Courtesy: Bakervscarr

I feel good about this one.

Arkansas hosts the South Carolina Gamecocks Saturday, and though it happens rarely, I already have a feeling how this one is going to go. South Carolina is beaten up, coming off a loss, and are facing their second consecutive road game against an SEC opponent in a “must-win” game scenario.

Arkansas found itself in this exact scenario when it traveled to Oxford to play Ole Miss, and we all know how that worked out.

If things play out the way I think they should, Arkansas will take advantage of the suspension of FS Chris Culliver and pick on whoever is playing in his place. If Mallett is able to get the ball to Joe Adams over the middle of the field, and Michael Smith can get going early, either Greg Childs or Jarius Wright could have a field day on deep passes out of play action. [read more]

Fayetteville, AR -- (Sports Network) - The Arkansas Razorbacks scored 49 unanswered points to start and never looked back as they crushed the Eastern Michigan Eagles, 63-27, in non-conference play at DWR Razorback Stadium.

Ryan Mallett missed on just two of his 16 pass attempts for the Razorbacks (4-4), leading to 248 yards and three touchdowns for the home team as they snapped a two-game slide. Broderick Green accounted for a game-high 134 yards and two touchdowns on a mere nine carries, while Knile Davis gained another 59 yards on the ground and also scored a pair of TDs.

The Eagles (0-8), who have now dropped all eight games this season, were led by Kyle McMahon who converted 10-of-19 passes for 231 yards and three touchdowns in the setback. Dwayne Priest chipped in a team-best 66 rushing yards and a score on 21 attempts. [read more]

Arkansas defensive tackle Zach Stadther admits he doesn't want to again spend his winter break at home.

It's not so much that he has a problem with seeing his family for the holidays. He'd just rather have a bowl game to prepare for than hang out in Little Rock for three weeks like he did last December.

"I want to go to a bowl game. I want to get a ring on my finger," Stadther said. "I want to show the world that Arkansas football is the big-time school to come to."

Before the season began, the Razorbacks had much loftier goals than simply getting the six wins needed to become bowl eligible.

They hoped to prove the critics wrong and become a darkhorse in the Southeastern Conference race.

However, as Arkansas heads into today's 6 p.m. game against Eastern Michigan (0-7) in Reynolds Razorback Stadium, the Hogs find themselves with the same record they had after seven games last season. While they've made strides on offense and defense, they're still 3-4 and at the bottom of the SEC West standings. [read more]

The Arkansas Razorbacks were riding high on a close game against the Florida Gators and convincing wins over Auburn and Texas A&M. That all came crashing down on Saturday in Oxford when the Arkansas Razorbacks fell 30-17 to Houston Nutt and his Ole Miss Rebels.

With all the hype surrounding the matchup between Bobby Petrino and Houston Nutt – Ryan Mallett and Jevan Snead – one Razorback and one Rebel – the day ended up being all about Dexter McCluster and Houston Nutt’s play calling. The stretch, the draw and the short pass destroyed the Arkansas defense all day long. Which begs the question many Hog fans were asking post-game – did Willy Robinson watch ANY tape on Ole Miss before kickoff on Saturday? It is obvious that Nutt’s playbook is not the most complicated piece of offensive literature in college football; yet the Rebels earned first down after first down with 553 yards on Saturday – which, by the way, was more than the Rebels have put on a team since 2004.

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Dexter McCluster set career highs in rushing and receiving, and Jevan Snead threw for a career-high 332 yards to lead Mississippi to a 30-17 victory over Arkansas on Saturday.

Rebels coach Houston Nutt beat his former team for the second straight year.

Ole Miss (5-2, 2-2 Southeastern Conference) jumped ahead 17-0 and controlled the line of scrimmage throughout. The Rebels could have won by more if not for three turnovers.

Arkansas (3-4, 1-4) pulled to 24-17 in the third quarter when Carlton Salters caught a tipped pass for a 58-yard touchdown, but the Razorbacks couldn't finish the rally and Ole Miss added two field goals in the fourth. [read more]

The map pointed him south. Instead, he hung a right at St. Louis. Several hours later, Ryan Mallett called his father:

"Do you know where I am?"

Somewhere on the road, Jim Mallett figured, headed home from Ann Arbor.

"I'm sitting here in Fayetteville," Ryan Mallett said, "looking down at the football field. It's an awful pretty sight."

Jim Mallett knew what that meant. The Mallett family lives in Texarkana, Ark., five hours south of Fayetteville, Ark. But at that moment, Ryan Mallett was home.

"He was always a Razorback at heart," Jim Mallett said.

Not long after that phone call, Ryan Mallett's transfer from Michigan to Arkansas became official. And it's only now, almost two years later, that college football is starting to comprehend what that move might mean.


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FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. -- Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino has been reprimanded by the Southeastern Conference after publicly criticizing officials who worked his team's loss to Florida last weekend.

The league announced its action Thursday night, a day after saying the officiating crew from the Razorbacks' 23-20 loss would be suspended. The officials came under scrutiny after a personal foul call on Arkansas' Malcolm Sheppard in the fourth quarter. The league said there was no video evidence to support the call.

Petrino has been critical of the officials, although the league didn't specify which comments earned the reprimand. [read more]

by BVC

I am a huge fan of The Masters. One thing that makes The Masters so great is the volatility of the leaderboard on Sunday. As the saying goes, “The Masters doesn’t begin until the back nine on Sunday.” And year after year, this is illustrated when CBS puts up a graphic of what is essentially a time-lapse leaderboard. Displaying in chronological order what the top of the leaderboard looked like at different points throughout Sunday afternoon, viewers get a chance to step back and see how all the individual swings and holes paint such a compelling picture over about three short hours.

It’s not the perfect analogy, but fans of the SEC know that in Green Jacket parlance, we are making the turn on Sunday afternoon. If recruiting season was Thursday and Spring Ball was Friday and Fall Camp was Saturday, that means the first half of conference play would be the front nine on Sunday, and the second half would be the back nine. And that’s exactly what we’re currently staring down the barrel of. So let’s see where we’re at, and what we’ve learned. It may foreshadow some of what lies ahead. [read more]

The officiating crew from Saturday’s Arkansas at Florida football game will be removed from its next scheduled assignment on Oct. 31 and will not be assigned to officiate as a crew until Nov. 14, Southeastern Conference Commissioner Mike Slive announced Wednesday.

“A series of calls that have occurred during the last several weeks have not been to the standard that we expect from our officiating crews,” said Slive. “I believe our officiating program is the best in the country, however, there are times when these actions must be taken.” [read more]

It took until mid-October, but the BCS penalty has returned in full form. Fitting since the first BCS rankings will come out on Sunday that the BCS penalty shows its head on Saturday.

What is the BCS penalty you ask? It's when a referee or official makes a sketchy call for the benefit of a top-level BCS team. Almost always, this takes place in a tight game where the highly ranked team is struggling and barely leading or even behind.

You know it when you see it, since the announcers question the legitimacy of the call, and you're sitting at home wondering why that awful call was just made. The BCS penalty is the answer.

When a system is in place that basically benefits two conferences and about five other schools, those schools have to be protected from losses. For example today, a loss by Florida would have been devastating to their BCS title changes. Let me rephrase that, it would have made their path more difficult.

Florida lost at home last year to Mississippi and it didn't make much of a difference. After all, Florida is in the SEC, one of the two conferences the BCS structure has to protect. [read more]