Jim's Notebook: Nobody Should Have Expected 2009 To Be Special for Hogs

MURDERERS' ROW: Until Arkansas athletic director Jeff Long begged his Texas counterpart, Deloss Dodds, the summer before last to move the second game of the two-game Razorback-Longhorn series to 2014, this is how Arkansas's first nine games would have looked in 2009: Missouri State, Texas, Georgia, Alabama, Texas A&M, Auburn, Florida, Ole Miss, South Carolina.

Now, try to think back to 2007 with Houston Nutt at Arkansas, and knowing that schedule was coming, where the talent level was, and try to recall what you were expecting for 2009.

The reality as October arrives in 2009 and the Hogs are 1-2 with losses to Georgia and Alabama is that Texas isn't there on the schedule, but the others are. And a new coach who replaced Nutt after 2007 has had two recruiting classes to deal with it. His players are sophomores and freshmen and less than a handful junior college transfers and what was left from Nutt's 2006 and '07 classes with all that controversy and drama swirling, plus a '05 redshirt or two.

Maybe that view will help everyone be a little more patient.

MUST GAME?: After a Georgia game that could have gone either way and an Alabama game that went pretty much as expected for Arkansas (except in some views, including Bobby Petrino's, that maybe the Hogs didn't play as well as they could and still would have lost), the Texas A&M game on Saturday night has taken on even more significance. It's not just Arkansas' first of 10 forays over the next decade into Jerry Jones' place in Arlington, Texas. It's being deemed a must win by the media regularly covering the Hogs, even by our own Fayetteville man, Chris Bahn.

Isn't that a slight stretch? Does it totally throw Arkansas into a death-spiral for 2009? 

Sure, Auburn arrives the next week in Fayetteville. Maybe the Tigers are for real, having found out how the operate a successful spread by running instead of putting everything on quarterback Chris Todd's shoulders. And the Tigers have even found a way to make Kodi Burns effective at both receiver and "wildcat" quarterback, instead of trying to make him an all-the-time passer, as was the case for the departed Tommy Tuberville and last year's coordinator for les than half a season, Tony Franklin. 

And, yes, Florida awaits in Gainesville the week after, followed by Ole Miss in Oxford.

Auburn's not unbeatable, and while Ole Miss has a tough front seven defensively, its secondary may not measure up to Georgia's confused bunch. Only Florida, even if Tim Tebow is still groggy from his concussion in Lexington last Saturday, is head-and-shoulders better at almost every position than are the Hogs.

Arkansas has perhaps one offensive and one defensive lineman who could start for the SEC's regular big five of Florida, Georgia, Alabama, LSU and Tennessee. If you want to start figuring how Arkansas matches up with SEC foes, start looking at the lines, then the QB. Forget worrying about the Hogs' suffering secondary; those problems are magnified by the Razorbacks' lack of production in the defensive front, the lack of pressure, sacks and hurries the frontline can cause.

Outside of Florida and not again until LSU, the talent discrepancy is not so wide and even favors the Hogs in several instances.