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Arkansas has one of the strongest fan bases in the nation with the social media presence to match, but that aspect of fandom, typically an advantage for marketing and recruiting, has gone as sour as the Hogs' 2-4 start to the 2019 season.
Since falling to Kentucky 24-20 in Lexington on Saturday, the Razorback football Twitter account has tweeted a mere three times, twice about now-healthy ProHog Hunter Henry and once to announce the kickoff time against Alabama next weekend.
The social media silence from the team is undoubtedly to stymie the number of negative replies from fans who are, with good reason, sick and tired of losing.
Chad Morris has accumulated the 6th-worst SEC losing streak since the inception of the conference and fans are (to put it nicely) displeased by the Razorbacks' continued inability to finish drives and close games.
While coaches around the nation try to keep their players off social media during tough times, Washington State's exuberant head coach Mike Leach, for example, recently banned his players from it as they find themselves in a three-game skid, Coach Morris has a more hands-off approach.
"You hurt with them and you hurt for them," Morris said Monday. "It’s difficult being stuck in a corner. But that doesn’t mean that we’re going to flinch or we’re going to back down because we’re not going to do that. These guys haven’t done that, and I don’t anticipate that happening at all. Our message is that we’re all in this together. It’s not one, it’s not a group, it’s all of us. The only thing to do is put your head down and go to work.”
Whether or not players are tweeting and posting, the negativity from fans fills their feed regardless. Since Saturday's loss, two players have elected to leave the program and former Razorback player Briston Guidry fanned the flames with some vague criticism about how Morris has run the program.
Unfounded transfer rumors, calls for firing of coaches, couch coaches and all that noise can be hard to ignore. To some players like true freshman wide receiver Treylon Burks, a victim of said transfer rumors, social media is really a non-factor, but to others it's just about adopting a mindset.
“I just tune it out,” cornerback Jarques McClellion said Tuesday. "I don’t pay it no attention at all. I look at it as y’all are giving me comments and y’all are not waking up at 5:30 in the morning and coming to 6 a.m. workouts, so why should I listen to what you have to say. I just make sure I listen to my coaches and my teammates.”
"We don’t really entertain the noise," starting safety Joe Foucha echoed. "People are going to say what they want to say, that’s really inevitable. I really stay off Twitter. If you’ve noticed, I haven’t Tweeted in a couple of days because I’m still locked in on the main goal."
Team leaders and veterans who've been through it before have the tough job of keeping morale in the building high. Arkansas has one of the youngest teams in the SEC and they play more true freshmen than anyone else.
"I just talked to the young guys and make sure they know that everything is going to be straight and we are not going to be just down in the dumps,” McClellion said. “We are always going to be up. This locker room is still going to be the same whether we win or lose. If we lose a game, we are going to make sure we learn our lesson from it. That is the biggest thing we have to do.”
Last year, it was clear the noise and negativity got to the players. The Hogs put up just six points in their final two games of the season against Miss. St and Missouri. This year, with half a season (including four top-25 opponents) to play, coaches and players insist it won't be the same.
"It’s a big difference," Foucha added Tuesday. "We are still committed to winning. We haven’t given up. We are still brothers, no one is fussing at each other."
"Last year we would have had people blaming, complaining, talking just bad noise," starting tight end C.J. O'Grady commented. "This year everybody, they are still coming together and we’re being the same people bringing it every day. Right after the game Saturday we came in Sunday and we practiced hard, and stayed consistent. We had great energy and everybody was flying around and it was positive energy all around."
There have been a few deleted tweets and aired out frustrations, but Saturday is a new day to compete and the Hogs know no amount of tweeting is going to help—it takes 100 percent focus to win.
"We can't talk about it, you've got to show it," senior defensive end Gabe Richardson said. "Continue to push forward. You've got to line up and play the best you can because if you don't, that's what they're gonna see. There's no quit in us."
"The fans think we might not be giving our best, but at the end of the day...we are all we have whether we win or lose," McClellion said. "If we win, fans from Cali to New York are all going to cheer for us. If we lose, it’s just us. We make sure we’re not breaking apart. We’re making sure we just stick together, regardless. This is family at the end of the day."
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