FAYETTEVILLE -- Given the schedule that awaited second-year Arkansas Razorbacks and the fact that they didn't win an SEC game during his 3-9 overall first year, summer thoughts conjured a medal ceremony if Bret Bielema commenced the winter in a bowl game.
Sound the trumpets.
Because whether in December or January, Bielema's Razorbacks will be bowling and not in an alley where tenpins fall. With Friday's finale for this autumn's season still to play at SEC East leader Missouri in Columbia, Bielema's Razorbacks at 6-5 have attained the minimum bowl eligible six victories.
Off an 0-5 SEC start fraught with close but no cigars against teams all in the national top ten when they played Arkansas, the Razorbacks have pitched successive shutouts against LSU and Ole Miss, SEC West teams then nationally ranked 17th and eighth by the College Football Playoff committee and 20th and eighth by The Associated Press Top 25 poll.
The Arkansas victories were not squeakers but convincers. By 17-0 on a Nov. 15 frigid Fayetteville night over LSU and 30-0 in Saturday afternoon's Fayetteville rain over an Ole Miss team that had inflicted the lone loss on current College Playoff No. 1 and SEC West co-leader Alabama.
Until Ole Miss stemmed the Tide in Oxford, Miss., Arkansas had come the closest to beating Alabama, losing a 14-13 heartbreaker on Oct. 11 in Fayetteville.
And until Alabama prevailed, 25-20 on Nov. 15 in Tuscaloosa, Ala., nobody had come closer to beating the then No. 1 Mississippi State Bulldogs then had Arkansas in a down to the wire 17-10 game on Nov. 1 in Starkville, Miss.
The 17 points were and still are a season-low for Mississippi State as of course are the zero, zip, zilch for LSU and Ole Miss.
The Arkansas defense masterminded by new coordinator Robb Smith, second-year linebackers coach Randy Shannon and new secondary and line coaches Clay Jennings and Rory Segrest has done a remarkable job.
Especially considering the Arkansas defense was deemed pretty porous even as the Hogs went 10-3 and 11-2 big 2010 and 2011 for offensively oriented former Arkansas Coach Bobby Petrino.
Downright dreadful described defense during Arkansas' 4-8 2012 season under John L. Smith and again with Bielema struggling to rebuild in 2013.
It was with ironic bemusement driving home from covering the shutout of Ole Miss to hear talk radio grumbling about Arkansas' offense.
Typically, winning defense is accomplished by a complementing offense and vice-versa.
So it went. Under freezing conditions making ball handling difficult, the Razorbacks never turned it over against LSU.
Under worse ball-handling and passing conditions against SEC defense turnover leader Ole Miss through an incessant 50-degree rain, Arkansas' offense fumbled it away but once, a wet ball center-backup quarterback exchange with the game well in hand.
Arkansas' ball security magnified its defense securing six turnovers, a helping hand-in-hand effort generally required to beat a good team by a bunch.
Sports on 11/24/2014