We interrupt this discussion of the basketball team's sudden and unexpected mini-resurgence with the breaking news that, after literally 1000s of hours of late night research by our tireless interns, Ryan Mallett's doppelganger has been found.

That's right...it turns out that Mallett's separated-at-birth twin is none other than the country guitar-picker Jerry Reed. It makes sense the more you think about it: if Mallett were a musician, he'd likely have Reed's awesomely cocky swagger (just watch this video), and if Reed were a QB he'd undoubtedly sling the ball downfield rather than look for the safe outlet pass.

Now that this important matter has been resolved, we return you to your regularly scheduled basketball season in progress.

Despite our massive staff of (unpaid) interns, not to mention palatial offices on the East & West coasts, your friends at ArkansasExpats.com have never been that great at following the up and downs of the recruiting game (note to self: fire the interns). But, since today is a big one for the future of the football team, we're glad to provide you a few links that should be helpful.

The next few hours should be busy, so here are some useful resources:

* Richard Davenport's official Signing Day dashboard

* the Recruiting Guy blog

* open thread on RazorBloggers.net (including Twitter updates and other links)

As always, leave your thoughts and observations in the comments section.

Although we're in the middle of a painfully loooooong football-less stretch, a couple of recent news items have prompted us to pop our heads up, Punxsutawney Phil-style, and report on Petrino, Mallet and company.

In the "looking back" category, our favorite college football blog - the always excellent Dr. Saturday - has written an in-depth postmortem of the 2009 season. Definitely read the whole thing, but as a quick taste here's his analysis of the Hogs' 2010 prospects:

This was a frighteningly young team -- Mallett, his top five receivers, three of the top four rushers and four starting linemen are back next fall, along with 11 of the top 15 tacklers on defense -- that regularly lit up opposing defenses and came within a missed field goal in two of the SEC's toughest road venues, Gainesville and Baton Rouge, of winning 10 games. Florida rotates off the schedule next year, and Alabama, Ole Miss and LSU come to Fayetteville, opening the door to turn-the-corner kind of campaign. With average improvement on defense and an upset or two in big games, the Razorbacks could plausibly push 'Bama's three-peat in the SEC West to the wire. But there were also nine returning starters on defense coming into last year, which basically amounted to nothing; who's going to step next time?

And in the "looking ahead" category, National Signing Day for high schoolers is tomorrow. Although the Razorbacks' recruiting efforts have been disappointingly (and surprisingly) paltry if you go by the word of the various experts, there are still a few undecided players who could swing things one way or the other. Richard Davenport, aka "The Recruiting Guy", has put together an online dashboard to show status updates for the various potential Hogs. Will be worth checking that out tomorrow, for sure.

Update: AS360 has a good breakdown of who's who in this year's class, and which names to watch tomorrow.

* Is it just me, or has this already been the most insane football offseason ever? The always-excellent Dr Saturday blog breaks it all down.

* AS360's Jim Harris wrote an excellent post about why hiring a football coach isn't as easy as it once was.

* Adding to that topic, consider the example of Tennessee. That proud program was turned down by a defensive coordinator (albeit a really good one), the Air Force coach and the Duke coach, among others, before hiring a coach from a mid-tier WAC school with losing career record. Now, Derek Dooley may be the second coming of, um, Vince Dooley, but that had to be an excruciating process for Vol fans. My heart goes out to them...wait, no it doesn't.

* New offensive line coach Chris Klenakis comes to us from Nevada, which used the "pistol" formation to rack up gaudy offensive numbers (ex. an average of 344 rushing yards per game in 2009). For people who love X's & O's, here's a great writeup of how the pistol formation works.

* Dialing back the hype just a bit: unlike his counterpart at ESPN.com, SI.com's Andy Staples couldn't find a place for the Hogs in his preseason top 25.

* One thing we learned from the entire Lane Kiffin/UT/USC saga is that Bobby Petrino is still pretty much the worst person ever.

I seem to recall Felix uncorking a similar run or two during his Razorback career. Congrats to Mr. Jones on a fantastic performance against the Eagles last night.

A few links and thoughts to help pass the time while you're counting the minutes until kickoff on September 4:

* In case you've been too consumed by the Leno/O'Brien late night saga to pay attention to football, I have some good news: Ryan Mallett decided to spurn NFL riches and return to Arkansas next year. Fire up the hype machine!

* Speaking of hype machines, ESPN's Mark Schlabach has taken an early shot at a 2010 preseason poll (very early, we know) and put the Hogs at #16. Get ready to hear a lot of quotes like this: "With quarterback Ryan Mallett returning to school, the Razorbacks could be the sleeper team in the SEC."

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News that should delight Razorback fans and send a chill down the spines of SEC opponents: Fayetteville TV station KFSM channel 5 is reporting that Ryan Mallett will return for a junior season at Arkansas. No official word has been given, but KFSM cites four different (unnamed) sources that confirm the news.

More on this story as it develops - a press conference is scheduled for tomorrow, bu in the meantime be sure to read the KFSM article for more details.

Perhaps in an effort to avoid being further tarnished by the Houston Nutt QB "magic", or perhaps because most of Ole Miss' top playmakers won't be around next year anyway, or perhaps because he's already read everything in stock at Square Books, junior Mississippi QB Jevan Snead is going to enter the NFL draft.

A star in the making after his impressive sophomore season, Snead regressed last year to the point where some observers have publicly suggested that going pro is not the right move for him. The Arkansas angle on all this, of course, is if Jevan Snead thinks he's ready for the NFL, what does that say for Ryan Mallett?

At least one expert thinks Mallett is as good as gone, and I have a bad feeling that he's right. Whatever happens, the deadline to declare for the draft is the 15th, so we'll find out soon enough.