Baseball, Basketball Have Surpassed Football with Hog Fans for Time Being

Perfect storm of events involving all three teams have Sam Pittman's team on proverbial back burner for now

Author:
Kent Smith
Publish date:
Jul 12, 2023 2:35 AM EDT

In this story:

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – On a Monday afternoon in the second week of July, Rick Schaeffer, co-host of "Drive Time Sports" on 103.7 The Buzz in Little Rock took a deep breath and kept pushed forward.

"There's the music," Schaeffer said after nearly 40 minutes of talk. "We're ready for your calls when we return on Drive Time Sports."

Schaeffer didn't have Randy Rainwater, his usual partner, to carry a bit of the load. However, he also didn't have his most important partner, Arkansas Razorback fans, carrying their weight. The first hour would be almost over when the break concluded, yet the caller driven show had only fielded five phone calls, a number that typically fills up a single segment. To make matters worse, there would be no Trey Biddy to kill a few segments.

By the 46 minute mark of the show, there was no hiding the exasperation. Schaeffer was tired of hearing his own voice. As the top of the hour passed, the calls were few and the only utterance of Razorback football was a passing mention that SEC media days take place next week.

He then reminded the audience that with Trey Biddy taking the week off also, there would be plenty of room to take calls. In response, a single Razorback fan called at the top of the second hour. After that, the next 55 minutes went uninterrupted. Two full hours of Razorback baseball, Razorback basketball and home run derby passed by. However, on the football side of things, the only mention outside of reading the SEC media days schedule was to state the first betting line for the Western Carolina game and to read the actual football schedule. No one wanted to talk about the actual football team.

"OK," Schaeffer said. "We've got the next hour coming up with Pat Bradley and we can talk like this just like we are, or you can give us a call."

Calls came in to talk in depth about Arkansas-Little Rock basketball and another called from out of state to discuss what might happen if Mike Anderson were coaching the upcoming Razorback basketball team because "no one else was calling" and the gentleman on the phone wanted to help out. By the time the show closed its three hour run, even the sport of falconry got a relative deep dive, but not one of the few callers who picked up a phone asked about the football team, nor did any of the three men who appeared on the show.

It's been a topic of discussion among members of the media. Even a week out from the official beginning of the SEC football intensive part of the year, fans aren't talking about Arkansas football. If stories posted about Razorback basketball, baseball and football go up on the same day, the football story will finish far below the other two.

That's not the natural order of things. Even in lean years, football is always king. However, there's been a bit of a perfect storm. The entire football team and coaching staff outside of Sam Pittman, KJ Jefferson, Raheim Sanders and Hudson Clark are relatively unknown to Arkansas fans. The entire defensive staff flipped and enough players were brought in on the defensive side to field an entirely new unit.

Couple that with the annexation of the entire calendar year by Eric Musselman that started in August with his highly touted class playing in Europe, to a long, drawn out transfer portal and an NBA Summer League filled with Razorbacks from the past three teams in July, and Arkansas basketball has swallowed up its football counterpart.

With so many fans looking to erase the chaos of late fall from their minds before its remnants were literally wiped away through the transfer portal both from a player and coaches' standpoint, the high emotions of what started off as a potential national championship run in basketball went unchecked by spring football. Baseball was also in the midst of a potential national championship run and giving no ground to the gridiron. Fans had no idea who the football players were who were being written about other than a handful, so they checked out and kept following Arkansas around the bases.

Now, with the Major League draft, the previous baseball team and curiosity as to what will remain of Dave Van Horn's next team's signing class has been the hot topic as baseball has now chewed seven months of its own domination of the headlines. Even though early July is always a bit slow on caller driven shows and in generating web page clicks, it's never been like this. Football has never been this off the radar. Razorback fans have never demonstrated this little emotion heading into the heart of the football talking season.

Kicking off against Western Carolina at 3 p.m. in Little Rock isn't helping drive up interest either. The best anyone can do is feign outrage that the weakest schedule Arkansas has faced in years begins with four SEC games outside of the state. That's not a big deal since it means there will be several SEC games in Fayetteville late in the season. Others pretend to be upset that Jefferson isn't a top of the line Heisman candidate right out of the gate, but even that is false bravado.

Football has been replaced in the hearts and minds of the fans for the time being. The data proves it. Once the Razorback faithful get to know the extensive list of new players and coaches and the season either takes off or starts falling into the tank, those apathetic fans will start to care again and the call boards will light up.

However, until then, depending on when you might be reading this, it's 120 days until the tip-off of basketball season and 220 days until the first official swing of the baseball season, and they both will be looking to beat each other to the university's next national championship.