Darren McFadden won the Doak Walker award, annually given to the nation's best running back, last night in Orlando, Fla. It marks the first time for an Arkansas back to receive the award, and one of the few times an Southeastern Conference player has won.

While I admit McFadden is the best player to come through Arkansas in my lifetime, I wonder how much more dangerous he'd be if the Razorbacks had a passing attack to go with its ground game. Though Houston Nutt brought in Guz Malzahn to improve the balance between run and pass, Arkansas ended up in the same position as last year's SEC mark - first in the run, 11th in the pass.

Nutt won SEC Coach of the Year and McFadden took SEC Player of the Year honors this past week. I'm proud of them, but I wouldn't have voted Nutt for the position. That honor should have gone to Rich Brooks of Kentucky, who went from firing fodder to a bowl game for the first time since the Tim Couch era.

Although Nutt gained his first 10-win season at Arkansas, it shouldn't have been so surprising. Granted, if you had told me the Razorbacks would be in BCS contention in November, I'd probably have laughed, but historically, Arkansas wins running the ball behind a senior-laden offensive line. Look up front and the Hogs will graduate over half the starting line next spring.

Maybe that will get Nutt to think about actually improving the passing game over the spring. Although he apparently does not always understand when to keep his mouth shut, Mitch Mustain went 8-0 as a first-year starter. He represents the future of Arkansas football if there's going to be a future on the national scale. I can understand Nutt pulling him for not taking care of the ball in the South Carolina game, but I cannot understand not using Mustain with championship aspirations on the line.

I guess I'll get to find out New Year's Day. An old friend called out of the blue to ask if I wanted tickets to the Capital One Bowl as he lives in Tampa Bay. After promising my wife that she doesn't have to buy me a Christmas present, we accepted the offer to go to Florida during the holidaze. It doesn't hurt that Ron wants to see the tape of the wedding and Tanya wants to show it.

All-in-all, it's a nice change-of-pace to what was starting to look like a crazy December. Apparently my churning stomach had nothing to do with Razorback football, but with gall stones. I'm about to drive to a doctor to see about getting them removed. I wonder if he also can perform a frontal lobotomy on Nutt?