Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson greenlighted the opening of football training camps with gear this week, ending the speculation on whether there will be a football season this fall. Of course, events could occur to change that momentum but for now, the game is afoot.
The Pea Ridge football Facebook page lists practice times and report dates for the week. Senior high athletes started their fall campaign on Monday with the junior high boys checking in later in the week.
The response to the status of high school football has been varied across the country. Several states will be getting in gear on the dates usually used by neighbors Oklahoma and Missouri to start their season, while there are others who will put off football season until the spring. Illinois, California, New Mexico, Washington, Virginia and New Jersey will have spring football.
Kentucky, Texas, Florida and Georgia have moved to start a month later. Florida faced the specter of a secession with a good many sunshine state schools threatening to leave the state association and form their own independent one in order to have football. Being a good weather state, the delay may cut into basketball but otherwise Florida will likely get in their normal season.
Oregon is out on there on its own with a total prohibition of football until further notice, a notice which hasn't come yet. Local sport writers in that state predict the season will be lost.
It would seem that the other AAA sports will proceed as scheduled but with health and safety rules for those watch or participate.
Razorback football season streamlined
The Southeastern Conference has announced a truncated football season, abandoning the normal eight-game conference schedules in favor of a 10-game conference slate. The four non-conference games have been axed, which will likely result in less SEC teams participating in post season bowl games.
Under the new scheduling, teams have to win five games to qualify for bowl eligibility. Losing those three or four cupcake teams on the schedule, getting to five will be very tough in the deepest football league in America. Most seasons, teams have to win their four non-con games then win two of the eight conference games to go bowling. Winning five games in the SEC will prove daunting for most teams.
The toughest thing will be for the lesser, smaller schools who won't be getting big paydays for playing in the homes of bigger schools. For some of the schools on the SEC non-conference schedules, the money they got paid to appear (sometimes in the millions) was their biggest single revenue inducing activity they have for the year. Pundits refer to those games as "rent-a-wins."
So the smaller schools in the U.S. will have better won-loss records but they will be the poorer for it.
While ever hopeful, I fear Razorback fans will be watching other teams during the bowl season clashes.
Is the NFL fixing to take another hit?
Way back in 2018, the Collin Kapernicke capers led to a lot of football players kneeling during the national anthem to show the world their disrespect to the country they live in. While I continue to believe such behavior isn't warranted, Americans do have the right to express themselves. I'm not sure doing it on someone else's dime is ethical; no players were punished by the NFL.
There was punishment in 2018, however. The fans punished the NFL to the tune of $30 million dollars in lost revenue. After a relatively mild 2019 season, the social justice warriors are back and we will likely see all kinds of anti-American behavior relating to professional football. That may in turn lead to the tuning-out and abandoning of the sport by a good many people.
The NFL is supported by mostly people from the middle class, those who watch their games in person or on TV and those who buy all the paraphernalia. Boycotts are stirring and if enough NFL teams have enough players to dishonor the flag or the country, the losses for 2020 may make 2018 look like chump change.
It seems that every time a business or company injects itself into politics, it usually suffers a significant loss of income. After Nike decided to bankroll Kapernicke and other similar causes, the company has lost nearly a billion dollars in revenue. Dicks Sporting Goods decided to get political and they have lost quite a bit of money losing customers who did not want to listen to political propaganda.
It looks like those who deign to watch NFL football this fall will be treated to visions of players disrespecting the flag that a lot of viewers see as sacred. Half empty stadiums, team gear gathering dust on the shelf, with ad revenue drying up may light a fire on the owners to get back on the side of the fans.
That won't be Denver's plight it would seem. Franchise manager and former All-Pro John Elway announced that the Broncos will not kneel during the anthem, with anyone doing so given his walking papers.
Say it ain't, Joe!
With the NBA's draft looming, Razorback basketball fans were fervently hoping that junior-to-be Isaiah Joe would not be listed among those accepting professional contracts.
Joe's first two seasons with the Razorbacks have made him a crowd favorite. His first season saw him carry the load for an under-talented team and last year saw him become a complete player under a new head coach.
Last season's campaign for the new Razorback basketball coach was an unqualified success. A former NBA coach with Golden State, Eric Mussellman took a smallish sized team with depth problems, then ran out to a 20-12 record before the season was brought to a close.
Mussellman's best player was Joe, a sophomore shooting sensation who thought long and hard about joining the NBA this season but decided over the weekend that he wanted one more season with the Hogs. Joe set a school and SEC freshman record by making 113 three-pointers in his first season. In his two years on the Hill, Joe made 3.45 treys per game, the third best ever by a SEC player. Good from the line, too, Joe made his last 34 free throws in a row to finish his SEC shooting average at 96%.
Other big news was the addition of coach David Patrick to Mussellman's staff. Patrick was the former head coach at the University of California at Riverside where he was nominated twice for national coaching awards.
The years 2020-2021 may be the best for the Hogs in a long time.
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Editor's note: John McGee, an award-winning columnist, sports writer and art teacher at Pea Ridge elementary schools, writes a regular sports column for The Times. The opinions expressed are those of the writer. He can be contacted through The Times at [email protected].