Arkansas Sports 360 - ArkansasSports360.com

11/2/2011 at 3:41pm

Maybe the most telling moment about the state of the Arkansas Razorbacks came at last Saturday's coin flip. Junior running back Knile Davis, a team-elected captain for 2011 who was lost for the season in August with a broken ankle, wore his jersey and sweat pants and stood with other game captains for the coin flip against Vanderbilt's representatives. Meanwhile, just a few moments earlier, we had been told in the pressbox that senior receiver Greg Childs had not made the trip to Nashville because he had "tweaked" his knee.

Anybody see anything wrong with this picture?

Let me repeat: One player lost for the season yet still considered among the best leaders on the team in words and action — even though he's not a senior — made the flight from XNA to Nashville. A senior NFL prospect at wide receiver, who's come back from surgery late last year and appeared to have a breakout game three weeks ago at home against Auburn, didn't have a seat on the plane because his knee was "tweaked."

To add further, said "tweaked" knee from last week apparently was magically healed, because offensive coordinator Garrick McGee reportedly was all raves about the way Greg Childs was running and catching in Tuesday's practice.

"Tweaked" knee or not, cramped plane ride with a "tweaked" knee or not, one would think a senior Razorback leader would be at that critical game in Nashville, especially if a junior with a healing broken ankle was on hand.

This is far from the only example this season where it's easy to question the leadership the upperclassmen are providing in a season that somehow is still humming along with the Hogs standing 7-1 and ranked No. 7 in the BCS standings.

Let's leave quarterback Tyler Wilson and senior receiver Jarius Wright out of the conversation because their leadership should go unquestioned. Arkansas doesn't win the Texas A&M game in Arlington, Texas, without the way those two stepped up. It didn't start there that day for the pair, and it didn't end there either.

Currently, they are invaluable not only in the talent they bring to the team, but in the leadership they provide.

After those two, however, where do we find the leaders? Arkansas has 19 seniors, but so far only two stand out as taking the lead.

The defense may be struggling with inexperience in key positions, but more of the problem may be the leadership that was expected from five senior returnees.

At least three separate times during the summer, including the last time at the Southeastern Conference Media Days in Hoover, Ala., in late July, Arkansas head coach Bobby Petrino said this team would be only as good as the senior leadership allowed it to be.

My co-hort at ArkansasSports360.com, Chris Bahn, detected more than the obvious in Petrino's statements. Knowing that Chris worries a little bit more about things, I contended that it was merely coach-speak — every coach tosses out such preseason bromides about his team's chances, and often is centers around the upperclass leadership. Chris, who is around the program daily, thought Petrino was spelling out his legitimate concern about this group.

Nobody has led quite like quarterback Ryan Mallett and tight end D.J. Williams who carried last year's group. Overlooked in all the procedure penalties he incurred, Ray Dominguez was a leader up front at one tackle, and Demarcus Love was a proven leader at the other tackle.

It may have been Darrell Royal who had one of those coaching adages that became accepted universally, that all other things being equal, the team with the best tackles wins. Arkansas often had the best offensive tackles last year; recall the way the Razorback line blew up South Carolina's defensive front in that 41-20 chicken kickin' in Columbia, S.C., last fall.

On defense, we may have underestimated the leadership that undersized cornerback Ramon Broadway brought to the 2010. Senior Jake Bequette was, like Davis and Tyler Wilson this year, voted a team captain as a junior last season. Bequette, who was sidelined with a hamstring injury earlier in the season, would be the first to tell you this season has been a struggle for him. But even if he's not nearly the force on pass rush and sacks that he was last year, his presence alone is key.

But none of the preseason All-SEC defensive players have played up to that level, nor have they brought the expected leadership that comes with it. They garnered that attention mostly by overachieving last year, but now they step up their play only for short periods of games, when the Hogs are in trouble.

Arkansas' defense isn't talented enough to just show up. The Hogs' more experienced, starting cornerbacks from week one have given way to the reserves, including a freshman.

Arkansas has enough seniors on offense, too, that haven't consistently stepped up in 2011.

The Razorbacks, on paper, should run the table with the three remaining home games, setting up a showdown with a 10-1 record against LSU in Baton Rouge the day after Thanksgiving.

The slow starts in every October game — especially the past two at Ole Miss and Vanderbilt — seem to be a symptom of problems deeper within the team. After a first-half no-show at Oxford, the Razorbacks spent a week of practice hearing from the coaching staff and no doubt reading on message boards that they had to start a game with more passion, and yet they laid as big an egg at Nashville.

It's as if Arkansas started those games with no seniors participating. The Hogs looked like one Petrino's teams from his first season against a pair of below-average SEC programs.

Maybe some of these seniors have checked out early. Maybe the success of last year, reaching a BCS bowl and winning 10 games, was too much to handle and they simply don't have the maturity to deal with being a championship contender. Maybe they forgot that it's not about the level of individual talent on the field, but how that talent blends together to make a true team — you know, the whole being more than the sum of the parts.

Bobby Petrino had reason in the preseason to be concerned about the overall team leadership, and surprisingly he wasn't hiding his worry.

Yet, four games remain to see some of that leadership step up for Arkansas and to give the younger players a clear vision of what's expected for the Razorbacks to win in the SEC the way they won last year.

Award-winning columnist Jim Harris wasn’t around when Hugo Bezdek named the Razorbacks, it only seems that way. His acumen for UA football history is renowned and he has covered the Hogs and the state sports scene since 1976. He knows his way around music and food, too. Email: jharris@abpg.com, and follow Jim on Twitter @jimharris360

Tagged: LSU Tigers, Southwest Classic, Texas A&M Aggies, Ole Miss Rebels, Vanderbilt Commodores, South Carolina Gamecocks, Southeastern Conference, Jake Bequette, Jerry Franklin, Bobby Petrino, Jarius Wright, Tyler Wilson, Greg Childs, Knile Davis