2011 Arkansas football: Looking ahead

Hard to believe, but NCAA college football spring practice period is already upon us. The Arkansas Razorbacks will begin their spring practices on March 15th, and they'll wrap up with their Red & White game scrimmage on April 16th.

So it is worth making a few notes as we look ahead to the fall season...

Extending Expectations: Last year Hogs fans were excited heading into the fall 2010 season because we had a QB with a cannon for a right arm and a cupboard full of talented receivers. This year, we'll go into the fall 2011 season featuring a QB with a cannon for a right arm who also happens to be mobile, along with a cupboard full of talented receivers. Oh yeah, we've also now got an established tailback who recently ran a 4.29 in the 40-yard dash and managed to benchpress 415 lbs -- and who also would have led the SEC in rushing last year if it weren't for some player from Auburn named Cam Newton. And the defense is a lot better. So yeah, you could say that Hog Nation is excited about this fall.

Razorback Football Live on TV ... in April: The best news about the Hogs' spring practices? The intrasquad Red & White Game on April 16th will be shown live by ESPN. So tune in and watch the red team vs. the white team. I guarantee an Arkansas victory.

Schedule Nailed Down: The Hogs' 2011 schedule has been finalized, and you can access it here.

The Low-down on the SEC's best players: ESPN's Chris Low has been counting down his list of the 25 best players in the SEC from last season. He's into the top 10 now, and so far two Razorbacks have made his list: TE D.J. Williams comes in at #17, and RB Knile Davis registers at #10. (Click on the links to read Low's take on each player.) You've got to figure that Ryan Mallett is yet to come in Low's list, which was only down to the #8 player as of this posting.

I'm a little disappointed that Low has included anyone from the Hogs' stellar wide receiving corps, but I think there's probably a reason for that. Get this: No Razorback receiver had a 1000-yard season last year, but five of them caught for more than 600 yards (including TE Williams). That's pretty remarkable, and it shows how well QB Ryan Mallett spread the ball around last season. The Hogs featured Joe Adams, Jarius Wright, Cobi Hamilton, and Greg Childs at wideout last year, and any single one of those guys could have easily been a 1000-yard receiver if he had been the featured receiver on a team less stocked with talent at the position. In fact, if Childs had not gone down with a season-ending injury with several games still left to play, he might have managed 1000 yards even while sharing catches with his teammates.

The good news is that every one of the four WRs will be back this fall, and they've got a great QB to throw the ball to them in Tyler Wilson. My guess is that, a year from now, Chris Low's 25 best player list will include more than one of them ... and maybe all four!

The Way Too Early Prediction for 2011: It's a little silly to do this in the middle of March, but what the heck. I'll make a stab at calling the final record for the 2011 regular season.

My prediction: 11 wins, 1 loss.

Okay, so I know it's bold. But just look at how the schedule stacks up. It's entirely possible, if our guys stay healthy. Eleven wins will almost certainly get the Razorbacks back to a BCS bowl. Whether it would get them into the SEC Championship Game is another story. Here's my justification:

On the plus side ...

-- The Hogs get to play a Cam Newton-less Auburn at home;

-- Arkansas gets to trade Georgia off the schedule in favor of Tennessee, and the Vols have to travel to Fayetteville in a year before Derek Dooley is likely to have them back as a winning program;

-- The teams most 'on the rise' in the conference are Mississippi State and South Carolina. And fortunately for the Hogs, both have to travel to Arkansas this year;

-- Two of the Razorbacks' conference road games are Vanderbilt and Ole Miss. Hopefully that explains itself.

On the minus side ...

-- Arkansas plays Alabama in Tuscaloosa next year. Yes, Tuscaloosa, the place where you are always forced to play against an opposing team of 18 players - the 11 who are wearing the Crimson Tide's uniform, plus the 7 referees wearing striped shirts who are blatantly biased toward Bama. I'm convinced that there are four places in the SEC that are head-and-shoulders above all other stadiums in terms of how difficult it is for an away team to get a win: the Swamp, Neyland Stadium, Death Valley, and Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa. The first three are tough because of the crowd environment, the team's historical reputation, and the way the home team just seems to feed off of both those things every time out on the field. Bryant-Denny is tough because the refs do everything they can to make sure Alabama wins. You can point to individual instances of that happening in games at other places over the past few years, but it never happens as consistently as it does at Alabama.

-- The Hogs have to go to Baton Rouge to play LSU at the end of the season. Someone once told me that when LSU fans have a little too much fun before the game, they are prone to throw batteries at the visiting team's fans. Batteries. Now if that's how tough it is to watch a game in Death Valley for the away team, just imagine how tough it is on the field. Anyway, I figure we can win either the LSU or the Bama game next year, but probably not both.

On the iffy side ...

-- I never know how to feel about the Texas A&M game, which has become an annual matchup played in Dallas. Historically, Arkansas dominates the rivalry series going back to Southwest Conference days. And we've won the last two since the series was revived in 2009. But I just don't know A&M as well as I know our SEC foes, because they play in the Big XII. And they looked a lot better this past year than the year before. One of these times, they're going to beat us. I just hope it's not this year.

Okay, so that's all the news that's fit to print. Go Hogs!