Bill's Blog: Call of Duty

FAYETTEVILLE — It’s more than a video game.

This week, the Razorbacks remembered those who made the ultimate sacrifice by saluting those who are still wearing the uniforms of the United States. On Veteran’s Day, all military members were allowed free admission to the men’s basketball game on Thursday evening.

At Saturday’s final Fayetteville football game, the athletic department will host participants in the Wounded Warrior project. This is the second year for football to welcome these special veterans who have literally given of themselves for our freedom. While the combination of the daylight savings time change and a 6 p.m. kickoff for ESPNU means no military flyover for this game, veterans and military members know how special they remain to the Arkansas Athletic Department.

Along with a standing offer of free RazorVision membership for any deployed service member, many of the features of our website are extremely important to our distant Hog fans. Before the close of combat operations in Iraq, we profiled for you the game day rituals of Razorback fans in country. And of course, who could forget the world’s largest Razorback built on the roof of one of the helo bases in country. Many remain "in the sandbox" as they say, and are regulars on the interactive blog each week.

Our most sincere thanks, especially to those who gave all their tomorrows to provide us with our today.

HONORING THE SENIORS: Not to overly mix, but Fayetteville says farewell to the class of 2010 and we hope that you will take the time to honor them by making your way to the stadium. Tickets are still on sale for the game, and we’d like to see players that have exemplified what it means to be a Razorback like D.J. Williams and Rudell Crim see a packed house for senior night.

SPEAKING OF D.J.: If you haven’t seen the Razorback Band Spectacular appearance by Williams and several football players — first, what kind of internet rock have you been living under. Second, here’s the link to the RazorVision video.

A CALL TO DUTY FOR FANS: Along with attending Saturday’s game, Ryan Mallett needs your votes for the O’Brien Award. Unlike other college awards (for example, D.J. in the running for the Mackey for tight ends), the O’Brien does factor fan voting. Ryan has moved into the top ten, and I think all Razorback fans can agree the all-time leader in passing yardage and so many other records at Arkansas deserves to make the next step from semifinalist to finalist for the top QB in the country award.

So, use this link — or the links you see on our Facebook page or Twitter feed — and vote for Ryan. You can vote once a day. That means between now and next Friday, you have seven chances to respond to this call of duty.

STREAMING ISSUES THIS WEEK: ESPNU has the game. This means that ESPN3 will not have access. Huh? They are the same company, you say. Right, but due to some contractual arrangements with some of the nation’s largest cable groups to get ESPNU on their systems, U programing had to be made exclusive to the cable channel. That restriction ends soon, but it may be a factor for some fans tonight.

THAT’S OK, JOIN IN THE BLOG: Last week at South Carolina, we had our first dip under 1,000 readers — bit of a surprise with the night game — but I hope this week we’ll push that number back into four digits. Remember, our BlogHogs group is one of the largest in college football.

TWIT TIX WENT TODAY: Along with the special 11:30 start for women’s hoops opener, the TwitTix for UTEP were handed out. If some additional tickets come my way, I’ll have another give away. Watch the Twitter feeds for updates.