HOOVER, Ala. — He has always been this way. Always spoke his mind, always made it count.
Only now, after quickly rebuilding and reenergizing Arkansas, does it begin to carry more weight from the biggest stage in college football.
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If Steve Spurrier were an offensive lineman, he’d be Bret Bielema.
“You see this body,” Bielema said. “I’m not doing cartwheels.”
But he sure as hell was dancing all over pertinent topics that must be addressed — and are too often overlooked by most coaches.
From player behavior to recruiting and social media to cost of attendance stipends, Bielema fired away at topics most wouldn’t touch. Why, you ask?
Because the greater good is more important than the fortunate few.
“Sometimes I say things that people don’t necessarily like,” Bielema said. “Does that make it wrong?”
If that’s wrong, you don’t want to be right. Check out these Bielema observations:
On player behavior: “You recruit your own problems. If you want to recruit a young man who is going to cause you to have gray hair or make you stay awake on Friday night or make you have an issue that you don’t want to deal with, then you recruit him. If you want somebody of high character and value, now you’re going to build something that matters.”
On cost of attendance stipends: "What I’m happy for is young men get to have a little money in their pocket to do some great things. But you have a kid that’s never had money in his pocket, and all of a sudden he’s got $2,000, that’s dangerous. That leads to dumb decisions.”
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On social media and recruiting: “Just because you’re a great player in the United States, it doesn’t mean Arkansas is going to recruit you. We have a social media background screening that you have to go through, and if you have a social media nickname or something on your Twitter account that makes me sick, I’m not going to recruit you. It’s just how I choose to run our program. I’m never going to waver in that.”
It’s easier these days for Bielema to speak his mind because Arkansas isn’t the trainwreck of a program it was when he arrived in 2013. Back then Arkansas was digging out from Bobby Petrino and John L. Smith and the product was awful and the future was bleak.
By the end of Bielema’s second season last year, “not a lot of people wanted to play Arkansas,” he said. By the end of last season, Arkansas was mauling former Southwest Conference rival Texas and taking a knee at the Longhorns’ two to end the game.
“It was a proud moment,” Bielema said. “Borderline erotic.”
This is what winning has done for Bielema and Arkansas. Two years ago, he would have been laughed out of SEC Media Days (not that he’d care) with this sort of confidence and bravado.
Now when he talks about the SEC moving the LSU rivalry game away from Thanksgiving weekend, he can say he’s disappointed about it — and it holds weight. Now when he talks about how the SEC replaced that game with the Missouri game, and that it’s still important because, “At some point, when we’re playing in Atlanta, it will give us an extra day of preparation” — and it holds weight.
Anyone who watched Arkansas play last season; who saw the Hogs lose by one point to Alabama, losing in overtime to Texas A&M and lose by one score to Mississippi State and Missouri, knows this team with 18 returning starters and a fifth-year senior quarterback returning is thisclose from something spectacular happening.
“The number one thing that our players have bought into is they realize what I’m saying is really going to get them where they want to be,” Bielema said.
Now he’s simply preaching on a bigger stage.