Just saw the CBS Sports piece on SEC draft picks and it got me thinking about something that's been bugging me all spring. We got North Alabama coming to Fayetteville this fall and I cannot tell you the last time I felt that kind of buzz about a home opener. Not because of the opponent, Lord knows, but because it takes me back to the old days when War Memorial Stadium would shake during those September afternoons.
I remember sitting in the north end zone in 1988 when we hosted Ole Miss and the whole place felt like it was breathing. That old stadium had cracks in the concrete and the bathrooms were terrible but you could feel the history in every seat. Now we got this beautiful palace on the hill and it's great for recruiting, sure, but something got lost when we moved everything to Fayetteville. The Little Rock games had a different soul.
These kids running around in spring practice right now have no idea what it was like when the Hog Call would echo off those old metal bleachers. The portal kids transferring in probably think a stadium is just a facility. They never sat in the student section when it was 95 degrees and the band was playing the fight song so loud your ears rang for three days. That was real. That was Arkansas football before everything got sanitized and corporate.