To say that 2020 has been a, say, strange year like no other, would be a vast understatement.
Shut downs, closings, cancellations, fear, anxiety, concern, and just the feeling of unsettledness has permeated just about every facet of life in these United States.
The pandemic ended the state basketball tournaments just a game shy of determining the various state champions last winter. Spring sports were wiped out, with all those senior tracksters, and baseball/softball players seeing their careers abruptly brought to an early end. The long awaited and anticipated graduation ceremonies evaporated like early morning dew in the summer.
This fall saw schools back in operation but hardly regular with all the rules and policies mandated by the government. The past football season saw quite a few teams, Pea Ridge included, have to skip a lot of games due to quarantines placed on them or their opponents, Bentonville West, a perennial playoff contender since their second year of existence had to forfeit their first playoff game due to quarantine.
Two of the more successful large school teams over the past 12 years have been Fayetteville and Bentonville. Until 2017, the two schools won nine of the 10 7A titles beginning from 2008. They were supposed to have good shots at going deep again this year, but a funny thing happened to both teams in their first action in this years playoffs.
Fayetteville was battling a tough foe in Little Rock Central, having just a 1 point lead late into the game -- late into the game as in the last four seconds. They were facing a fourth down, but all they had to do was run out four seconds till the buzzer then take a knee, game over, Bulldogs win. Inexplicably, the Fayetteville quarterback took the snap, backed up a bit then downed the ball with 2 seconds left. As it was fourth down, the ball was turned over to Central, which then booted a short field goal as time expired to win the game. On fourth downs, the clock stops to allow the chain crews the time to reset, also allowing Cabot to reset.
Bentonville was playing a pretty good Cabot team with the Little Rock area team unexpectedly leading the favored Tigers 38-34 late in the game. Bentonville led by a lot early and Cabot overcame a 34-31 deficit late in the fourth quarter. The Tigers came right back, marching down the field to inside the 5-yard line as the clock wound down. It looked like the Tigers would score and head into the next round, that is, until the Bentonville running back fumbled on the 2 and Cabot recovered, winning the game in the process.
Things happen in high school football.
Razorbacks get hosed again
Its not that it is unusual for the Hogs to have a losing football record. Since the scandalous departure of Bobby Petrino, the Razorbacks have not had much to cheer about. Playing in the toughest collegiate football league in the country, the Hogs weren't exactly bad but winning SEC games were scarce especially since 2017.
Coach Pittman comes back to Arkansas to take the head job and he has done a bang up good job to get the Hogs back in contention for bowl games and ranking possibilities. However, the Hogs have had to contend with really bad officiating by SEC field referees.
Arkansas had a victory taken from them at Auburn by a terrible officiating call that everyone who viewed the replay recognized was a game breaker. A backwards toss was ruled an incomplete pass rather than a fumble and when pressed on the incomplete pass call, the refs ruled the Hogs didn't recover fast enough.
Fast forward to last week, and once again the Hogs were victims to unbelievably poor officiating on two occasions. The first bad call was a fumble that LSU lost deep in their territory that the Hogs covered. The officials ruled the Hogs didn't recover it clearly enough, so no fumble. Kind of like the fumble recovery they got against Auburn that was disallowed because it wasn't done quickly enough.
But that wasn't the worst call. Arkansas had the lead late against LSU with the ball near midfield. An Arkansas player gets to a LSU receiver who was slipping down after a catch, with the Razorback player jumping over the falling player, bumping hips in the process. The referee threw a flag for targeting (usually using the helmet to try and spear a player) though the Hogs' helmet was nowhere near the Tiger. The big penalty and new set of downs were instrumental in helping LSU go in for the winning score.
Broadcasters and onlookers everywhere were appalled by the one-sided terrible officiating. Because it was a targeting penalty, the Razorback player will have to sit out the Missouri game this week. Coach Pittman will be taking the video to the SEC and demanding a recension and I think he will get it.
So instead of being 5-3 this week, the University of Arkansas is 3-5. The game with Missouri is winnable which could take their record to 4-5 but to get to 5-5 and qualify for a bowl game, they will have to beat the University of Alabama. Not impossible but a very tall order.
NFL still in slide
Though the disrespecting and the virtue signaling have died down to some degree, the NFL is still taking a financial beating from fans abandoning what was once their favorite pastime. When owners decided to make politics the reason they open their doors, fans responded by a resounding "no thanks."
A longtime Kansas City Chiefs fan myself, I haven't watched any NFL teams play since all this hoorah started with a disgruntled bench warmer in San Francisco. To their credit, nearly all the Chiefs (save one) remain respectful to their fans and their country and I am rooting for them to win again this year.
I look forward to a time when athletes use their time in the limelight to accomplish what they are paid to do, using their own time to espouse political philosophies.
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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].