FanHouse Arkansas

Last Year: 10-4 (7-1 SEC)

Fans Are: ...hoping that when they pull their heads out of the sand things aren't as bad as they looked in the off-season.

Expectations: When McFadden laces up, no expectations are unreasonable. That said, the defense is in flux, the offense will be working with a new QB and OC, and Arkansas needs to get some consistency and stability ASAP if they want to hit 10 wins again in 2007.

Questions:

1. No, seriously, what on earth is going on in Arkansas?

Plane crashes, protests, raises, transfers, departures, and so on. Oh, and some football. Things seem to have settled down, but a tumultuous off-season is creating some questions for the reigning SEC West Champs. The sum and substance of it all is this, though: if Arkansas repeats as SEC West Champs, and they definitely can, Houston Nutt deserves coach of the year honors for filling the gaps and keeping the players focused on the practice field.

Nothing's been formally announced, but signs seem to indicate that ballyhooed former Arkansas quarterback Mitch Mustain is strongly considering transferring to USC.

He visits USC this week and has already been briefed in specifics what his situation will be like.

Arkansas quarterback Mitch Mustain arrives shortly and there won't be any misunderstandings, especially after he is on the verge of transferring after one season.

"We've laid it out to him," a source said. "Plain and simple. We aren't sugarcoating anything."

Doesn't sound like USC is making any promises or guarantees.

With that out of the way, we should soon see whether or not he ends up in Los Angeles. I'm guessing both parties learned a few lessons from his Arkansas experience and the consequences of unfulfilled guarantees. Mustain's former high school and Arkansas teammate Damian Williams also recently transferred to USC.

As a transfer he would have to sit a year before regaining eligibility as a redshirt sophomore in 2008. At that point John David Booty will have graduated and his competition will be redshirt junior Mark Sanchez and this year's recruit Aaron Corp who would be a redshirt freshman or a true sophomore.

Continuing our moment of idle speculation here, this interesting trivia should be noted: if Mustain indeed transfers to USC, the Trojans will have signed each of the last four Parade Magazine All America Players of the Year. They are tailback Joe McKnight (who shares the award this year with Notre Dame-bound quarterback Jimmy Clausen), Mustain, quarterback Mark Sanchez and offensive lineman Jeff Byers.

Mustain famously ran for a touchdown after completing a 41-yard pass against USC in his first collegiate appearance last year.