Rex Nelson’s College Football Picks of the Week – Sporting Life Arkansas
Editor’s Note: 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 four-year college football team in the state. Enjoy.
Some of you have complained about next year’s University of Arkansas football schedule since it has Toledo coming to the capital city for the only Little Rock game.
Frankly, I may be ready to say “bring on Toledo” just so Arkansas can win a game again at War Memorial Stadium.
The Hogs are 1-4 in Little Rock in the PMA (Post Motorcycle Accident) era.
The most recent Southeastern Conference win at Little Rock was 44-17 over Mississippi State in 2011. The overall record is still sterling: 149-56-2 in games played at War Memorial Stadium and 167-69-4 in all games played at Little Rock through the decades.
Arkansas had the dubious distinction Saturday of being the first SEC West team to lose to a squad from outside the division. The West had been 26-0 going into the game against Georgia. So we’re at 16 consecutive conference losses for Arkansas. It has been more than two years now since the most recent SEC victory. It was Oct. 13, 2012, to be exact, and the opponent that rainy night in Fayetteville was Kentucky.
I guess that means it’s time to go to the record books. The school record for conference losses is 20 from 1940-43. That may be a record that’s broken. Arkansas will tie it by the end of this season if it can’t upset one of these teams — Mississippi State, Ole Miss, LSU or Missouri.
Brandon Allen did set career bests for completions, attempts and yards. He was 28 of 45 passing for 292 yards and three touchdowns. But Georgia running back Nick Chubb countered with 202 yards rushing on 30 carries, averaging 6.7 yards per carry. The Bulldogs haven’t missed Todd Gurley yet.
We now have an SEC West with four of the top five teams in college football. Obviously, that is unprecedented.
And two of the top three teams are from Mississippi.
What a season.
It seemed we were one of the few people to actually pick Georgia last week rather than following the herd and going with the “boutique pick” of Arkansas.
We were 5-1 for the week, making the record 55-5 for the season.
Here are the picks for Week 9:
Arkansas 42, UAB 22 — It’s a needed break from SEC play for the Razorbacks in front of what likely will be a lot of empty seats in Fayetteville on Saturday morning. The Blazers are decent at 4-3. Their wins have come by scores of 48-10 over Troy, 41-14 over Alabama A&M, 42-39 over Western Kentucky and 56-21 over North Texas. The losses have been by scores of 47-34 to Mississippi State (not bad at all), 34-20 to Florida International and 34-22 to Middle Tennessee.
Louisiana-Lafayette 35, Arkansas State 33 — We’re having to get the picks posted early this week because the Red Wolves have one of those strange Tuesday night games. I detest the thought of college football on a Tuesday, but you do what you have to do when you’re not in one of the Power Five conferences. Louisiana-Lafayette embarrassed ASU last year on a Tuesday night in Jonesboro by a score of 23-7. Louisiana-Lafayette is home this time for a game that will be seen nationally on ESPN 2. The Ragin’ Cajuns are 3-3 overall and 2-0 in the Sun Belt Conference. They have won four of the past six games in this series. This season’s wins have been by scores of 45-6 over Southern University, 34-31 over Georgia State and 34-10 over Texas State. The losses have come by scores of 48-20 to Louisiana Tech, 56-15 to Ole Miss and 34-9 to Boise State. ASU is 4-2 overall and also 2-0 in the Sun Belt Conference. In their last outing, the Red Wolves had a dominating 52-10 win at Georgia State. This should be a close game. We’ll give a slight edge to the Cajuns since they’re playing at home.
Harding 31, Henderson 29 — It’s hard to pick against a team that has won 30 consecutive regular-season games — especially a team playing its homecoming game — but we’re going to go out on a limb and do it. Henderson has been less than impressive (by lofty Reddie standards) the past two weeks. The Reddies went to 7-0 on Saturday with a 24-3 victory at 3-4 Arkansas Tech. Henderson scored just three points in the second half. Reddie quarterback Kevin Rodgers was 21 of 36 passing for 325 yards, his 23rd game to pass for more than 300 yards. Darius Davis had touchdown receptions of 56, 68 and 58 yards in the first half. Henderson is No. 4 nationally in NCAA Division II. Its opponent, 5-1 Harding, is No. 23. This is a senior-laden Harding team that should be able to bounce back from Saturday night’s heartbreaking overtime loss to Ouachita in Searcy. It should be quite a game Saturday afternoon in Arkadelphia. Harding still has the top rushing attack in Division II and one of the top defenses against the run. The Bisons will try to control the clock with their run-based offense and limit the number of possessions for Rodgers, Davis & Co.
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