Pressbox Roundtable: Is Arkansas' Offense To Blame? Will Red Wolves Compete In Sun Belt? Head Coach Possibilities And More With College Football Talk's Ben Kercheval

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Pressbox Roundtable: Is Arkansas' Offense To Blame? Will Red Wolves Compete In Sun Belt? Head Coach Possibilities And More With College Football Talk's Ben Kercheval

by Jim Harris on Tuesday, Sep. 25, 2012 3:40 pm

Should Arkansas' offense and OC Paul Petrino be getting more heat for the 1-3 start? (Photo by Mark Wagner)

This story is from the archives of ArkansasSports360.com.

It's already Week 5 for the Pressbox Roundtable, and this week we welcome Ben Kercheval of NBC College Football Talk as our national guest to the sit-around sports chat of usual suspects: KTHV, Channel 11, sports anchor Mark Edwards (Twitter: @markedwards1906), ArkansasExpats.com editor and regular ArkansasSports360.com contributor Doc Harper, and KABZ-FM 103.7 The Buzz' Justin Acri. ArkansasSports360.com editor Chris Bahn pops in for the chat this week too.

Follow Ben on Twitter @CFTBenKercheval, and his most recent CFT blog post is on Florida State head coach Jimbo Fisher. Also you can catch Mark Edwards and Justin Acri interviewing the ArkansasSports360.com team throughout the week this season.

Readers, join with the panel. Let us know what you think in the comments section at the bottom of the feature. There are tons of topics to hit, so let’s get started:

Jim Harris: Tyler Wilson returned for Arkansas’ offense against Rutgers, but the Razorbacks still found ways to lose. How do they get this turned around? Can they get this turned around?

Ben Kercheval: Absolutely this team can turn things around, but Arkansas gets this ship righted when someone other than Tyler Wilson gets fed up with being knocked around. That’s been the most surprising thing to me watching this three-game slide. So you lost to Alabama? Well, the Tide is one heck of a football team and I’m not convinced Arkansas would have won with Wilson in the lineup (or, maybe with Bobby Petrino on the sidelines). But Florida Atlantic scored a touchdown on Alabama, and you mean to tell me you can’t even get one on the board?

Harris: Seems kind of ridiculous that two Sun Belt teams played Alabama much better than Arkansas could, even without Wilson.

Kercheval: And then this team loses to Rutgers? The Scarlet Knights are a good team, but that was an opportunity to stop the bleeding against a beatable opponent.

Doc Harper: Like the last few years, they need to hope the running game gets going at some point. The defense obviously needs to improve too, but the Hogs still should have been able to outscore Rutgers.

Justin Acri: It is what it is and I don’t expect to see much improvement through the year. Arkansas can outscore some teams and will win those games. When they play teams that struggle on offense, I imagine the Hogs will have a good shot in those games.

Kercheval: The question for me is who steps up? John L. Smith doesn’t look like he’s doing it; it looks he’s actually playing the role of figurehead. He might have a 10-month contract, but that’s his team for 10 months. Make things uncomfortable for the players.

Harris: That’s why the players wanted him back, because he wouldn’t make it uncomfortable for them, unlike Bobby P.

Kercheval: How about someone along the offensive line? Protect your quarterback, man. Or, maybe someone in the secondary, which is getting carved up. All of this doesn’t mean it’s the biggest collapse we’ve seen in college football, but it does bring to mind what happened to Texas in 2010. Coming off a big year with high expectations, the team folded under adversity. This Arkansas group is more talented, but there was no direction from the Longhorns that year either, from the coaching staff or the players.