Arkansas Sports 360 - ArkansasSports360.com

8/2/2010 at 1:05pm

Nobody would be surprised to learn that football guru Phil Steele likes the Arkansas offense. He, like most folks, is high on the Hogs’ abilities to move the football.

Steele, though, has a better opinion of the Razorbacks’ defense than you might imagine. He reveals those thoughts in a three-part Q&A with the ArkansasExpats. Steele could even envision a scenario in which the Razorbacks win a national title.

When I look at Arkansas this year, I projected them third in the SEC West. But two of my nine sets of power ratings actually call for Arkansas to go unbeaten this year, which sort of caught my attention. When I first saw that, I was like "Wow!" This is a team that theoretically could win all their games.

Winning them all? Doing that would require a huge improvement on defense.

Arkansas could be a Top 30 defense, Steele told the Expats. That would be quite a jump from No. 89 where the Razorbacks were in 2009.

Here's more from Steele on the defense. His thoughts on that unit are included in Part II:

Now will they be to the level of your Alabamas, your Floridas, your Oklahomas, Texas? No, they will not be. This will not be a top 10 defense. But my rankings actually say they could be a top 30 defense. With that offense, if they have a top 30 defense, they have a shot to win each and every one of their games.

So I think we will see improvement on the defense, not only in overall yards. We saw a little improvement in the yards allowed per carry. Last year, they improved from 4.4 yards allowed per carry to 4.0. I think they'll improve there again. And then the sacks went from 23 to 29. I think they'll improve upon the sacks again.

So not an overwhelming defense but to have a top 30 to top 35 defense would be enough for this team.

Steele goes so far as to name the secondary as the 19^th best unit in the country.

Sounds promising. And Steele is usually pretty money with his predictions.

For more from Steele, head over to the ArkansasExpats site and read the three-part Q&A.

Part I deals with Steele’s thoughts on the Arkansas offense if you aren’t giddy eough about Ryan Mallett, D.J. Williams, etc.

Tagged: Phil Steele, Bobby Petrino, Ryan Malett, D.J. Williams, Greg Childs, NCAA Football 2011