Tag: Greg Spencer

For Arkansas football, the long arc from perennial contender to irrelevance

A giant Razorback flag hypes up University of Arkansas fans during a game at Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville.

As we recorded the most recent edition of the 3 Old Geezers podcast, the subject turned to college football and the over/under for number of wins for OU and OSU in the coming season.

So, as a life-long University of Arkansas fan, I decided to weigh in with my over/under prediction for the Hogs.

“Why are we even talking about Arkansas any more?” fellow Geezer Ed Godfrey demanded. “They are irrelevant in football.”

Ouch! I went into defensive mode.

“They will be relevant … some day,” I stammered.

Then fellow Geezer Steve Buck challenged me with an insightful question.

“How is that going to happen, Jim?”

I grasped for the only credible answer that I could come up with.

“They buy players,” I replied. “If Texas Tech can buy players, why can’t Arkansas use some of that Sam Walton money and buy some good players.”

Whew. These are dark days in the Ozarks for the Razorbacks and their fans. They went 2-12 last year and ended the season with an interim coach after firing Sam Pittman midseason.

And in the last decade, the Hogs have gone 55-80 and had 5 head coaches, if you count two interim coaches over that span. Their best coach over the past 10 years might have been Brett Bielema, who went 8-5 in 2015 and 7-6 in 2016 before getting fired after a 4-8 season in 2017.

Maybe Arkansas’s athletic overlords didn’t realize what they had in Bielema, who has gone 19-7 over the past two seasons while leading lowly Illinois.

Or, perhaps, they didn’t realize that Arkansas was slowly becoming irrelevant in college football and Southeast Conference play.

Yes, I said the ‘i’ word.

I am an Arkansas native and fondly recall that the Hogs were a major player on the national college football stage under Frank Broyles in the ’60s and ’70s, followed by Lou Holtz in the ’70s and ’80s and then with Ken Hatfield from 1984-89.

But that was then. These are now the dark days for the Arkansas program, and the Hogs seem to have hit the bottom rung of college football. I mean, apparently Vanderbilt has passed Arkansas in the national pecking order.

By contrast, Texas Tech made itself a contender in 2025 by investing in a talented roster with the financial support of billionaire oil and gas entrepreneur and alumnus Cody Campbell. The Red Raiders went 12-2 last year and made the college football playoffs in the fourth season under Joey McGuire.

That makes me wonder why Arkansas can’t play that financial game and build a winner in the current free agent era of college football. Players are free to transfer to any other school after any season and can earn multi-million dollar salaries.

If athletes are willing to take their talents to the flatlands of Lubbock, Texas, I’m pretty sure they would love Fayetteville, Ark., by comparison. Arkansas has a beautiful campus with facilities that are on par with any peer school.

If only the pot of money was there.

So, I asked my friend Greg Spencer, a Springdale, Ark., resident, Arkansas alum and long-time season ticket holder, why haven’t the Razorbacks gone big into roster payroll, assuming they haven’t.

“I really don’t know,” Greg replied. “The rules have changed so much since the courts decided that the players needed to be rewarded to be there.”

Greg does have some thoughts on how players can be compensated in a manner that make more sense.

“Maybe the players need to be rewarded after they have performed,” he said. “How about a flat fee for showing up, and a reward for contribution?”

So, then Arkansas might become an ongoing success once again, I asked?

“Not on a continuing basis,” he said.

Oh, thanks for the optimism, Greg.

One caveat for Razorback fans is that the Hogs now play in the rugged Southeastern Conference, when the state of Texas was their most fertile recruiting ground back in their Southwest Conference days. Not sure how many talented Texas high schoolers are looking to the Ozarks these days.

However, I’m afraid that the window of roster-investment opportunity may be closing on the Hogs. Legislation known as the Protect College Sports Act is making its way through Congress with the potential to rein in spending, among other impacts.

The Athletic summed up the legislation’s potential in a recent newsletter:

“The bill would allow the NCAA to limit transfers and eligibility, enforce a spending cap, give conferences the ability to pool their television rights and prevent coaches from leaving their teams before the end of the season. It also includes language to limit future power-conference realignment and prevent a private equity-backed ‘super league.'”

Then again, all that might level up the playing field for the Hogs.

You can read more about the Protect College Sports Act here (subscription required)

So a new college football season approaches and brings optimism with it to fans everywhere, even in the Ozarks. Here’s hoping my Razorbacks begin the long road back from ‘irrelevance’ in the 2026 season.

Wait a minute. It just occurred to me that my fellow Geezers never let me actually predict Arkansas’ 2026 record. I’m predicting a dramatic improvement to 6-6 under new coach Ryan Silverfield, whom they lured from Memphis. Silverfield completed his Memphis tenure with a 50-25 overall record.

Take that, Geezers. Wooo Pig Sooie!

BONUS CONTENT — If you aren’t familiar with the 3 Old Geezers podcast, it’s produced by three (mostly) senior citizens who bring offbeat, grumpy and often times unintentionally humorous perspective about sports and world in general. The hosts are Steve Buck, who bills himself as Cameron University’s last college football play-by-play announcer, along with Ed Godfrey and Jim Stafford, two retired newspaper reporters. I invite you to sample an episode here.

The Populous impact on OKC sports venues & my friend, Brady Spencer

Brady and John
Brady Spencer with his son, John, outside Kansas City’s Union Station during the 2023 NFL draft.

A recent update in The Oklahoman newspaper on the new OG&E Coliseum under construction at the State Fairgrounds identified it as a venue designed by a firm named “Populous.”

In an even more recent story, I learned that Populous has been hired to design the new $71 million soccer stadium just south of OKC’s Bricktown.

I think I’m noticing a trend.

There’s more.

I learned from other sources that Populous designed the fabulous OKC Convention Center, which opened in 2020. And Populous was hired to design Paycom Center’s upgrades in 2022.

Populous also is among the candidates to design OKC’s new $1 billion(ish) arena that will soon be built on the site of what was once known as The Myriad. It’s right across the street from Paycom Center.

So, what exactly is Populous?

Turns out, it is an international architecture firm and the nation’s leading (by revenue) sports architecture company, based in Kansas City, Mo.

Screenshot

Populous has satellite offices around the world — including Norman, OK — and boasts a portfolio of more than 3,000 projects globally, including Wembley Stadium, T-Mobile Arena, Oriole Park at Camden Yards and many others.

Actually, Populous has been on my personal radar for quite some time because a close family friend named Brady Spencer is a Senior Principal/Senior Architect with the firm in its Kansas City office.

Some background:

I moved to Mena, Ark., in the summer of 1972, a year out of high school, and became acquainted with Greg and Lynelle Spencer.

At a banquet in the fall of 1972, they told me they were expecting their first child, who turned out to be Brady. They have another adult son, Matthew, who lives in Georgia.

The Spencers relocated to Springdale, Ark., when Brady was in the fourth grade, so most of his youth was spent in Northwest Arkansas. I stayed in touch with the Spencer family across the years.

So, after seeing the Populous-OKC link, I decided to call Brady and ask him about his career and role with Populous.

An avid fan of University of Arkansas sports as a child — “I remember going to Razorback football games with Dad” — Brady naturally enrolled at the Fayetteville school after high school.

Brady majored in architecture and graduated from the University of Arkansas School of Architecture in 1996. He told me that he began contemplating post-graduation employment and location in the fourth year of the five-year architectural program.

Brady settled on Kansas City and joined what was then known as HOK-Sports in 1996. He’s been with the firm ever since, although it evolved into Populous in 2009 when he and a group of fellow HOK architects spun out into their own company they called Populous.

“This last May was my 28th anniversary with the firm,” he told me.

Along the way, Brady married (Joanie), had a son (John), earned a Master of Architecture Management from the University of Kansas and has been on the design team for some of the nation’s most notable sports venues.

Among them have been NRG Stadium in Houston, State Farm Stadium in Phoenix, Arrowhead Stadium renovation in Kansas City, Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla., and many others.

“I’ve focused on NFL stadiums and some college football,” Brady said. “I’ve worked with our Populous Event team that partners with the NFL on (venue oversight for) 21 Super Bowls. It’s most rewarding doing it in a stadium that I designed.”

Back in 2009, his alma mater came calling for renovations and updates on facilities across the University of Arkansas campus, including Razorback Stadium. Brady is not only an alum, but football season ticket holder.

“That one was near and dear to my heart, having grown up there and gone to school there,” he said. “I was just there yesterday (Sept. 14) when John and I went to the Razorback game. It’s fun to see the stadium every time I go back to a game.”

While Brady Spencer has not been directly involved in any of the OKC projects — the Fairgrounds Arena, the OKC Convention Center, the Paycom Center renovations, the upcoming soccer venue — he told me he’s aware of the Populous role in all of them.

“The thing about all our projects, it’s not ever just one person,” he said. “It always takes a team of us to complete.”

I’d call that 28 years of institutional knowledge.