The 1992 SEC expansion was genius. It gave the SEC flagships in two new states, and gave them teams that had sizable fan bases but were not a threat to win the football championship on a yearly basis. Arkansas and South Carolina did not pose a threat to the powers in the conference. Most importantly, it allowed them to split into divisions to stage a football championship game. This was a game changer in both revenue and competition.

Arkansas' slide into football irrelevance coincided with their move to the SEC. Instead of competing for conference championships in the SWC, they were relegated to second-division status with an occasional run at a championship in the SEC. They did whiff on some coaching hires, but it also became harder for them to hire a quality coach.

Arkansas lost their recruiting base in Texas until it was too late. They've had home-and-homes with UT, Tech, and TCU, and now play A&M every year, but it's not the same as their former multiple yearly appearances in Texas.

The ironic thing is: If Arkansas could have held out for another 4 years or so, they could have been a founding member of the Big 12 in 1996. They would have taken the 11th spot (in addition to former Big 8, UT, and A&M), leaving Tech and Baylor to battle it out for the 12th spot. My guess is that Tech would have been included due to their status as a public university. Baylor would have been left out. This also has implications for the later disintegration of B12 1.0. Does Arkansas leave with A&M and Mizzou? Or, do they stay? And, if they stay, do they keep A&M and/or Mizzou from leaving? (IMO, A&M leaves regardless. They wanted to be in the SEC all along)

Of course, based on the information Broyles and the university was working with in 1991, they felt that they needed to exit the SWC ASAP.

(09-21-2019 11:56 AM)esayem Wrote:  

(09-20-2019 04:47 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  Well, Arkansas won their hoops national title while in the SEC.

That’s what I was going to point out, although I don’t think it had to do with the SEC. There were few decent teams in the conference at that time like Kentucky, Vandy (flash in the pan in the early 90’s), LSU (Shaq), and Florida (had a deep run). Overall the Hogs blew that conference open mainly due to Richardson peaking as a coach, not because it was prestigious. It’s never been the premier basketball league of the south.

I agree with all that. But it has also always been a good hoops league too.

On the other hand, is Duke and Carolina success due to the ACC? I suspect they could join other leagues and do as well.

(09-21-2019 01:34 PM)johnintx Wrote:  The 1992 SEC expansion was genius. It gave the SEC flagships in two new states, and gave them teams that had sizable fan bases but were not a threat to win the football championship on a yearly basis. Arkansas and South Carolina did not pose a threat to the powers in the conference. Most importantly, it allowed them to split into divisions to stage a football championship game. This was a game changer in both revenue and competition.

Arkansas' slide into football irrelevance coincided with their move to the SEC. Instead of competing for conference championships in the SWC, they were relegated to second-division status with an occasional run at a championship in the SEC. They did whiff on some coaching hires, but it also became harder for them to hire a quality coach.

Arkansas lost their recruiting base in Texas until it was too late. They've had home-and-homes with UT, Tech, and TCU, and now play A&M every year, but it's not the same as their former multiple yearly appearances in Texas.

The ironic thing is: If Arkansas could have held out for another 4 years or so, they could have been a founding member of the Big 12 in 1996. They would have taken the 11th spot (in addition to former Big 8, UT, and A&M), leaving Tech and Baylor to battle it out for the 12th spot. My guess is that Tech would have been included due to their status as a public university. Baylor would have been left out. This also has implications for the later disintegration of B12 1.0. Does Arkansas leave with A&M and Mizzou? Or, do they stay? And, if they stay, do they keep A&M and/or Mizzou from leaving? (IMO, A&M leaves regardless. They wanted to be in the SEC all along)

Of course, based on the information Broyles and the university was working with in 1991, they felt that they needed to exit the SWC ASAP.

Arkansas has had some good teams in the SEC. A call here and bounce there in a few games changes history. They've underachieved some but it was a great move from both the perspective of money and prestige. Just because they haven't doesn't mean they can't or couldn't have. It's hardly impossible to believe Arkansas can go on a run like Alabama is on (yes, a great coach is that important).

Arkansas just lost (31-24) at home to San Jose State.
Western Kentucky is on the schedule in November, so that’s probably (?) win #3. But every other game looks very bleak right now.

Maybe the Hogs can get their money back if they come out to the Bay Area. SJSU would be happy to host them

Thank you Arkansas for the $2,000,000 you paid us for Chad.

(09-21-2019 01:34 PM)johnintx Wrote:  The 1992 SEC expansion was genius. It gave the SEC flagships in two new states, and gave them teams that had sizable fan bases but were not a threat to win the football championship on a yearly basis. Arkansas and South Carolina did not pose a threat to the powers in the conference. Most importantly, it allowed them to split into divisions to stage a football championship game. This was a game changer in both revenue and competition.

Yep, pure genius when Texas, TAMU, FSU, and Miami all said no.

Expanding to 12 was smart at the time, but let’s not pretend they hit a home run with their top candidates (FSU and Texas).

Arkansas fits the SEC culture to a T. Sure they had a long association with the Texas powers but they aren't in Texas. Because of that factor, it was gonna take them awhile to assimilate into SEC culture but they're there now. None of the Texas schools except A&M are in as rural a setting as them. Plenty SEC schools are.

(09-22-2019 07:12 AM)esayem Wrote:  

(09-21-2019 01:34 PM)johnintx Wrote:  The 1992 SEC expansion was genius. It gave the SEC flagships in two new states, and gave them teams that had sizable fan bases but were not a threat to win the football championship on a yearly basis. Arkansas and South Carolina did not pose a threat to the powers in the conference. Most importantly, it allowed them to split into divisions to stage a football championship game. This was a game changer in both revenue and competition.

Yep, pure genius when Texas, TAMU, FSU, and Miami all said no.

Expanding to 12 was smart at the time, but let’s not pretend they hit a home run with their top candidates (FSU and Texas).

Did it matter? South Carolina and Arkansas became bridging states for future potential moves. Arkansas paid dividends in landing A&M. South Carolina is still a wait and see.

And the last time I checked the SEC is still solidly in the lead in total revenue production, still has more championships in the last 20 years in football than anyone else, and by most metrics is the #1 conference while the ACC has slipped into a tilt with the PAC to see who is last every year.

So let's not pretend that anyone else hit a home run.


As to Arkansas, they haven't had a decent coach since Houston Nutt was there. Their in state talent is not immense. And Fayetteville is not a destination that gets recruits jazzed up. But, their country boys sure as hell can play some baseball! And for whatever reason they produce national titles regularly in Track and Field.

(09-20-2019 09:40 AM)Big Ron Buckeye Wrote:  I'm feeling like a ramble so here it goes... Not trying to throw shade but when was the last time Arkansas was truly relevant on a national level. I'm thinking the McFadden years and the wildcat formation popularized by those Arkansas teams but in neither Basketball nor football have the Hogs been as relevant as they were in the SWC.
I could say "40 minutes of hell" and if you are of a certain age or an extremely well-informed basketball fan and you will immediately think about the early 90s teams of Nolan Richardson. For those that don't know he blew up at a presser one day and offended basically everybody in Arkansas so he had to go, but what has Arkansas done since he left in hoops?
Football has never been able to recover from the loss of playing in Texas every other week and frankly having weaker competition. The SWC was primarily Texas, Texas A&M, and Arkansas with occasional smatterings of competence from SMU or Houston or whomever but it wasn't the SEC week in and week out.
In the SWC, Arkansas was one of the Big Dogs, in the SEC they are most decidedly NOT. Even in their own division I would rank them 5, 6, or 7 in their division most years along with the Mississippi schools.
In the final analysis, Arkansas did the right thing for their budget but I still think, and believe most of their fans think that after the breakup of the SWC Arkansas has become a much wealthier but far less competitive shadow of it's former self.

It was the Big 10 that was Ohio St., Michigan and the 8 drawves in the 70s and 80s when the SWC was strong. The SWC weakened in the 90s and that was when Arkansas declined. And the spiral deepened when they joined the SEC.

(09-21-2019 11:37 PM)Pony94 Wrote:  Thank you Arkansas for the $2,000,000 you paid us for Chad.

...and the 1.5 million they paid the Spartans to come out to Fayetteville and beat the Hogs. The ADs in San Jose and University Park are likely giddy with laughter.

The things with Arkansas that gets into another part of conference realignment that isn't always considered, is that their role changed. They were the flagship for a state in a 2 state conference in the southwest. They may not have been in Texas, but they didn't feel like an outlier far from everyone else either. In the SEC, for the most part, they were the western edge until recently. They were SEC, but if you had a great desire to play SEC football, you were generally going to be drawn more to the core of the conference.

We've seen that with other programs too to different levels. Missouri was in about the heart of the Big 12, but is now a bit of the far frontier of the SEC. It means they travel further for basketball and don't attract quite as much of the attention in conference that they did in the Big 12. That doesn't mean the move wasn't smart, but it was a cost of moving.

Even Penn State really experienced this change. They were the "Beast of the East," the big name of east coast schools that everyone on their schedule both loved and feared playing. Moving to the Big Ten, they certainly got attention because of how good they were. It was a different kind of attention though. They were also the far east member in a proudly Midwestern conference. All else being equal, most the conference was going to focus more on the older rivalries. Penn State was thought of as great, but rarely given the attention of an Ohio State or Michigan at the same level because of this mindset. Adding Maryland and Rutgers was really, in large part, an effort to change this inbalance. It gave the Big Ten a solid base of schools in a region, rather than making it feel like Penn State was just a strong outpost in the east. It also added schools who would first use Penn State as their measuring stick and one their fans would have most reason to naturally want to beat.

(09-22-2019 05:58 PM)Bronco85 Wrote:  

(09-21-2019 11:37 PM)Pony94 Wrote:  Thank you Arkansas for the $2,000,000 you paid us for Chad.

...and the 1.5 million they paid the Spartans to come out to Fayetteville and beat the Hogs. The ADs in San Jose and University Park are likely giddy with laughter.

I know I would be, if I were in their place!

The great Frank Broyles (1924-2017), who was Arkansas’ Head Coach from 1958-76 and Director of Athletics for long after that, went to Decatur High School which is about 1 mile or so from my house. I see his picture when I am on campus for different public events. I know he must have been very saddened to see Arkansas football go down the tubes after joining the SEC.

(09-22-2019 11:45 PM)Native Georgian Wrote:  

(09-22-2019 05:58 PM)Bronco85 Wrote:  

(09-21-2019 11:37 PM)Pony94 Wrote:  Thank you Arkansas for the $2,000,000 you paid us for Chad.

...and the 1.5 million they paid the Spartans to come out to Fayetteville and beat the Hogs. The ADs in San Jose and University Park are likely giddy with laughter.

I know I would be, if I were in their place!

The great Frank Broyles (1924-2017), who was Arkansas’ Head Coach from 1958-76 and Director of Athletics for long after that, went to Decatur High School which is about 1 mile or so from my house. I see his picture when I am on campus for different public events. I know he must have been very saddened to see Arkansas football go down the tubes after joining the SEC.

It was Broyles's decision. But unlike some of the revisionist posts here he was fairly convinced at the time that even if Texas merged with the Big 8 that Arkansas was going to be left out. It is why he was convinced his avenue for departure was the SEC.

Now that A&M and Missouri are here, should Texas and Oklahoma or Kansas eventually follow it would place Arkansas in a much more central location in the Western Division and that I believe would help their current situation with regards to recruiting Texas again.

But the real issue for Arkansas has been a string of lousy hires since Houston Nutt.

(09-21-2019 11:24 PM)Native Georgian Wrote:  Arkansas just lost (31-24) at home to San Jose State.
Western Kentucky is on the schedule in November, so that’s probably (?) win #3. But every other game looks very bleak right now.

Can we get another home-home scheduled? RU needs a winnable P5 OOC as bad as Arky does...

(09-22-2019 03:33 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(09-20-2019 09:40 AM)Big Ron Buckeye Wrote:  I'm feeling like a ramble so here it goes... Not trying to throw shade but when was the last time Arkansas was truly relevant on a national level. I'm thinking the McFadden years and the wildcat formation popularized by those Arkansas teams but in neither Basketball nor football have the Hogs been as relevant as they were in the SWC.
I could say "40 minutes of hell" and if you are of a certain age or an extremely well-informed basketball fan and you will immediately think about the early 90s teams of Nolan Richardson. For those that don't know he blew up at a presser one day and offended basically everybody in Arkansas so he had to go, but what has Arkansas done since he left in hoops?
Football has never been able to recover from the loss of playing in Texas every other week and frankly having weaker competition. The SWC was primarily Texas, Texas A&M, and Arkansas with occasional smatterings of competence from SMU or Houston or whomever but it wasn't the SEC week in and week out.
In the SWC, Arkansas was one of the Big Dogs, in the SEC they are most decidedly NOT. Even in their own division I would rank them 5, 6, or 7 in their division most years along with the Mississippi schools.
In the final analysis, Arkansas did the right thing for their budget but I still think, and believe most of their fans think that after the breakup of the SWC Arkansas has become a much wealthier but far less competitive shadow of it's former self.

It was the Big 10 that was Ohio St., Michigan and the 8 drawves in the 70s and 80s when the SWC was strong. The SWC weakened in the 90s and that was when Arkansas declined. And the spiral deepened when they joined the SEC.

Arkansas to SEC was announced the move to SEC less than a month prior to the start of the 1990 season. They played football in 1990 and 1991 in SWC joining SEC for the 1992 season.

Hogs finished second or tied for second in the SWC in 1985, 1986, 1987 and then won the league in 1988 and 1989.

Rumors had swirled that Frank Broyles was going to retire as AD. Broyles had been second guessing Hatfield's coaching most famously being seen yelling "Where were your safeties" on the field after a last minute loss to Texas. It was announced that Broyles had signed a lengthy extension with a nice raise and Hatfield called Clemson about their vacancy in and in short order was the new coach.

Broyles hired Crowe and fired him after 23 games, terminating him after the first game of the 1992 season. Joe Kines did the interim gig and then they hired Danny Ford.

Some of the UArk problems had nothing to do with changing leagues.

When it comes to recruiting TX, let's not forget that Bret Bielema alienated a lot of high school coaches in that state. Bielema was not a bad coach, but his inadequacy set the program back.

The Petrino teams were pretty good...his teams going to major bowls. His firing was purely a matter of misconduct.

Right now, it looks like the Chad Morris hire was a mistake, but Arkansas really isn't worse off than Tennessee. The Vols had a long history of winning and were competing for national titles as recently as the early 2000s. A string of poor decisions and bad leadership has put both schools in a tailspin.

In other words, their conference membership had nothing to do with it.

Another example, Alabama had a horrible decade between 1997 and 2006 that was purely the fruit of poor leadership and mismanagement. The right people took the reins and we pulled ourselves out. Being in the SEC wasn't a detractor. Being in the SEC helps because if you're in a tailspin then a weaker association will make it that much harder to bounce back.