Former Razorbacks coach Ken Hatfield — Arkansas Communications

Looking Back at 1980's, Which Was Decade of Hogs' Success

With Ken Hatfield, Lou Holtz Razorbacks, you'll be surprised at how many they won

Author:
Andy Hodges
Updated:
Jul 6, 2023 9:31 AM EDT
Original:
Jul 5, 2023

In this story:

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — High, puffy hair was in style and the 1980's were, looking back, an age of excess. That includes Arkansas football, which was one of the top teams for most of that period of time under Ken Hatfield and Lou Holtz.

Americans indulged in everything they could afford (probably a lot of over-spending) and for Razorback fans, winning football games were definitely in style. In today's edition of the Slop House Podcast, allHOGS.com writers Kent Smith and Andy Hodges look back on those years of getting close to that elusive national title while stacking up a season of bowl appearances, and some of the surprising numbers that suggest the glory days in the Southwest Conference weren't what fans glamorize them to be.

How good was this decade, really? The Hogs had the highest winning percentage of any team in the Southwest Conference, which was as good as any in the country in the early part of the decade, they were tied with Alabama, played in bowl games nine years in the decade (the one that didn't, a Hall of Fame coach in Holtz was fired), the most wins by a starting quarterback in program history.

The winning percentage of nearly 72% is second in program history behind the 77.6% of the 1960's. The 1970's is third with a win percentage of nearly 70%. Those are the standards I grew up watching and started covering early in my career.

That last items was Greg Thomas, who also set a new standard in the state of an African-American starting quarterback for the Hogs in 1984, which was a watershed year for the entire athletic program along with 1985 in bringing results of new attitudes on race, but we'll cover that more in a later episode.

This one looks at the overall football program, from the period of time with Hatfield and how many people tend to look past the 1985 season, which was first of three seasons with 10 wins during the decade.