As it’s been mentioned here already, the things done so far by Jeff Long are super sweet. I don’t think that I’m the only one on the “he’s really cool” bandwagon, either. In his latest effort to bring Arkansas back into line with our peers in the SEC, and nationally, the two old lame web sites HogWired.com and LadyBacks.com (always sounded like a fetish site, to me) have been consolidated into one at ArkansasRazorbacks.com.

I’ve already made mention of how I’m not a fan thus far, but I decided that I should dig a little bit deeper into this and then take a look at how we rank amongst the rest of the SEC.

First off, the site is so cluttered that it’s very hard to figure out where I’m supposed to look (see thumbnail at the right for usage of space — red = content, yellow = navigation, green = ad space, blue = premium content and purple = wtf). Users of the site are probably coming here for one reason — content. So when you pepper the site with more ad blocks than content, something is wrong (for a University sponsored site, do we really need that much ad revenue?). Additionally, there’s too much white. Our colors aren’t White and Cardinal, they’re Cardinal and White. And thirdly, we’re at the bottom when compared to our frakin’ enemies!

SEC East
1. Tennessee — I love to hate the Vols, but they’re far and above the best in the SEC with their site. They haven’t used the all-too-common CSTV or JumpTV and I applaud them for that. Great visuals + content focus and balance of colors = winner.
2. South Carolina — Here’s what you can do to a template site and make it still interesting to look at. There still a bit of ads, but the content is easy to access and read. The header makes my loins kinda burn.
3. Kentucky — Another player that’s not using the main template sites. This could rival Tennessee as one of the classier designs, but more than 50% of the top of the site is banner ads. Super clean, though. I’d get fresh with it.
4. Florida — The site screams Florida and has around 4ish banners. Nice. Other than that, nothing too exciting to look at. Maybe Tebow should redesign it.
5. Georgia — Take the Florida site and add a bunch of ads and wham-o. That’s not a good thing.
6. Vanderbilt — This site is about as exciting as a Vanderbilt football team.

SEC West
1. Auburn — When I look at this page, I see Auburn-focused stuff in the top-left third, nice work. Good use of color, too. Countdown ticker is a nice touch, but the main gist here is content, content, content.
2. LSU — What an Arkansas page could look like if done better. Good use of color and separation here. More content than banners is a plus.
3. Alabama — A much cleaner approach for content, well organized. But can we get some professional photography? iPod Phone photos won’t cut it.
4. Mississippi State — It’s like Alabama’s with pods and pod shadows. While it’s clean, there’s too much going on here.
5. Ole Miss — With less room and more banners than Arkansas’ site, Ole Miss barely beats us out due to a more colorful design. The lack of content with headlines is awful and the use of the “MORE” links is a nice touch if you’re looking to have a lame site. Nutt lucked out (I guess).
6. Arkansas — See above. Worst of the bunch. Can’t even correctly utilize a template that half the entire conference uses. Lack of a favicon is lousy.

Let’s applaud Jeff Long for consolidating the sites, but let’s keep on him to get something out there that us Hog fans deserve!