For those of you who didn’t catch the 2 hours of joy that was last night’s showdown between college basketball behemoths Arkansas (13-6, 3-3) and Auburn (7-13, 0-6), here, is a game story from Dudley Dawson and the good folks at Hawgs Illustrated.

Click the Fayetteville Autopark banner add atop the article to thank them for advertising, and thus, temporarily taking down a pay wall. And, be thankful that you didn’t actually WATCH  the game, otherwise you would want to go to the Fayetteville Autopark, buy a car, park on an incline, put it in neutral, lay in its path and let it roll over your face.

This one’s simple. It’ll never happen, but if you could take Nolan Richardson back TODAY as UA Head Coach, and he would come, would you do it? Respond in the comments section. Oh,and remember these days (SEE BELOW)? Funny thing is those were the “lean” years.

for Arkansas commit Kane Whitehurst. The nickname? Kane White Burst.

(To be fair, BlogHawgs has not been credited–I have–but I am ceding that credit to BlogHawgs Nation)

The nickname is sweeping Razorback Nation and has been mentioned on statewide radio. Is this what it feels like to be famous?

Why is the nickname apropos?

Watch the video below and note that all these highlights came from this season, in the second highest classification in Georgia. White Burst reportedly played his sophomore and junior seasons on poor teams, and, after transferring to a different school to showcase his skills, was injured prior to this season and was unable to participate in summer camps (where prospects usually earn their scholarship offers) Therefore, he doesn’t have a ton of offers and is the proverbial “diamond in the rough”.

All he did his senior season is score touchdowns–inclusing FOUR kickoff returns for TDs.

He looks like a baller to me. More importantly, he looks like a baller to UA HC Bobby Petrino, who has a “decent” eye for football talent. The big question is “How did Iowa miss out on one of the fastest white kids in America?”

In honor of Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler’s abbreviated appearance in yesterday’s NFC Championship game, I have an abbreviated TBDI, errr TCD.

As the talking heads of the sports world, and many current and former players are rushing to judgment after Cutler missed most of the second half with a reported knee injury, I think few deep breaths are in order.

Lemme just go “Against the Grain”, here, like Andrew “McLovin” Perloff from “The Dan Patrick Show” and throw out my (in this instance) unconventional $.02.

One of my favorite maxims in life is that you should never question a man unless you’ve walked a mile in his shoes. I think that’s a pretty good Rule of Thumb, here.

Sure, current players and former NFL players have a great deal of credibility on this issue, because they have played in THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE.

But, I dare say that none of them have dealt with the issues that Cutler has this season and throughout his career (and I am not talking about being, almost by acclimation, considered one of the biggest jerks in the NFL). I also think I have some credibility on the issue because I have had about as many surgeries as Mark Schlereth.

Cutler lives–and plays–with Type 1 diabetes–you know, the potentially life-threatening one that requires constant monitoring and daily injections. Let’s just say that he has injected himself on the sidelines more than anybody other than maybe former Dallas Cowboys All-Pro linebacker Thomas “Hollywood” Henderson. (actually, that was a cheap joke–Henderson admittedly had a cocaine inhaler, not a syringe, on the sidelines during Super Bowl XIII.)

Cutler was also by far the most-sacked quarterback in the NFL this season with 52 (the Ravens’ Joe Flacco was 2nd with 40) and was on the wrong end of a 9-sack outing by the New York Giants in THE FIRST HALF of a game in October. He ultimately left that game with a concussion, but who wouldn’t have?

My point is that Cutler is jerk, but he isn’t necessarily a pansy–at least not based on the information we have now. That’s why NFL “greats” like Oakland QB Bruce Gradkowski (a guy who didn’t really even beat out JaMarcus Russell for the starting job in Oakland in 2009, and has missed more than his fair share of games due to injuries), should probably keep their Tweets to themselves.

Likewise, one actual NFL great–Deion Sanders, might also want to think twice before questioning someone’s manhood. Sanders, a former 2-sport star who was not necessarily MLB analyst Tim McCarver’s best friend, was a great player.

But, he wasn’t exactly “Prime Time” when he missed much of 2 seasons in his athletic ”prime” because of a turf toe injury. And, as you can see from the link in the preceding sentence, he didn’t particularly enjoy being criticized in much the same way that he criticized Cutler, yesterday.

Yes, I know turf toe is a much more debilitating injury that one would think, but one would also think Deion might understand a thing or two about the apparent severity of injuries being deceiving, and/or the the sting of a former player from a  different era questioning a current player, publicly, during the playoffs.

But that’s not where I am going Against the Grain.

My Against The Grain take on Cutler is that what he did may have actually been tougher than staying on the field, injured, and quashing any hopes of Chicago winning the game.

He struggled mightily in the first half, came back out in the 2nd half, despite being injured, and tried to give it a go, to no avail.  Ultimately, between the coaching staff, Cutler and the medical staff a decision was made that Cutler no longer gave ‘Da Bears da best chance to win and third-stringer Caleb Hanie’s admirable performance in defeat validated the decision. (Why isn’t anyone question backup Todd Collins’ performance? Now, THAT was a weak effort).

Sometimes in life, self evaluation is one of the more difficult tasks we face. And, for that reason, Cutler’s decision was a tough one that, rather than drawing the credit it may actually deserve, will probably follow Cutler for the rest of his life. The primary reason it will, though, is because Cutler is jerk and his sideline demeanor left something to be desired–not necessarily because it was patently selfish or cowardly.

That’s too bad, because, based on what we currently know, it may well have been a reasonable, but difficult, “tough” call by a guy who is, at least at this point, being demonized by, of all things, a bunch of Tweeters.

If someone made up a ukulele song about former Arkansas Razorback and current Clevelend Browns running back Peyton Hillis.

Oh wait. Someone did? Sweet.

like this:

This is  a timely piece on MLK Day on CNN.com.

The hate unfortunately seems to be pretty pervasive right now. I can’t decide if it’s racial or political or both. I was appalled last week when several Razorback fans on a message board I am on were publicly bemoaning the fact that one of the worst Razorback games in a long line of stinkers the last decade was briefly preempted on KATV in Little Rock by President Obama’s speech at a Memorial Service in Tuscon.

The haters called the speech, among other things, “political manipulation” as if President Obama wouldn’t have been ripped by those same people had he decided against such a speech.

Stated another way, even I didn’t whine about President George W. Bush’s speeches in the wake of tragedies that occured during his presidency.

After recent episodes of violence at council and board meetings around the country, Springdale will now have a uniformed officer at its city meetings.

The Towerhouse off of Old Wire Road in Fayetteville.

The Towerhouse, one of Fayetteville’s most unique homes, has been broken into several times of late but police think they caught the intruder.

Newly elected House Representative, Steve Womack says he will not let the events of Tucson last week change how he meets and greets voters.

The Centerton city council member who was allegedly threatened by another council member and who had resigned from her position is now back on the council.  Apparently during her hiatus her seat was up and she was re-elected.

On Monday several Rogers families were fooled by a fake Twitter account that reported school was closed due to weather.  Local station KNWA even reported it on the Sunday night broadcast.

The smallest Wal-Mart in the world just opened on the campus of the UofA.

It’s official!  We now have a Waffle House on Dickson St.  You can get it smothered, covered, and chunked inside Underwood Plaza.

Remember the Butcher Block Steakhouse?  How about S & J Seafood?  Well the building that once housed them both is going to finally be razed along with the former Bill & Tony’s Liquor. A Kum & Go convenience store will be built on that corner.

The annual Paint the Town Red fundraiser for the American Heart Association is Saturday.  The “party with a purpose” is usually one of the more entertaining of these fancy balls.

Apparently Arkansas Offensive Coordinator Garrick McGee will not be heading to Tulsa.

and his friends and colleagues, Florida Head Coach Billy Donovan and Alabama Head Coach Anthony Grant.

Don’t read this, though, unless you want a large dose of perspective, and probably a tear or two (dozen).

Many of our readers who know me are aware that my wife and I are in this club, I share this info and this article because I know that some of you are in the club, too, and understand the pain that membership brings.

It should be no surprise that the main difference in how I handled it was that I was much more bitter than Pel and Company. I wish I had the kind of positive spin they did. 

I just can’t convince myself of some things But, I do think that I’ll become one of Pel’s Pals. It’s a wonderful cause. And, while I’m at it, I also think I’ll go home today and give Will B. about 300 hugs.

“It’s an unfortunate club to belong to, the club for parents who have lost a child,” Horst Ferrero
said. “Only those who have gone through that experience can really understand how shocking it
can be. Maybe that’s one of the reasons he became so passionately involved.”

This is shocking.

A day after maybe, kinda, sorta spurning his alma mater, Michigan, The Mad Hatter, LSU Head Coach Les Miles, who, given his well-chronicled struggles, already had one of the best deals in college football, squeezed out more dollars than the number of commas in this sentence.

That’s not what shocks me, though. I am shocked that he can count from (20)11 to (20)17.