Rex Nelson: Arkansas College Football Picks Week 11

 

Each week throughout football season Sporting Life Arkansas excerpts Rex Nelson’s Weekly Arkansas College Football Picks and link to Rex’s Southern Fried Blog for his full predictions. Rex makes his prediction for every four-year college football team in the state. Enjoy.

Rex Nelson Archive PageAfter having gone 13-0 on the picks the previous two weeks, our winning percentage took a bit of a hit last week with a 4-3 record.

UCA continues to be a disappointment. The Bears let us down with a loss to Northwestern State of Louisiana, which had come into the game with just a 3-5 record.

In the Great American Conference, we knew that the Ouachita-Southern Arkansas game would be close. We had picked Ouachita to win by a single point. Playing inspired football in the second half before a large homecoming crowd in Magnolia (while Ouachita was without its star senior running back, Chris Rycraw), the Muleriders won by eight points.

Arkansas Tech upset East Central Oklahoma on the road, something we didn’t see coming. Tech gets a little better with each passing week under its first-year head coach.

As for the Razorbacks, we called for a 40-30 Auburn victory. It was a 35-17 Auburn win that went about as expected.

Unfortunately, these Razorback games are becoming all too easy to pick.

Here’s the good news for Hog fans who are going on the road this weekend: The kickoff is early, and Oxford is a great place to spend a pretty fall afternoon. You can get the game out of the way with lots of time to spare. Eat downtown. Visit Square Books. Go to Rowan Oak. At least make your trip worthwhile even if the game is not.

Arkansas’ current six-game losing streak is its longest in 23 years. If you’re keeping count, that was the start of the glorious Jack Crowe era in Fayetteville.

Auburn continues to be the surprise of the Southeastern Conference. You must give Fort Smith native Gus Malzahn his due for getting the Tigers to 8-1. I’m sure last Saturday’s game was more important to Malzahn than he was letting on. He was 0-3 at Fayetteville as a visiting offensive coordinator. He lost 30-23 in 2008 when he was at Tulsa, he lost 44-23 in 2009 when he was at Auburn and he lost 38-14 in 2011 when he was at Auburn. That’s not to mention all of the Arkansans on the Auburn staff — Tim Horton, J.B. Grimes, Rhett Lashlee.

The other losing streaks of six or more games in Razorback history were in 1950, 1952, 1958 and 1990.

As noted, the record last week was 4-3, making the record 61-13 for the season.

Let’s move on to the picks for Week 11:

Ole Miss 27, Arkansas 17 — Hugh Freeze has done a great job in less than two seasons at Ole Miss. The Rebels had their fans excited with a 3-0 start that included victories over Vanderbilt, Southeast Missouri and Texas. Losses on the road to Alabama and Auburn followed. In one of the year’s most exciting games, Texas A&M dropped Ole Miss to 3-3 with a 41-38 victory at Oxford. Since then, the Rebels have upset LSU, 27-24, and cruised past Paul Petrino’s Idaho squad by a score of 59-14. This will mark the Rebels’ fourth consecutive game in Oxford. Some of their fans have probably never left The Grove during the past month. Ole Miss had an open date last Saturday, meaning the Rebels have had two weeks to heal and prepare for the Razorbacks.

Louisiana-Monroe 38, Arkansas State 34 — Razorback fans know all about UL-M quarterback Kolton Browning. Many thought Browning’s career was over earlier this season when he suffered a quadriceps tear in a loss to Tulane. But Browning, a tough competitor, returned. He completed 21 of his 31 passes last week against Troy for 354 yards and five touchdowns. Browning is the school’s all-time leading passer. Louisiana-Monroe is 5-4. Its victories have come by scores of 48-10 over Grambling, 21-19 over Wake Forest, 21-14 over Texas State, 38-10 over Georgia State and 49-37 over Troy. The losses have been by scores of 34-0 to Oklahoma, 70-7 to Baylor, 31-14 to Tulane and 31-10 to Western Kentucky. ASU heads to Monroe with a 4-4 record, having righted the ship in Mobile last Saturday with a 17-16 victory over South Alabama. The Red Wolves couldn’t score on seven first-half possessions and trailed 6-0 at the half of that game. They went ahead with 6:29 left in the game. Poor South Alabama has now lost five games by a total of 12 points.

For Rex’s complete Arkansas College Football Picks Week 11, click here.

 

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