On a day where Arkansas lost its best linebacker Alonzo Highsmith for the season to foot surgery, there is still a sense of optimism inside the Broyles Center
One win over a bad Auburn team isn't going to make the pain of 2012 go away for Arkansas. But looking at what the Hogs have coming up, suddenly making a bowl game doesn't seem that impossible any more.
Quarterback Tyler Wilson hinted at that Monday when he spoke to the media.
“There’s a number of games coming up where we can get a streak going and put this back together,” said Wilson.
When 5NEWS asked him what he meant by that, he tried not to get a head of himself.
“Wins. Rattle a few wins together and we have an opportunity to do that against Kentucky. So we're going to put some wins together. Maybe that's a better terminology.”
But it’s almost impossible for fans, let alone the team, to not be thinking about getting to six wins and making a bowl game.
“You can't foreshadow some events but we're worried about Kentucky. Let's get to three wins and then we'll start thinking about it a little bit,” said Wilson.
There's still a lot of problems with this team that won't magically go away, but here's the reason for optimism. Arkansas needs four more wins to get bowl eligible. They should be favored in the next three games in Kentucky, Ole Miss and Tulsa all at home.
Kentucky has proven they are the worse team in the SEC. Their lone win on the year came against Kent St. and they had an ugly loss to Western Kentucky.
Ole Miss looks like the hardest win in this stretch. They played Texas A&M close and hung with Alabama in the first half.
Tulsa is 5-1, but they have had three straight close games against Conference USA and MWC oppontents.
If they somehow win all those (and yes they almost certainly will be favored) then they would need one more win. That's the hard part.
South Carolina is number three in the country and playing great defense. Mississippi State is also undefeated and playing solid all around. Both of those are on the road. If they lose those, there's still LSU the last game of the year, a team who looked very beatable even for this Hogs team in Saturday's loss at Florida.
Four more wins in six chances.
Unlikely? Yes.
Impossible? No.