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]

In the most blatant screwjob since the 1982 SMU game, the Razorbacks lost to Florida by referee. With a final score of 23-20, the referees were directly responsible for 10 points in favor of Florida.

A phantom pass interference call against Ramon Broadway, followed by a ridiculous unnecessary roughness call against Malcolm Sheppard on the next play, were the most obvious evidence of bias. Add three no-calls on the next successive play: offsides, holding, and offensive pass interference, and Stevie Wonder could see that Arkansas was not only playing against Florida.

The league office should bar this officiating crew from ever calling another game in the SEC.

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“I don’t take plays for granted because we have so many more weapons this year,” Smith said. “We’ve got a lot of quick-strike guys. You never know when somebody’s going to score, so you better do something with it when you get the ball.”

Smith, who carried it 207 times for 1,072 yards last season, concedes that he’s become more of a situational player in this offense.

“Coach Petrino is more of a situational guy,” Smith said. “He has his plays he’s going to run on third-and-short and third-and-long and the person he wants to use. I know once we get inside the 10- to 15-yard range, that’s no longer my zone. He wants to use that for bigger guys. I have to capitalize outside that range.

“I’m not the every-down back I was last year in this offense, because we’ve got more guys. But I knew that’s the way it was going to be and was prepared for it. It’s been a little bit of an adjustment, but not too bad.”

“I’ve been at this now for five years. I know I’ve got to keep my body in order. But I hope to make this second half of the season a memorable one personally and especially for these Arkansas fans, who’ve been so good to me.” [read more]

Both Arkansas and Florida are coming off big wins last weekend. Arkansas upended previously unbeaten Auburn and Florida went to Baton Rouge and defeated LSU in a defensive slugfest. Things are on their way up in Fayetteville, but they have a long ways to go to be near the same level as the Florida Gators and Urban Meyer’s football program.

A quick look at the college football odds shows the Gators as 24 point home favorites in this SEC conference matchup. The posted total has been set at 55 points. The Gators are on a tremendous against the spread streak in the last few years. Florida is now 24-7 against the spread in their last 31 games. Arkansas is 0-7 against the spread in their last 7 games against Florida. [read more]

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - Sophomore Rotnei Clarke of the Arkansas men's basketball team was named the No. 1 shooter in the nation by Foxsports.com's Jeff Goodman on Tuesday.

Clarke was the top freshman three-point shooter in the nation last season as he hit nearly 40-percent of his shots from beyond the arc. The Verdigris, Okla., native was second in the Southeastern Conference in three-point shooting and drained 83 three pointers throughout the season while averaging more than 30 minutes and 12 points per game. [read more]