Arkansas Might Be In the Wrong Division

The Arkansas Razorbacks are a good football team this season. Only time will tell how they’ll stack up against the rest of the SEC West, but they are certainly improved over last year.

Right now, they’re averaging well over 300 yards rushing and 45 points a game, and have been competitive in every game they’ve played. Bret Bielema’s tough, physical brand of football is gaining momentum in Fayetteville.

Through their first five games, Arkansas has looked like, at the very least, a bowl eligible team.

But they’re winless in two SEC games thus far, specifically against two SEC West teams. 3-2 isn’t a bad record, it puts you on pace for a six or seven-win season, but no win total looks impressive if you finish last in your own division.

And that’s a very real possibility for Arkansas this year, despite their noticeable improvements on both sides of the ball.

I have no doubt that Bret Bielema will continue making Arkansas a good football team, competitive every season in the SEC. But I’ve noticed something about Arkansas that has held up in all the years I’ve followed football.

Arkansas is a middle-tier SEC team. It doesn’t mean they can never have a great season or even a stretch of great seasons. It just means that in a typical season, Arkansas should put up seven or eight wins, but can seldom be counted on for much more than that.

Some of it has to do with their location. Arkansas isn’t exactly a breeding ground for high school football’s best athletes, and while it’s in a quaint little state, Fayetteville isn’t considered a prime destination.

But most of Arkansas’ inability to take that next step to national contender can be attributed to their membership in the SEC West.

If you put Arkansas in any other conference, they would be in contention for that conference title. They might even win it, depending on which conference we’re talking about.

I would even like their chances in this year’s SEC East.

But as it is, they’re in the toughest division in the game, maybe in college football history. There’s a chance they might be in the wrong one.

Every season now, Arkansas has to play Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, and Texas A&M. All it takes is for at least three of those teams to be better than Arkansas for the Razorbacks to have a nine-win ceiling.

This year, all six of those teams are better than Arkansas. But because it’s a competitive division top to bottom, and Arkansas is no slouch, the Razorbacks could steal a game from one or two of those six teams.

Or they could lose every single game against an SEC West opponent this year.

Unfortunately for Arkansas, there is a certain limit to the success they can sustain while playing through the West gauntlet every year.

Since joining the SEC in 1992, the Razorbacks have had 12 winning seasons, eight or more wins in ten of them. They’ve won ten games or more just three times, all of which have occurred since 2006. But in that span, they’ve only won four of their 12 bowl appearances.

Arkansas will always be competitive, and will probably steal a win or two from someone in the West. But realistically, they will likely finish last in their division.

Being last in the SEC West isn’t a terrible place to be, and certainly nothing to be ashamed of, especially if the Razorbacks are bowl eligible at the end of the year.

But we all know that just playing in a bowl game isn’t Arkansas’s goal. They want to compete for the SEC West title, the SEC championship, and even a national championship. That’s why they went out a hired a coach who led Wisconsin to four ten-win seasons and two straight Rose Bowl appearances.

They want to make that next step to SEC and national prominence. But I just don’t know if it will ever happen while they’re in the SEC West.

If Arkansas is interested in conference titles and undefeated seasons, they’re in the wrong league.