Arkansas Sports 360 - ArkansasSports360.com

12/27/2011 at 1:00pm

What will you remember about the 2011 sports year in the state of Arkansas? There was plenty to choose from when you look back.

Without further ado — and in no certain order — here are 11 for 11, the most memorable moments and stories as I see them.

Feel free to leave your own thoughts in the comments section, especially if you see something I missed.

Patriots Take Mallett
Ryan Mallett's arm wasn't strong enough to break his fall in the NFL Draft.

Mallett set 30-plus records at Arkansas. He had the sort of football IQ and ability to throw that make scouts drool. Still, Mallett had questions about his off-field endeavors and maturity. That led to him being the eighth quarterback drafted in April, though it’s hard to argue with where he wound up.

New England, arguably the best NFL franchise during the past decade, snapped up Mallett and the Patriots are letting him learn behind Tom Brady.

Razorback Football Continues Ascent To National Relevance
Bobby Petrino wasn’t kidding about making Arkansas a nationally competitive football program. He’s guided the Razorbacks to a 20-5 record in their last 25 games, including 10 wins in both 2010 and 2011.

Beat No. 8 Kansas State in the Cotton Bowl on Jan. 6 and Arkansas, now ranked No. 6, could finish in the Top 5 for the first time since 1978.

Arkansas Football Experiences Real ‘Loss’
For a team heralded throughout 2011 as resilient— thanks to overcoming double-digit deficits and injuries — the events of the final week of November represented a significant test of the Razorbacks’ resolve.

Arkansas faced LSU in a Top 10 matchup just days after the death of redshirt freshman tight end Garrett Uekman. He was found unconscious in his dorm room and pronounced dead at Washington Regional Medical Center from what was later learned to be an undiagnosed heart condition.

Despite their heavy hearts the Razorbacks played at No. 1 LSU on Friday, Nov. 25. They jumped out to an 14-0 lead early in the second quarter, but eventually lost 41-17.

Players acknowledged after the game how difficult the week had been. Just three days after the LSU loss the Razorbacks gathered in Little Rock to bury Uekman, who had starred in high school at Little Rock Catholic.

Freeze Leads Red Wolves To Unprecedented Success, Leaves
Players were unsure what to think when Hugh Freeze declared Arkansas State an instant Sun Belt Conference contender within hours of taking the head coaching job. Skepticism eventually gave way to celebration for the Red Wolves.

ASU won 10 games, an outright Sun Belt Conference title and a spot in the Jan. 8 GoDaddy.com Bowl. It was just the sort of season Freeze, eventually hired at Ole Miss in early December to replace Houston Nutt, envisioned for the program.

Few outside Jonesboro or the Red Wolves’ football complex believed it was possible. But ASU finally experienced the sort of Division I success it had seen in the 1970s.

Freeze helped the team to double-digit wins in the regular season for the first time since 1975 and they won the Sun Belt Conference outright for the first time since joining the league. It also marked the most wins for ASU's program since the 1986 Division I-AA national runners-up, which went 12-2-1.

Quarterback Ryan Aplin was the Sun Belt’s Player of the Year. Defensive lineman Brandon Joiner was named the league’s top defensive player.

‘Howl’ Of A Hire
Arkansas State actually found a way to out-do its 2011 football success.

Athletic Director Dean Lee, mega-booster Wallace Fowler, ASU System President Chuck Welch and even Gov. Mike Beebe had a hand in pulling off what some national media were calling THE hire of 2011: luring Gus Malzahn from Auburn. Malzahn had turned down much bigger programs and more lucrative offers in 2010 but left his $1.3 million salary and rock star coordinator status on the Plains to take over in Jonesboro.

Auburn will still have Malzahn around through the Dec. 31 Chick-fil-A Bowl, but he’s actively recruiting for the Red Wolves. Then on Jan. 1 he’s all set to begin the new year with this new program.

Bobby Petrino IS Human
Those jokes about the all-business, often-monotone Bobby Petrino being a robot can be retired now. We all got a glimpse this year of how human Petrino is.

Petrino showed his charitable side in September, announcing that he and his wife, Becky, were donating $250,000 to Arkansas Children’s Hospital.

He reminded everyone in November just how competitive he can be as CBS captured the ‘slo mo mo fo.’ Petrino shouted obscenities across the field at LSU Coach Les Miles late in the Hogs' loss to the No. 1 Tigers.

What really struck a chord with folks — and the display that will endure for a long while — was the way Petrino handled the November passing of Uekman. Petrino made a pair of public appearances the week of Uekman’s death and became emotional in both.

Anderson Home Again
Man, the glory days of Arkansas basketball seemed far off when the 2010-11 season ended. Player turmoil, poor coaching and predictably bad on-court performance seemed so far removed from the Nolan Richardson era.

Then the Razorbacks lured Mike Anderson from Missouri with a $2.2 million salary that makes him one of the 10 highest paid coaches in America, and success at Bud Walton Arena seemed possible again. Anderson, a 17-year assistant for Richardson, was announced to about 5,000 Razorback fans during a press conference/pep rally at Walton, and then he salvaged a recruiting class that had originally committed to former coach John Pelphrey.

Arkansas has struggled at times in Anderson’s first season (youth, inexperience and a season-ending injury to Marshawn Powell haven’t helped), but there are glimpses that "40 Minutes of Hell" is closer to reality than anybody imagined as the program mostly struggled in four seasons under Pelphrey.

No Joke: UCA Outdoes Itself On Purple-And-Gray Field
It was a stroke of marketing and public relations brilliance.

UCA announced it was going with a purple-and-gray field at Estes Stadium on April Fool’s Day. Initially — and understandably — people doubted the announcement was legit.

But the Bears really were going with a unique color scheme on their field. It gained national acclaim.

Remarkably, the field won’t be our lasting memory of the 2011 UCA football season. We’ll actually remember the on-field performance thanks to the Bears’ run to the second round of the FCS playoffs, nine wins for the season, a near-upset of eventual WAC champ Louisiana Tech and a runner-up finish in the Southland Conference.

Hillis Rise/Fall
Maybe the Madden Curse is real.

Former Arkansas Razorback and Conway Wampus Cat Peyton Hillis was the toast of the NFL off-season. He appeared on David Letterman and made numerous appearances thanks to celebrity gained from a breakout 2010 and being picked in a national vote for the cover of Madden NFL ’12, the latest in a series of one of the most popular video games of all time.

Hillis said at the time he didn’t buy into the idea that those who make the cover are doomed to injury or worse. Wonder how he feels about it now that a hamstring, bad PR, a contract dispute and awful on-field performance have killed his 2011 season?

Oh, and then there was that bizarre Chuck Norris-Peyton Hillis video.

For all the bad that happened to Hillis this year, I’m choosing to remember his entertaining performance on Letterman doing the Top 10 list of "Perks for Being on the Cover of Madden NFL '12. For example:

"No. 8. It gets my name out there. Even I have never heard of me." Or, "No. 3, I get my own catchphrase: 'Watchoo talkin' 'bout Hillis?'"

Goodwin Tweets College Choice
Behold the power of Twitter.

It only took 140 characters (less actually) for Sylvan Hillis’ swingman Archie Goodwin, a Top 20 basketball prospect, to break hearts and infuriate folks in Arkansas, while making Big Blue Nation rejoice. Goodwin used the social media outlet to announce his college choice.

Goodwin’s Sept. 29 post:

“If you don’t now by now I’m a Wildcat!!!”

Arkansas fans immediately began questioning Goodwin’s choice, some harassing him on Twitter. That prompted a response from Goodwin that might have done more harm than good: “Ill always rep ARK. I got it tatted on my chest!! But I had to do what I Had to do. Point Blank Period.”

Any return trips Goodwin makes to Arkansas in Wildcat blue will be interesting.

UALR Goes Dancing Again And Again And Again
NCAA success isn’t as easy as UALR made it look.

Not only did the Trojans make the men’s and women’s NCAA Basketball Tournament, they also made their way into the field of 64 for baseball.

It’s the sort of accomplishment all 347 NCAA Division I programs would enjoy. But not many programs did it, as the UALR media relations department reminded us in June.

UALR was one of only 12 schools to have teams in the men’s and women’s basketball and baseball tournaments. All three programs earned automatic spots in the tournament by winning conference tourneys, something only Princeton also accomplished.

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What'd I miss?

Email cbahn@abpg.com. Also follow Chris on Twitter @cbahn

Tagged: Arkansas Razorbacks, Bobby Petrino, ASU Red Wolves, Mike Anderson, Garrett Uekman, Archie Goodwin, Gus Malzahn