Each week throughout football season Sporting Life Arkansas excerpts Rex Nelson’s Weekly Arkansas College Football Picks and links to Rex’s Southern Fried Blog for his full predictions. Rex makes his prediction for every NCAA Division I and Division II college football team in the state. Here are the week 10 college football picks. Enjoy.
I needed a week like last week.
I went 9-0 on the college football picks, the first time to run the table this season.
There was no Razorback game to fret over.
Meanwhile, Coach Blake Anderson of Arkansas State had publicly chastised me at the Little Rock Touchdown Club for picking his Red Wolves to lose their first two Sun Belt Conference games. So I went with ASU against Louisiana-Monroe, and the Red Wolves came through in a big way. ASU has now won 12 consecutive conference games.
UCA continues to roll. Wouldn’t it be something if the Bears could come into their Nov. 19 game at Sam Houston State (the No. 1 team nationally in the FCS) undefeated in Southland Conference play?
About the only sure thing has been picking UAPB to lose, but this week’s game is more challenging to select since the Golden Lions take on a Mississippi Valley State team that’s 0-8.
We also picked all six Arkansas teams from the Great American Conference to post victories over the GAC teams from Oklahoma, and the Arkansas teams (all of whom were playing at home) did just that.
This week, the six Arkansas teams in the GAC travel to Oklahoma. Don’t expect another Natural State sweep.
We’re now 52-20 for the season.
Let’s get to the picks for Week 10:
Florida 34, Arkansas 28 — Florida improved to 6-1 overall and 4-1 in the Southeastern Conference with a 24-10 victory over Georgia in the game at Jacksonville, Fla., that’s billed as the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party. Georgia continues to struggle in its first year under Kirby Smart, falling to 4-4 overall and 2-4 in the SEC. Smart is now just 1-6 as a player and coach in this series. Florida has won four of the past five games in the series against Georgia and 21 of the past 27. Arkansas now must contend with a Florida defense that held Georgia to only 164 yards of offense. The Hogs find themselves 1-3 in SEC play with none of the three losses having been close. The game is in Fayetteville, though, a factor that hopefully will let Arkansas hang around until late in the game with a chance to win. Florida’s only loss came on Sept. 24 at Tennessee, 38-28. The wins have been by scores of 24-7 over Massachusetts, 45-7 over Kentucky, 32-0 over North Texas, 13-6 over Vanderbilt, 40-14 over Missouri and, as noted, 24-10 over Georgia.
Arkansas State 36, Georgia State 26 — The Red Wolves head east to Atlanta for a Thursday night game against Georgia State. In the 51-10 thrashing of Louisiana-Monroe at Jonesboro last Saturday night, ASU had 434 yards of offense and no turnovers. Red Wolf teams have defeated Louisiana-Monroe squads five consecutive times by two touchdowns or more. The ASU offense scored six touchdowns on eight first-half possessions and now seems to be hitting its stride as it comes into the game at the Georgia Dome against 2-6 Georgia State. It has been quite a turnaround for a team that went 0-4 in nonconference play (including a loss in Jonesboro to UCA) and is now 3-0 in Sun Belt action. Georgia State’s two wins have been by scores of 41-21 over Texas State and 31-6 over Tennessee-Martin. The losses have been by scores of 31-21 to Ball State, 48-14 to Air Force, 23-17 to Wisconsin, 17-3 to Appalachian State, 31-21 to Troy and 13-10 to South Alabama.
UCA 31, Stephen F. Austin 27 — The Bears travel to the piney woods of east Texas to take on a Stephen F. Austin team coached by former UCA head man Clint Conque and quarterbacked by Conque’s son, Zach, who played his high school football at Little Rock Catholic. UCA was hitting on all cylinders at Hammond, La., last Saturday in its 45-10 victory over Southeastern Louisiana. The game was scoreless after one quarter, but the Bears outscored Southeastern 24-3 in the second quarter and never looked back. The UCA defense allowed just 78 yards rushing. Stephen F. Austin is 4-4 with wins of 30-24 over West Alabama (an NCAA Division II team), 31-28 over McNeese State, 41-30 over Abilene Christian and 42-19 over Incarnate Word. The losses have come by scores of 69-17 to Texas Tech, 63-28 to Sam Houston State, 35-28 to Nicholls State and 58-34 to Southeastern Louisiana.
To see all of the week 10 college football picks, click here.
Loading ...
