FAYETTEVILLE -- The Arkansas Razorbacks began bye week practices Tuesday with more leaks than the Democratic Party's hacked computers.
Other than senior place-kicker Adam McFain kicking a career-long 54-yard field goal, there was nothing that didn't need patching from the Razorbacks' surprising 56-3 SEC West loss to the Auburn Tigers last Saturday in Auburn, Ala.
The defeat wasn't unexpected, the oddsmakers generally favored Auburn by 10 or 11, though Razorbacks fans derisively discounted the Las Vegas touts. But nobody could have imagined a 56-3 rout, especially from an Auburn team that began the season offensively inept before Coach Gus Malzahn installed Sean White as his quarterback and replaced himself with offensive coordinator Rhett Lashlee as play-caller.
The Auburn formula worked so well that an Arkansas team defeating 12th-ranked Ole Miss the previous week was reduced to rubble. Not only did the Razorbacks lose by the largest conference game margin in University of Arkansas history, they were run over for a conference record 543 yards by the Auburn offense.
Arkansas Coach Bret Bielema, a former linebackers coach at Iowa and defensive coordinator at Kansas State and Wisconsin before succeeding Barry Alvarez as head coach of the Badgers in 2006, was asked if he would become more personally involved in the Arkansas defense coordinated by Robb Smith since 2014.
Bielema asserted the breakdown wasn't just defense.
"We didn't score a touchdown," Bielema said.
The review of what went wrong and how to correct it seems to relate to every phase except McFain.
Ironically, until McFain replaced sophomore kicker Cole Hedlund three games ago, place-kicking was among the Razorbacks' most criticized units.
Razorbacks set to host
cross country championship
If targeting was a penalty in cross country like it is in football, then all of the SEC men's and SEC women's cross country teams would be penalized except for Arkansas.
The Razorbacks men of Coach Chris Bucknam, seeking their seventh consecutive SEC Cross Country title, and coming off a 2015-2016 SEC Cross Country-Indoor Track-Outdoor Track triple crown, and the Razorbacks women of Coach Lance Harter, seeking their fourth consecutive SEC Cross Country time off two consecutive SEC triple crowns, are the targets for the SEC Cross Country Championships that Arkansas hosts at Agri Park.
The women's race runs at 10 a.m. Friday followed by the men at 11 a.m.
From the time that retired Coach John McDonnell's men debuted Arkansas' departure from the Southwest Conference to the SEC by winning the 1991 SEC Cross Country title en route to a 1991-92 SEC triple crown, the SEC has seethed at Arkansas whether its Harter, McDonnell or Bucknam coaching.
"There was a statement made by one of my fellow SEC coaches years back that said, 'Hey, this domination by Arkansas men and women has got to stop." Harter said. "I think each one of those coaches have gone out and deliberately found a good distance runner. They might not ultimately make a team, but they can definitely fragment us. So we have to try to keep up with like-kind."
One of Bucknam's deepest teams just got deeper.
Andrew Ronoh, a former teammate at Iowa Central Junior College with one of Arkansas' main men, Frankline Tonui, is main man material himself and finally debuting after suffering Achilles tendon problems running at the NCAA Outdoor West Preliminary meet last spring.
"He is a go as of today," Bucknam said Tuesday. "We look forward to him getting in with our team and back racing. He has done a very, very good job over a long haul to get healthy. He is a very talented athlete who wants to contribute."
Sports on 10/26/2016