'Bout Time

How long have we had to suffer the Adidas sponsorship at the UofA? No team wants to wear Adidas apparel or gear (especially basketball; who's heard of Adidas basketball shoes?) unless they're a bunch of soccer fairies. Today, it was announced that Nike will take all apparel an footwear contracts for all the 19 Razorback teams on July 10, 2010. Granted, I think the Auburn football Under Armor contract is awesome, but the Nike contract will be way sweet. Bobby Petrino is huge on the team looking stylish in their uniforms; while discussing how important this is, he mentioned that his son thinks Cincinnati will continue to get good players even though their coach left because, "Their uniforms look tight." You can rest assured that from now on, our uniforms will look "tight."
This weekend the Hogs more than took care of business. In the second half, we controlled the game, but I really think this game was won in a few places.

1. The 7 snaps within the Arkansas ten yard line which led to 2 USC timeouts and only 3 Cock points. Amazing defensive stand, in my opinion. Lorenzo Ward, a former Arkansas defensive coach now SC Defensive Coordinator, knew a lot of our goal line sets. Knowing this, Willy Robinson changed all of our goal line sets this week just in case we got in that situation. Major props to Willy.
   
2. Ryan Mallett's arm is made of gold. I hope he has that thing insured. I said that RM v. the SC secondary was a major match-up to watch, and RM pulled down a huge victory. 23-27 and 329 yards is incredibly impressive against the SEC's best secondary. The only surprising thing here is that he didn't throw for any TD's. Oh well, it was good to get Broderick Green running like a man near the goal line.
   
3. Turnovers and penalties. We went into this game with a +8 turnover margin and left with a +9. That's good enough for top couple in the SEC and up there in the nation. The only turnover in the game was a pick in our end zone by Jerrel Norton, and proved to be the difference in the game. We were also only penalized once in the game for 5 yards. If you don't turn the ball over and don't get penalized, you're not guaranteed a win, but it makes things SO much easier. Well done, Bobby and staff. We need to hope this continues into next season after our early season penalty debacles.
   

This weekend we get the Trojans of Troy in Fayetteville; maybe if DMac would have been more familiar with the Trojans, he wouldn't be pouring out those child support checks. This shouldn't be a good game, but has a couple good story lines. First, before the season, Troy's coach (don't care to learn his name) claimed they would upset Arkansas this year. He's now retracted that claim. Big surprise. Second, Troy plays in the Sun Belt Conference, the same one as Arkansas State. For some unknown reason, A State fans continue to hold on to the belief that if they played the Razorbacks, they would undoubtedly win. This is horsefeathers; Troy beat stAte already this year, and we'll throttle Troy. I can't wait to tell my old co-worker (stAte 3 year letterman) that he's on crystal meth like Agassi.