Rex Nelson: Poetic Justice for War Memorial This Weekend?

 

Editor’s Note: Each week throughout football season Sporting Life Arkansas excerpts Rex Nelson’s Weekly Arkansas College Football Predictions and links to Rex’s Southern Fried Blog for his full predictions. Rex makes his prediction for every four-year college football team in the state. Today with an extra focus on the game Saturday at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock.

 

Rex Nelson Archive PageIt hurt, didn’t it?

A blocked extra point.

A bad snap on a field goal attempt.

What was about to be a touchdown fumbled into the end zone.

Alabama 14, Arkansas 13.

This is a team that could be 5-1 overall and 2-1 in the Southeastern Conference instead of the team with the longest losing streak in the SEC at 15 games.

The loss to Texas A&M in overtime hurt. The loss to Alabama hurt even more.

But think how far Arkansas has come from the teams that lost 52-0 the previous two seasons to the Crimson Tide.

It would be poetic justice of sorts if the SEC losing streak ended in Little Rock on Saturday at a time when the athletic administration in Fayetteville seems dead set on ending the great Razorback tradition of Little Rock games (though I suspect the final decision again will be made by the UA Board of Trustees, not Jeff Long).

The weather should be perfect Saturday afternoon. I hope War Memorial Stadium is its old rockin’ self.

Meanwhile, anyone who claims to have predicted before the season that the state of Mississippi would be the center of the college football world in the middle of October is a liar.

I don’t know how to say it more plainly. Nobody saw this coming.

Arkansas still gets to take a swing at Mississippi State in Starkville and Ole Miss in Fayetteville.

But first things first: It’s Georgia in Little Rock on Saturday afternoon.

We were 7-0 on the picks last week, making the record 50-4 through the first seven weeks of the season.

Let’s get to the picks for Week 8:

Georgia 28, Arkansas 25 — No Todd Gurley for Georgia? Todd who? Freshman Nick Chubb carried 28 times for 143 yards and one touchdown as Georgia shut out Missouri in Columbia, 34-0. Georgia rolls into the City of Roses with records of 5-1 overall and 3-1 in the SEC. The Bulldogs had the ball for more than 42 minutes against Missouri and finished with 379 yards of offense. Missouri never reached the red zone. Is this the week the Hogs break through? Arkansas did manage 335 yards of offense against Alabama, but only 89 of that came on the ground. Brandon Allen was 21 of 40 passing for 246 yards as Arkansas lost for an eighth consecutive time to Alabama. If Arkansas is going to pull the upset on Saturday, it’s going to have to score in the fourth quarter. The Razorbacks have been outscored 62-0 in the fourth quarter and overtimes of their past five SEC games. And Arkansas has lost 12 consecutive games to ranked teams. The most recent victory over a ranked team came in January 2012 against Kansas State in the Cotton Bowl when that fellow named Petrino was the head Hog.

Southeastern Louisiana 31, UCA 30 — The Bears are 3-0 in the Southland Conference (and 4-3 overall) after a 70-0 thrashing of an awful Houston Baptist team in Conway last Saturday night. It could have been worse. UCA led 56-0 at halftime. It was the sixth-highest margin of victory ever for a UCA team. Three Bear quarterbacks threw touchdown passes. Taylor Reed out of El Dorado was five of five passing in the first half for 106 yards and two touchdowns. UCA ended the game with 287 yards passing and 258 yards rushing. Things will be much more difficult this week as the Bears make the long trip to Hammond, La., to take on a Southeastern Louisiana team that’s also 3-0 in conference play after victories of 63-7 over Incarnate Word, 30-22 over Northwestern State and 61-34 over Lamar. Southeastern is 5-2 overall, having won nonconference games by scores of 44-3 over Jacksonville University and 41-14 over Southern Utah and having lost 35-20 to Tulane and 24-23 to Southeast Missouri. This should be a heck of a game. We’ll give a slight edge to the home team.

For Rex’s complete Arkansas College Football Picks this week, click here.

 

Will War Memorial and the Little Rock fans lift the Hogs to its first SEC win?

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