Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats: Broyles SWOT analysis was the best

Frank Broyles was great at many things, and he was extraordinary in his pre-season interviews.

It’s our Throwback Thursday (#TBT) segment and thanks to KATV Ch. 7 and the Pryor Center for Oral and Visual History, we can show you two video clips that capture the master in his element. With Arkansas set to kick off the 2019 football season, we’re hoping these clips will get the fans hyped as only a Hog fan can be ahead of Game 1.

In the first clip, Broyles is talking with legendary KATV sports anchor Bud Campbell ahead of the Red-White Spring game about the first game of the 1970 football season. The Razorbacks would be preseason No. 4 in the fall rankings having come off the heartbreaking 1969 season and that immortal Texas game – the “Game of the Century” – attended by President Richard Nixon in which the Hogs lost 15-14 under still dubious officiating.

The 1970 season had the Hogs facing No. 10 Stanford University in a season opener at War Memorial Stadium. Broyles says in the interview that he didn’t even want to watch the game film because Stanford was so good.

He also discusses his kicking game woes (lots of injuries) and his pick to lead kick-off and punt returns, a young player who became future UA Hall of Fame running back Jon Richardson.

“Ah-wear-ness.”

You’ve got to love how Broyles can charm when he says he turned off the film of Stanford-UCLA after the first quarter: “I want to have some morale when I come out on the field… This is not publicity to try to draw a crowd, they’re a great football team.”

Indeed they were.

Led by the man who would win the Heisman Trophy that year – quarterback Jim Plunkett – Stanford defeated Arkansas 34-28, but the Hogs ran the table the rest of the season winning every game by 14 points or more until they squared off against No. 1 Texas in the season finale. They stomped us 42-11 and we finished the 1970 season 9-2 and ranked No. 11.

There were some greats on that 1970 Arkansas team, including Bill Montgomery, Joe Ferguson, Chuck Dicus, Dick Bumpas, Bruce James, Mike Boschetti, Bill Burnett, and even an assistant coach who would go on to Super Bowl and NASCAR fame, Joe Gibbs.

In this second news clip, Broyles is gearing up for the 1976 football season, his last year as the Razorbacks head coach. He had reservations about his secondary, but there were plenty of returning, experienced players on defense, although the offense was young.

Arkansas got off to a pretty good start in Broyles’ 19th and final season as the Head Hog. They were 5-1, with only a loss to Tulsa, and were ranked 12th in the country by midseason. They tied Baylor on November 6th and hit the skids the rest of the year losing four in a row to finish with a 5-5-1 record.

That ’76 team had some incredible talent on it that became the nucleus for the following season’s 11-1 run under first year coach, Lou Holtz. To name a few: Ron Calcagni, Ben Cowins, Robert Farrell, Leotis Harris, Dan Hampton, Jimmy Walker, and Steve Little.

As for those coaches that Broyles was bragging about for his final season, they included the likes of Jimmy Johnson, Ken Turner and Harold Horton. There was even a future Razorback head football coach on the ’76 team, Houston Nutt.

Hard to believe these clips are almost 50 years old. It was a golden era of Razorback football and Frank Broyles’ on-camera performances were part of what made it golden.