Stephen, I am actually looking forward to the bye week. I hope it is just as pretty as it is today, so I will have more time to enjoy a pretty day outside. I’ve been here in my office trying to watch the damn thing on espn360.com. It is a wonder that I didn’t have some kind of seizure seeing as the screen kept flashing and then stalling. But I saw enough to confirm again what we all know – Casey Dick is too inconsistent to expect any consistent success. He does things that no senior qb at the college level should be doing. Ryan Mallet, if he is the next guy, which we all think he is, will be the first QB in eleven years to play for the Hogs that wasn’t touched in any way, shape, or form by Houston Nutt. That’s gotta be a good thing!

I was optimistic for winning 2 in a row, but what was to be expected? After we beat Tulsa, I was frustrated that no one wanted to give us any respect, saying instead that Tulsa didn’t deserve its ranking. Turns out, that’s true. I promised to never say anything bad about Casey Dick after that block he laid in the LSU game last season, but I will say this: He’s definitely one of Houston’s boys. I mean, he follows up a career performance against a (albeit increasingly questionable) quality team with a “business-as-usual” (a decent amount of years, but more INTs that TDs) performace. Who does that remind you of? HDN. The sad thing is, he shows flashes of brilliance, and he’ll never get to realize his potential because he had to spend a majority of his career just managing a game instead of winning games. Although, saying that Ryan Mallett has never had any contact with HDN is a little bit of an exaggeration. As I understand it, he wanted to come to Arkansas from the beginning, but HDN wouldn’t give him a scholarship (but maybe that’s just an urban legend that I should stop repeating).

Well, no coaching contact at least.