with Hornsby. His page has a tweet pinned from Jan. 2 that reads "Until Next time... 1 Signing Out..." and is followed with a clip of him playing in high school in his old No. 1 jersey.
Perhaps these past few days are just a hiccup that will be forgotten as the weeks pass.
It's possible there's a master plan being executed at the highest possible level in both programs that will play out over time.
But if this is still Hog Heaven, it sure doesn't feel like it.
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