Like it is: Let's give Razorbacks time to create a champion

WALLY HALL
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

Call it B.A.
Before Alabama.
That was when realistic fans were hoping to split the home games between the Crimson Tide and the Georgia Bulldogs.
When a bowl game, any bowl game, would have been considered a good ending to a successful season.
Before Alabama was when everyone still realized this was a rebuilding season. That the Hogs were replacing 14 senior starters.
Count them: Anthony Lucas, Bobby Williams, Joe Dean Davenport, Emanuel Smith, Chrys Chukwuma, Nathan Norman and Marvin Caston (co-starters), Clint Stoerner, D.J. Cooper, Jamel Harris, Jeromy Flowers, Ontraia Moss, David Barrett and Kenoy Kennedy.
Last Saturday against Georgia, the Razorbacks started four seniors, eight juniors, six sophomores and four freshmen.
You probably could have shaved the entire starting lineup with one disposable razor.
But you would have needed a wing of a hospital to treat all the aches and pains.
Before Alabama, the Razorbacks had injuries, but then Georgia happened and they have become the walking wounded.
It has almost been like the last guy standing needed to turn out the lights in the training room each evening.
After two years of the Razorbacks being almost injury free, Dean Weber and staff have faced double-time duty. They have used more ice than the RiverBlades.
The injury list almost needed a two-deep chart by the middle of this week.
Now, it is almost as if some fans have written off the season after a loss to a team that featured the two best defensive tackles the Hogs will face all season.
The truth is, this was and is a rebuilding season.
It is just that many of the fair-weather fans can't seem to tolerate anything but victory. They have become so spoiled by Houston Nutt's successes they don't want to accept reality.
Maybe those good old days of 4-7 have been forgotten too soon.
Maybe going to the Citrus Bowl his first year was a mistake by Nutt. Or the Cotton Bowl his second year.
Perhaps the 8-0 start two years ago and beating Tennessee and Texas last season left too many unrealistic expectations for some fans.
Granted, you will never hear Nutt be anything but optimistic about every player and every season.
That's part of the personality that has helped him begin -- yes, begin -- to build a talent base that is truly SEC caliber.
It takes at least four years to achieve something like that and Nutt and his staff have really had only two recruiting classes. That first one was thrown together in a hurry and some players were taken that couldn't, didn't, have an impact.
Nutt is 56-30 as a head coach, and every single program he has taken over was losing when he got there.
Well, the last recruiting class may end up proving to be the best in the history of the school, and the second-best may have been the one before that.
Steve Spurrier is one of the most feared coaches in the country, but the Florida coach didn't get a national championship until his seventh season with the Gators.
It took Tennessee's Phil Fulmer until his sixth season as head coach to win the national championship.
Basically, it takes time.
What Nutt has done since becoming the head coach is reunite the Razorbacks fans all over the state.
Win games that were considered unwinnable.
Give hope to Hogs fans.
Put Razorbacks uniforms on guys whom other coaches would have considered a waste of time to recruit because they were headed to more successful programs.
When the Razorbacks race through the "A" the band forms Saturday night, they will do so with renewed energy and focus.
As much as the fans may have disliked the results last Saturday, no one hated it more than the team as a whole.
This is a young team that was improving each week until last week, when they tripped and busted their behinds.
The important thing is they won't stay down.
Nutt won't let them.
Before Alabama this was a rebuilding season, and after Georgia it still is.

This article was published on Friday, October 6, 2000

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