Sadly, the Benton Panthers stink this year

My dad and I both watch as many Benton Panthers home games as we can.

Why? We both graduated from Benton and high school football is still a big deal here in Arkansas. Besides, I do enjoy going and hanging out with my dad and that’s a great excuse to do it. The most important thing about those games – as far as I’m concerned – is that I watch them with dad.

I’m glad that’s my priority because the Panthers are flat out terrible this year. How terrible? We saw the first home game and the fourth game of the season on Friday and Benton absolutely got crushed by Pine Bluff. In fact, the Panthers were so small that it looked like Pine Bluff was facing a junior high team.

Here in Arkansas, there’s such a thing as the mercy rule. When a team gets 35 points ahead, then the officials just let the clock run and stop it for nothing but time outs. We learned on Friday that the mercy rule doesn’t apply until the third quarter as Pine Bluff had run up enough points by the first part of the second quarter to invoke the rule.

The Panthers wound up losing 42-7 and that’s only because Pine Bluff pulled their starters in the second half (Benton couldn’t even move the ball well against the second string). That, folks, is some bad football.

In addition to the Pine Bluff game, Benton has been slaughtered by Bryant, humiliated by Catholic High and embarrassed by Conway. So far this season, the Panthers have scored 28 points while their opponents have scored 168.

Ouch.

Yes, this is the first year for new head coach Steve Quinn and a bad season was expected. However, Benton is severely lacking in the talent department and there is a reason for that.

Benton wins championships in baseball and golf and is even competitive in track and field, tennis, soccer and basketball (well, they do well from time to time in basketball, at least). It seems, then, that there are a lot of sports that appeal to students so it’s no wonder you just don’t see as many kids trying out to play football these days.

After all, players feel like they’ve been in a major car wreck after a football game. That’s not true in baseball. I can’t say I’m surprised at the lack of talent, then.

Still, it just kills me to watch the Panthers get slaughtered. A lot of my dad’s classmates feel the same way, it seems.

Last night, a lot of members of the Class of 1960 attended the game. I sat up in their section with dad and we were the only ones left at the end of the game.

“They’re losing faith, dad!” I yelled as each of his classmates left.

It’s hard to watch. I hope the team is better next year, but who knows?

The Pirates set a record!

In case no one noticed, the Pittsburgh Pirates now have the longest consecutive losing streak of any team in the MLB, NBA, NFL or NHL.

On Monday, the Pirates earned their 82nd loss of the season in a game against the Cubs. With that loss, the Bucs clinched a dubious honor -- 17 consecutive losing seasons.

They came into the season tied with the Philadelphia Phillies -- a team that managed to lose 16 consecutive seasons from 1933-1949. Pittsburgh hasn't had a winning season since 1992 and seems doomed to consistent failure in the foreseeable future.

How bad is Pittsburgh? Read all about it right here. That article sums it all up better than I ever could. Besides, I'm too tired to give a damn. I've rooted for the Pirates for years and I'm about sick of caring how the team does.

In fact, the rotten Pirates are one of the reasons I don't follow baseball liked I did once upon a time. In fact, the last time I watched a full Pirates game was a few years ago. After hurling a few empty beer cans at the screen and cursing the team for being so clueless and awful, I pretty much quit watching Pittsburgh and haven't paid much attention to baseball since.

I've just about concluded that the way to get a team to turn rotten is to convince me to room for it. I've pulled for the Pirates since about 1977 and look what's happened to them. Around that same time I started rooting for the Denver Broncos and they've been getting worse since John Elway retired a decade ago.

Oh, don't get me started on Denver. They fired Mike Shanahan and alienated quarterback Jay Cutler until he made up his mind to leave. Shanahan was replaced by a punk, nothing kid of a coach named Josh McDaniels and Cutler was traded to Chicago for Kyle Orton -- a loser who is so anonymous that Denver might have been better off pulling a fan out of the stands and making him quarterback.

Denver will suck this year. Count on it. In fact, I'd be stunned if the Broncos did anything but stink up the field over the next few seasons.

As for Basketball, I followed the Bulls quite a bit. The Bulls, of course, ran off Phil Jackson, Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen and haven't done much since then. Even my beloved Arkansas Razorbacks -- once a force to be reckoned with in the 1960s through the 1980s -- have been reduced to a fair-to-middling team since joining the SEC.

Hell, even my beloved Benton Panthers are terrible at football these days.

My wife isn't a huge sports fan. I'm starting to think she's got a point.

Arkansas' bowl hopes dim

For a good shot at a bowl game, the Arkansas Razorbacks really needed to beat the South Carolina Gamecocks on Saturday.

That didn't happen. Arkansas lost 21-34 to South Carolina, dropping their record to 4-6 (1-5 in the SEC). South Carolina wound up 7-3 (4-3 in the SEC) after the game.

Of course, the Hogs needed to reach that mystical 6 wins mark to make it to even a crummy bowl. To get there, they'll have to win against both Mississippi State (3-6, 1-4) and LSU (6-3, 3-3 in the SEC).

Arkansas has a shot next week on Nov. 22 when the Hogs travel to Miss State. Arkansas is sixth in the SEC West and Miss State is fifth -- neither team is that good, honestly.

However, LSU comes to Little Rock the day after Thanksgiving to take on the Hogs. Uh, that game is problematic. LSU ought to stomp Arkansas unless those Tigers are so full of turkey that they're slow and falling asleep. Well, Arkansas might pull off a miracle, but that seems unlikely this year. The season hasn't exactly been one filled with miracles, has it?

There was something that came out of the South Carolina game that gives us Hogs fans hope, however. The much maligned Casey Dick did manage to hit receiver Jarius Wright for a 70-yard play that ended in a touchdown. Arkansas hasn't done that yet this year.

There were some concerns, however. Once again, the offensive line was terrible and Dick got sacked six times. When he wasn't getting sack, poor Dick was running for his life. This is a young team so, hopefully, they'll learn a thing or two about pass protection by next season.

That will be too late for Dick, however, as he's a senior.

Also, Michael Smith got hurt. He's the running back that has been the only truly great player on the team this year. Arkansas has a bye week coming up, so let's hope those two weeks give Smith plenty of time to heal and he'll be effective against Miss State.

Now, I know a lot of my fellow Arkansans are complaining about new head coach Bobby Petrino. They need to shut the hell up. Houston Nutt, master recruiter that he is, left Petrino with nothing. Nutt's over in Ole Miss with a very talented team and Petrino is making do at Arkansas.

Give Petrino some time. He'll right the ship soon enough.

I have a feeling that Arkansas will wind up 5-7 and they'll miss out on bowl season. Anyone who knew anything about who would be left on the team this year and that a new coach would be coming in should have known things could wind up like this. You don't lose two outstanding running backs like Darren McFadden (he's playing for the Oakland Raiders now) and Felix Jones (who plays for the Dallas Cowboys) and bounce back quickly.

Meanwhile, here in Benton...

My beloved Benton Panthers took a beating on Thursday and are out of the playoff picture. Benton got stomped by Watson Chapel, 19-57. Watson Chapel isn't that great, currently ranked fifth in the 6A South with a conference record of 3-4 (4-5 overall).

I love high school football (it's a big deal here in Arkansas), but it's been hard to watch Benton this year. The team is just awful.

Now, the 6A South is an eight-team division and six of those teams are going to the playoffs. Benton finished seventh in the league with a conference record of 1-6 (2-8 overall). It's pretty pitiful when you can't even go to the playoffs when six teams in an eight-team division are going. You've got to be pretty rotten to to miss that very big boat, indeed.

Thank God for Little Rock's J.A. Fair. They came in dead last in the division by not winning a game all year. Benton beat them, and the Panthers beat Conway earlier this season.

My dad and I go to almost all of Benton's home games (we're both proud Benton graduates, so we like to see how our alma mater is doing). Neither one of us can remember a time when Benton looked so disorganized, undersized and just plain uncompetitive.

Well, there's always next year, right?

The Hogs are still struggling

Yes, it was another terrible day in Arkansas after the 12th-ranked Florida Gators (a team good and mad about a loss against Ole Miss last week) came to Fayetteville and smacked the Razorbacks all over the field.

We Razorbacks fans knew it was going to be a bad year, what with a new coach and a bunch of freshmen, but it's still hard to watch. In the end, the Hogs lost 38-7 and fell to 2-3 overall (0-2 in the SEC). Will we see some improvement next week against Auburn? That's hard to say, but the smart money is on Auburn, sadly.

Speaking of Auburn, they went to Vanderbilt today and lost 14-13 against a team that used to be an easy win. I'm not sure what the hell is going on with Vanderbilt, really, as that team now leads the SEC West and has gotten off to its first 5-0 start since World War II. Yes, Adolph Hitler was alive the last time Vanderbilt did this well. How's that for a bit of trivia?

At any rate -- Arkansas. I'm not so sure that the problem with the team is Casey Dick as I have assumed in the past. Dick is still not the greatest quarterback out there, but I couldn't help but notice that the offensive line for Arkansas is so awful that Dick spent most of the game simply running for his life. It's hard to find your receivers when you're dodging Gators all day long, seemingly.

How bad is Arkansas' offensive line? Florida sacked Dick once when they brought the dreaded three-man rush. If your offensive line can't turn back a three-man rush, you've got problems. Florida managed to hurry Dick into throwing an interception, to boot.

In spite of all that trouble, Dick was able to complete 19 of his 29 passes for 235 yards -- better statistically than Florida QB Tim Tebow's 17 completions for 215 yards on 26 attempts. Dick's got to struggle with some young receivers who tend to drop balls and make dumb decisions when they get them, too.

Like statistics? Here's another fascinating one. In the past three games, Arkansas has managed to score 31 points while holding their opponents to only 139 points. That sums everything up, doesn't it? Head Coach Bobby Petrino will probably burst a blood vessel in his head before the end of the season.

Indeed, you could see Petrino fuming here and there as Arkansas made one stupid penalty after another. And, let's not forget that the coach has absolutely no confidence in the kicking game. If it's fourth and long on the opponents 30 yard line, you can bet that Petrino will go for the first down rather than risk a field goal. That lack of confidence is disturbing, to say the least.

The only games Arkansas has won this year came against two scrub teams at the first of the season -- Western Illinois and Louisiana-Monroe. There's nothing to brag about there, of course, for two reasons -- Arkansas is supposed to beat teams like that and the Hogs barely managed to win those games.

Were there any bright spots? Actually, yes. First of all the aforementioned Casey Dick performed pretty well. And then there's running back Michael Smith who had 133 yards and a touchdown on 20 carries. This season may be a wash, but no one has told Smith yet. That's fortunate.

Also, keep in mind that Petrino is having to play a lot of true freshmen. Yes, former head coach Houston Nutt's miserable attempts at recruiting have put the Hogs in a position where there just aren't a lot of good, experienced players on the field. All those freshmen that Petrino has been stuck with will improve and should be considerably better next year.

Oh, and speaking of Houston "Boxcar" Nutt, his Ole Miss Rebels were kind enough to give Steve Spurrier and the South Carolina Gamecocks their first win in the SEC today. It appears that the Ole Ball Coach pulled off a win over the Ole Nutt Sack with a 31-24 victory. That means Ole Miss is 3-3 overall and 1-2 in the SEC and I couldn't be happier as Nutt is a filthy goon who deserves to fail everywhere he goes. Nutt and his white trash coaching staff head to No. 2 Alabama next week and ought to be beaten to a pulp when they come to Arkansas the following week.

I do hope Arkansas fans will welcome the former Razorbacks head coach by showering him with garbage throughout the game. I started advocating giving the Ole Nutt Sack the tar and feather treatment around 2000, but watching him covered with egg shells, coffee grounds and other assorted bits of trash would be almost as good.

I should stress that I have absolutely nothing against Ole Miss. I just hate that team's coach with a white passion and love to see him fail. He screwed the Razorbacks, folks, and it's a shame that it's time for Ole Miss to be sold a bunch of crap and snake oil. They'll wise up and run him off soon enough. Maybe he'll find success coaching junior high ball one of these days.

Benton Panthers get mercy ruled!

In Arkansas high school football, the mercy rule is put in place when a team is ahead by 35 points. Under that rule, the clock simply isn't stopped unless you've got official time outs and things like that.

Friday night, my beloved Benton Panthers traveled to Lake Hamilton and the mercy rule was put in place sometime in the second half. That's one of the most humiliating thing that can happen to a high school team, by the way.

The Panthers, of course, lost 56-21 and fell to 1-4 on the season (the only victory so far came against Conway this year). Things probably won't get much better next week when the Texarkana Razorbacks come to town next week.

Two years ago, one of the funniest things I've heard in a high school football game happened when Texarkana came to Benton. There was this Texarkana coach who wore his baseball cap backward (I nicknamed him Hatty McBackward) and screamed at his team the entire game.

Dad and I always sit on the visitor's side, and Hatty kept screaming even as his team was rolling over Benton. In the fourth quarter, I heard someone (obviously a Benton fan) yell, "Settle down, coach! You're up 42 to 14!"

Here's hoping Benton has a better game against Texarkana on Friday.

Terrible weekend for football

I've been following football for a lot of years and I can't think of a weekend that has been as aggravating as this one.

Why? My three favorite teams from the NFL, college and high school all played like garbage and got beaten. That's right, the Benton Panthers, Arkansas Razorbacks and Denver Broncos all lost. To make matters worse, that rotten former head coach for the Razorbacks led Ole Miss to a victory over #4 Florida.

It's enough to make a man swear off football for the rest of the season.

Well, probably not. Actually, definitely not.

Still, the whole thing was a mess so I'll sort through my pain and disappointment, day by day.

Friday, Sept. 26 -- Panthers fail

My beloved Benton Panthers headed to Pine Bluff to take on the Zebras. Yes, the Panthers were coming off a victory against the Conway Wampus Cats the previous week and hopes were high they'd pull off a win in their first game of conference play this season.

So, they spent the week preparing themselves for the trip to Pine Bluff by practicing hard, adjusting to wearing bullet proof vests under their pads and taking daily penicillin shots. All of that preparation was for naught as the Panthers failed, 43-25.

Honestly, Pine Bluff has a very good team this year and Benton was expected to lose. Still, Benton's first three games of the season were against 7A teams and the fact that the Panthers pulled off a victory against one of those teams and played well against another inspired some hope.

Benton, see, is a 6A school and the Panthers were holding their own against teams in the larger 7A classification. Ah, but Pine Bluff proved to be too much for the Panthers, dropping the team's record to a lowly 1-3 for the season. That's no damn good at all.

Why does The Hawg follow a high school team? I live in Benton and graduated from that school, as did my parents and my brother. Friday night football is a big deal here in the South and I'm as guilty as anyone of being a bit obsessive about it. So there.

Saturday, Sept. 27 -- Hogs still awful

No one expected the Arkansas Razorbacks to do much against the Texas Longhorns. That's a good thing because the Hogs failed miserably. Back in the old South West Conference days, the Arkansas-Texas game was the biggest one of the year for us Arkansans, and watching the team head to Austin and take a 52-10 whipping was hard for us long time fans.

That stomping, by the way, was the worst one Arkansas has taken at the hands of Texas since 1916 when the Longhorns slaughtered the Hogs 52-0. This year's contest was supposed to take place a couple of weeks ago but was delayed because a hurricane was ravaging Texas. I'm sure Razorbacks fans agree with me that the game should have stayed delayed. Like, indefinitely.

Arkansas has shown some hope in it's running game over the past few games, but Michael Smith was shut down. Alex Tejada struggled in the kicking game and quarterback Casey Dick still looks like a newcomer trying to come to grips with that new-fangled forward pass.

The Hogs got whipped last week by Alabama and have only beaten two rotten, scrubby teams this year -- Western Illinois and Louisiana-Monroe. I doubt things will get much better when Florida comes to town next week.

Yes, Florida is mad because they lost to Ole Miss on Saturday and will be out for revenge. Ole Miss, by the way, is led by Houston Nutt, the dirty bastard that used to coach Arkansas and left the Hogs with very little for current Razorbacks coach Bobby Petrino to work with.

Nutt did his typical thing -- he lost to Vanderbilt one week and then beat a far superior Florida team the next. Of course, Florida helped things by turning the ball over to Ole Miss every chance they got. It is good to see Nutt engaging in his typical behavior -- raising hopes just to dash them -- at a school other than Arkansas, however.

Arkansas will be fine once Petrino can get some of his players in here and get his system in place. Regardless, Arkansas is 2-2 (0-1 in the SEC) and things may well get worse. After Saturday's game, I have yet another reason to regret my decision to get a law degree at the University of Arkansas rather than heading to Vanderbilt to get a master's in political science (yes, I could have gotten in there) and heading to the University of Texas to get a doctorate. Stupid, stupid, stupid The Hawg.

Buckle up, Hogs fans. This year's shaping up to be a miserable one.

Sunday, Sept. 28 -- first loss for Broncos

So, the Panthers lost on Friday and the Razorbacks failed miserably on Saturday, but certainly the Denver Broncos at 3-0 would whip the lowly, 0-3 Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday, right? As it turns out, that was absolutely wrong.

While Kansas City was on a 12-game losing streak, they always play Denver tough at home and Mike Shanahan, Denver's head coach, entered Arrowhead Stadium with a 3-10 record there. Denver and Kansas City might not hate each other as much as, say, Denver and Oakland, but there's still a strong rivalry there and Kansas City played like it.

The Chiefs shut down the Broncos' running game and Denver quarterback Jay Cutler threw two interceptions, to boot. Oh, and the Broncos managed to fumble twice on Sunday, too.

In the end, Denver (AFC West) lost 19-33 and fell to 3-1 on the season. I can't help but think of that game as an anomaly as the Broncos came into Kansas City averaging 38 points per game and were leading the NFL in first downs. They'll be fine but they looked terrible on Sunday. The Broncos play Tampa Bay next week, so here's hoping they'll be back on track by then.

Denver has always had a hard time in Arrowhead and Sunday was no exception.

Enjoyable evening -- Benton won and I met two great bloggers

Yes, indeed! The fighting Benton Panthers won their first game of the season tonight, improving their record to 1-2 before going into conference play in the 6A-South.

There are few things I enjoy more than high school football on Friday nights. My father and I are both Benton High School Alums, so we try to catch every Panthers home game. It'll be a rough year for central Arkansas' scrappiest ball club, but at least the Panthers chalked up a win tonight by beating the Conway Wampus Cats 15-14 in a bit of a nail biter.

It was great being in C.W. Lewis Stadium here in scenic Benton for that victory, but the best thing about the evening was having the pleasure of meeting two fellow Bloggers -- Paul and Laura Eilers. Paul runs Paul's Health Blog and Laura runs Junk-Foodaholic. If you haven't visited those two sites, you really should.

Oh, I went ahead and posted a picture that Laura took of Paul and me (I'm the one on the left, proudly wearing Panthers maroon). Thanks for sending that photo along, folks!

Dad and I agreed that their presence at the game made it that much enjoyable as they are both wonderful, friendly people who make an already fun outing even better. Why were the Eilers there? Their son, Dylan, plays for the Wampus Cats, so they journeyed down from Conway to watch the fun.

The only thing that's too bad here is that the mighty, fighting Panthers defeated Dylan's team. However, Benton doesn't look that solid this year, so I'll cherish any victory that's available.

By the way, there's a blog dedicated to Dylan's football photos right here. Give that a look if you're so inclined.

I also decided to quit being lazy about a question I've had for years -- what is a wampus cat? In the past, I've been told it's a magical, six-legged cat and I've left it at that. I checked on Wikipedia, however, and found a more detailed explanation right here. Fascinating stuff, and I found out that no fewer than seven high schools in the U.S. have chosen the unusual wampus cat as a mascot.

But, back to the significance of tonight's game. Conway is in a higher high school athletics classification at 7A than Benton is at 6A. Benton's taken a whipping at the hands of two 7A schools this year, so the lads have some hope before they enter the regular season -- they've beaten one 7A team, so the hope is that will do wonders for their confidence when they're battling it out against peers in the 6A-South.

An alarming thing about the game, however, is that Benton has a tendency to fumble and get penalties for stupid stuff at the absolute worst times. Also, the team still has a tendency to fade in the second half and has a miserable kicking game. Things, apparently, haven't changed that much from last season.

Regardless, tonight's victory over Conway gives the team and its loyal fans a reason to celebrate and view the start of the regular season with optimism. That's nothing but good.

Anyone who is wondering why I, The Hawg, would bother with a high school football game has obviously spent very little time in the South. Towns in these parts rally behind their high school teams and treat games as a major social event.

In my case, I get to hang out with my father, get to visit with old friends on occasion and meet new ones like the Eilers. My hometown boasts a population of just 27,000 people, so Friday night football is a huge deal to a small city like this one that doesn't have any pro or college sports at all. The encouraging thing is that fans still turn out even if the Panthers stink -- most of us graduated from high school here and still turn out to support our local kids. That's nothing but good, right?

Denver's looking pretty good, huh?

It's been rough rooting for the mighty, mighty Denver Broncos since John Elway retired after the 1998 season.

One of the major problems with Denver is that the team has always revolved around a top-notch quarterback. A lot has been said about Denver's running game, but there was a time when the Broncos made it to Super Bowls based solely on the determination of Elway.

Just remember the problems the Broncos had in those painful Super Bowls of 1988, 1989 and 1990 -- the team didn't have much in the way of a running game and suffered because of it. When the team did achieve a balanced attack, the Broncos won a couple of Super Bowls in 1998 and 1999 because Elway's talents were complimented by an excellent running game.

Yes, the run game has remained solid, but Denver hasn't gotten far without a solid passing game.

After Elway retired, there was a lot of talk about how any quarterback could step into Denver's system and do well. That wasn't the case as quarterbacks Brian Griese and Jake Plummer were both failures. Longtime fans like me found it ironic that Denver finally had a great running game but was lacking in the passing department.

Those of us who follow the Broncos, then, can't help but be encouraged by Jay Cutler's performance so far this year. Cutler was drafted from Vanderbilt, played a bit in the 2006 season and started throughout the 2007 season. Last year, he managed to put together a fair-to-middling QB rating of 88.1, but has come out on fire this year.

Just take a look at the stats so far -- QB rating of 118.6, a 70.3 pass completion rate 650 passing yards and 6 touchdowns. That's pretty good and here's hoping he keeps up that level of play. Denver Coach Mike Shanahan obviously has faith in Cutler as evidenced by that risky, two-point conversion that put the Broncos past the Chargers in the final few seconds of Sunday's game.

By the way, that play in the final seconds in which an errant whistle gave a fumble back together was such a fundamentally unfair call that the NFL is considering a rule change. Good for them. San Diego got robbed. I'm thrilled that Denver won, but fair is fair, right?

But, back to Cutler. Remember that even the great Elway struggled for a couple of seasons. He needed time to mature. Hopefully, Cutler is going through that maturation process right now and will turn into the quarterback that we Broncos fans have been wanting for a decade.

Those of us in Arkansas certainly know that Cutler is an impressive quarterback. The beloved Razorbacks struggled with Vanderbilt, in fact, when Cutler was leading that team. Generally, when the Hogs dropped a game to the likes of Ole Miss, Mississippi State or Vanderbilt, we'd blame it on that idiot, Houston "Stinkbutt" Nutt, who wound up coaching the Razorbacks because we evidently don't discriminate against embarrassing fools in Arkansas.

Cutler and Vanderbilt beat the Razorbacks legitimately. Nutt only gets half the blame for that loss.

Razorbacks tearing up the NFL!

I don't give a damn for either the Dallas Cowboys or the Oakland Raiders, but it's been fun watching two rookies who played for the Razorbacks making a splash on those teams this year. Darren McFadden rushed for 164 yards and a touchdown for Oakland on Sunday, whereas Felix Jones returned a kickoff for 98 yards for Dallas on Monday.

Jones, in fact, compiled a ridiculous 247 return yards. Oh, and last week, Jones rushed for 62 yards and scored a touchdown.

Bear in mind that McFadden and Jones were the central performers in the Razorbacks' backfield last year. Arkansas had a great rushing game, indeed, and the team really should have put together an outstanding season rather than another one capped by a loss to an inferior team in a middle-tier bowl (the Hogs lost to Missouri in the Cotton Bowl).

What was the problem? The problem was the Razorbacks were coached by a man who is roughly as intelligent as a chunk of balsa wood. It's absolutely shocking to me that furious Razorbacks fans didn't shower Nutt with garbage or descend upon Fayetteville with torches and pitchforks during that horrible little man's last few seasons here. Thank goodness he's at Ole Miss now. Fans over there can put up with his subliterate babble and rudimentary coaching skills until they run him out of their state.

I find it funny as hell that McFadden has been given credit for saving the job of Oalkand's head coach, Lane Kiffin. Why? McFadden saved Nutt's job a couple of times. He really is that good of a player.

By the way, fellow Arkansan -- Paul at Paul's Health Blog -- posted a comment on an earlier post of mine asking why I didn't acknowledge another former Razorback, Peyton Hillis.

Well, Paul, I figured Peyton has done well enough for himself by playing for the Denver Broncos. He plays for the supreme team in the NFL, so what congratulations could I possibly add to that? At any rate, let Hillis make a highlight reel, and you'd better believe I'll be crowing about him.

I'm all set to visit with Paul on Friday, by the way. He's coming to Benton to watch his Conway Wampus Cats take on my beloved Benton Panthers. Paul's got a kid who plays for Conway. I go to all the Benton home games with my dad, so I'm looking forward to meeting Paul and his wife, Laura (she runs Junk-Foodaholic).

I should point out that Benton is absolutely horrible this year and the Wampus Cats (I still don't know what the hell a wampus cat is) ought to absolutely roll over the poor Panthers. Regardless, believe my write-up of the game before you believe Paul's. Since he's got a kid playing I'm sure he'll be biased.

Heh!

Good luck to your team and your son, Paul!