Rex Nelson: Arkansas College Football Picks Week 8

 

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 PageI haven’t talked to too many people in Arkansas who are looking forward to this week’s Arkansas-Alabama game.

How could they given the 52-7 debacle in Fayetteville last Saturday?

To review:

– South Carolina led 43:25 to 16:35 in time of possession.

– South Carolina led 537 to 248 in total offense.

– South Carolina had 32 first downs. Arkansas had seven.

– South Carolina ran 89 plays. Arkansas ran just 37, a number that’s hard to believe given today’s style of college football.

Brandon Allen was just four of 12 passing for 30 yards. Connor Shaw for South Carolina went 19 of 28 for 219 yards and three touchdowns.

It was Bret Bielema’s worst loss as a head coach, a record that might only last until this Saturday (though Nick Saban is less likely than Steve Superior to run up the score on a downtrodden opponent).

Are you looking for a silver lining?

Well, Arkansas leads the series against South Carolina, 13-9. Steve Spurrier is 4-5 at South Carolina against Arkansas (he was 3-0 against the Hogs at Florida).

It’s not just the Razorbacks who are losing games. This is not shaping up to be the kind of year that last year was in college football in this state. If you take the Hogs out of the equation, 2012 might have been the greatest college football year in the state’s history.

Arkansas State won a conference championship and a bowl game.

UCA won a conference championship and earned a playoff bid.

UAPB won a conference championship.

Henderson won a conference championship, went 10-0 in the regular season and made the playoffs.

Harding went 9-1 in the regular season and made the playoffs.

Southern Arkansas went 8-2 in the regular season and went to a bowl game.

This year is different.

As we reach the middle of October, there are only three of the 12 college football teams in Arkansas with winning records (and two of them are in Arkadelphia).

Henderson is 6-0, Ouachita is 5-0 and Harding is 4-1.

Ouachita and Harding play Saturday afternoon in Arkadelphia in the biggest game to this point of the season in the Great American Conference.

We were 6-2 on the picks last week, making the record 44-10 for the season.

On to my Arkansas college football picks Week 8…

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