Arkansas Vs Alabama: Homecoming Pig Roast

It looks like Bama gets another SEC conference win as the Pigs of Arky come to T-Town.  Bama has an 11-game winning streak against Chad Morris’ hapless Razorbacks.

It’s Homecoming and the Crimson Tide is celebrating the 10th anniversary of its 2009 National Championship against the Longhorns of Texas; the only Saban squad to finish the season undefeated.

QB Tua Tagovailoa suffered a high ankle injury against Tennessee last Saturday.  The following day he underwent a procedure to repair it and will not play against Arkansas.  Next week is a bye week and Coach Saban believes Tua will be ready for some Murderball against the high-flying LSU Tigers who are currently ranked No. 2 in the nation.

Back-up QB Mac Jones will be starting with Tua out.  Mac went 6 for 11 for 72 yards in the win against the Vols.  If he does well, it’s entirely possible Tua’s brother Taulia may see action in mop-up duty.

The Tide’s defense and LB Terrell Lewis should be able to hog tie the piggies’ offense given they are 10th in total offense and 11th in scoring in the SEC.  The Razorbacks rushed for only 52 yards and passed for a meager 182 yards and that inexplicable fake punt that failed miserably in their 51-10 drubbing by Auburn.

Sadly, Coach Morris admitted the resulting interception wasn’t the result he was looking for saying, “We’d actually been working on that for a couple of weeks…We were going to let the rush come and just a touch pass over the top, like a basketball shot.”

Try that again Chad.  Auburn couldn’t do anything with the interception, but Bama—they know exactly what to do with the pumpkin.

Alabama Crimson Tide Vs Arkansas Razorbacks

When the Hogs took the field at Bryant-Denny Stadium last year they had been humiliated the week before by a mediocre South Carolina Gamecocks team 48-22. This year as Bama travels to Fayetteville, the 1-4 Razorbacks are reeling from a stinging loss to Texas A&M 24-17.

The Bacon Bits need to make sweeping changes under Head Coach Chad Morris. They’re really bad. So bad in fact, that Ryan McGee, Senior Writer for ESPN dubbed Arkansas, Nebraska and UCLA the “Arkansaw Corn-Bruins” and ranked them No. 5 in their Bottom 10 feature this week.

Joe Cox at Saturday Down South wrote, “Nothing bold about predicting the Tide to take down the Razorbacks. But how’s this for bold? Leave the offense out of it. Alabama will score more points with its defense than Arkansas scores for the game. Consider this a referendum both on how good Alabama is and how lousy Arkansas’ offense is.”

We’re talking about the SEC here and anything can happen.  The Tide has given every appearance of being a juggernaut after 5 games.  Today, in week 6, we are half-way through the college football regular season.  Maybe the Hogs are tired of getting slapped around.  Maybe the boys from Tuscaloosa have fallen for the rat poison Coach Saban talked about last season.  Anything can happen.

The Tide will run onto the field of Donald W. Reynolds Stadium in front of a throng of angry, disgruntled Razorback fans looking to keep Bama from going to the College Football Playoffs and losing today would be a guaranteed post-season résumé killer.

I’m not worried though.  The Bacon Bits of Arkansas are going to collapse faster than a Life Alert® customer. (My apologies to Life Alert® customers.)

Arkansas Razorbacks (2-3) Vs Alabama Crimson Tide (6-0)

When the Hogs hit the field at Bryant-Denny Stadium on Saturday they’ll no doubt have last week’s gridiron debacle against the Gamecocks on their mind.  The Razorbacks lost 48-22 to a mediocre team continuing their descent into another aimless season. The Razorback Nation took to Twitter to roast Coach Bret Bielema.

@jefflongUA @BretBielema @OLINEPRIDE Year five, fellas. Year five. @PetitJeanMeats pic.twitter.com/42KSNmwxWQ

— Mason Lace (@mlace88) October 7, 2017

Hog fans: turn the TV off & go outside. It’s beautiful out. No need to sit through this. Just forget football exists until next year. #WPS

— Ben Schmuck (@benschmuck13) October 7, 2017

Just checking in to Twitter to measure the severity of #FireBielema tweets. I’ll show myself out.

— Jason Brown, APR (@JBrown935) October 7, 2017

How much longer will the Hogs faithful stand by and watch the dumpster fire that is Arkansas football?  Bielema is 27-29.  He’s 10 of 24 in league play and a pathetic 7-18 versus the SEC West.  His only winning records are against the equally pathetic Rebels and the Vols.

Anybody remember this stellar example of Razorback sportsmanship?  I do.

need more of this!!!! RT @heyyyle: And where were the refs when this was happening? #BAMAvsARK pic.twitter.com/qE7oqmylRz

— Best Forex Robot2017 (@FOREXEAASSARV10) October 9, 2016

Dan Wolken, national college football reporter for USA Today Sports released his Week 6 Misery Index.

“The Misery Index is trying hard, oh so very hard, to make a case for Arkansas giving Bret Bielema another year. Bielema is a good coach with an accomplished track record. Arkansas is a harder job than its fans want to admit. There have been some good signs along the way. And, realistically, who is Arkansas going to get that would obviously be better? Then there’s the matter of Bielema’s buyout, which stands at $15.4 million until Jan. 1, when it goes down to $11.7 million. (And by the way, most of the coaching carousel activity will already have taken place by Jan. 1, so waiting until then would be a bad move.) But man oh man, it’s getting hard to justify the direction things are going at Arkansas following a 48-22 loss at South Carolina.

The Misery Index has long said that in a league like the SEC, where everybody has great facilities, big budgets and pays the coach a lot of money, nobody expects to lose. But the reality is that somebody has to, and right now that somebody is Arkansas. Still, it’s impossible to excuse how bad the Hogs look. They turned it over four times against South Carolina (three of which were converted into defensive touchdowns) and now face the prospect of playing Alabama and Auburn in back-to-back weeks. That will drop Arkansas to 2-5 and Bielema to 10-26 in the SEC unless there’s a massive upset. Kind of makes you long for the Houston Nutt days, doesn’t it? Nutt, for the record, only had two losing seasons in a decade at Arkansas, finished first or tied for first in the division three times and third on four other occasions.

The SEC was different then, sure, but winning is possible at Arkansas. Bielema just isn’t doing it, and the further away the Razorbacks get from the smashmouth, offensive line-oriented identity he initially wanted to establish, it’s hard to see how he makes it happen. 

Before the Texas A&M game, the Crimson Tide looked like one of the best-ever assembled teams under Coach Saban. The games against Vanderbilt and Ole Miss were over before they even started.

Last Saturday in College Station, the Tide’s performance was marred by uncharacteristic mistakes.  During the second half, J. K. Scott shanked a punt early in the fourth quarter and had a punt blocked that went out of the end zone for a safety.

The biggest blunder came late in the third quarter when Tide wide receiver Robert Foster dropped a pass that should have been caught and later, on the same drive, fumbled a catch.  It was Bama’s first turnover dating back to 2016’s Iron Bowl─that’s 38 straight quarters.

During Coach Saban’s press conference following the A&M game, he railed against the media saying he “wants them to stop filling his players’ heads” with thoughts they’re invincible.

Saban to the media: "All the good stuff you write is rat poison."

— Cecil Hurt (@CecilHurt) October 8, 2017

In the series history between the Tide and the Hogs, the Tide has a nine-game winning streak having won 17 of the 25 games the two schools have played against one another.  Even without ESPN’s Matchup Predictor giving the Crimson Tide a 98.1% chance of winning against Arkansas, I’m certain the outcome of the game will be a thorough throttling of a Hogs team that clearly has no fight left in them. 

ROLL TIDE ROLL!

Alabama Crimson Tide Vs Arkansas Razorbacks

No other division in college football is as tough as the Southeastern Conference. 

Today at Donald W. Reynolds Stadium in Fayetteville, Arkansas the Hogs and Head Coach Bret Bielema want nothing more than to knock the Alabama Crimson Tide from their No.1 perch in the national rankings and prove they belong in the upper echelon of the SEC.  If they win it would be the biggest win of Bielema’s career at Arkansas.

This will be the fifth time Alabama has been ranked #1 when facing Arkansas. Alabama has a 4-0 record against the Hogs when ranked #1. 

2010 #1 Alabama 24 #10 Arkansas 20

2011 #3 Alabama 38 #14 Arkansas 14    

2012 #1 Alabama 52 Arkansas 0        

2013 #1 Alabama 52 Arkansas 0        

2014 #7 Alabama 14 Arkansas 13            

2015 #8 Alabama 27 Arkansas 14

Arkansas will try to snap a nine-game losing streak against Alabama.

Alabama has been playing Arkansas on an annual basis since Arkansas joined the SEC back in 1992.  Before joining the conference, Arkansas and Alabama had only met twice on the gridiron, both times in the Sugar Bowl back in 1961 and 1979. They have met 26 times total with Alabama owning a 19-7 record against the Razorbacks.

The first three times Alabama faced off against Arkansas resulted in 3 national championships in 1961, 1979 and 1992. 

I don’t want to get too cocky and start slathering barbecue sauce on those porkers, but the lowly Hogs will only manage to keep the game close for while.  The Bama offense is deep and the defense has given up a scant 22 points in four games.  This will prove to be too much for the Razorbacks to overcome.  It’ll brutal—like a lion playing with its food.

ROLL TIDE ROLL!

And since no football post would be complete with some gorgeous cheerleaders and their pom-poms, please feast your eyes upon the famed Crimsonettes.  

Game time is 7:00 PM and will air on ESPN.

Alabama Crimson Tide Vs Arkansas Razorbacks

Revenge is on the mind of the Arkansas Razorbacks after their 14-13 loss to the Crimson Tide last year in Fayetteville.  Bama is riding an eight game winning streak against the Hogs and has won five consecutive games against them on their home turf of Bryant-Denny Stadium; in fact, my beloved Tide owns the series with Arky 15-8.  The last time the Razorbacks won in Tuscaloosa was waaaaay back in 2003.

It’s Homecoming Week in Tuscaloosa and the Tide is 80-13-1 in homecoming games under Coach Saban.  The Tide moved up in the AP Top 25 Poll to No. 8 after its beat down of Jawja (that’s Georgia for you Yankees reading this) last week in the Rain Bowl.

Today’s game airs on ESPN at 7:00 PM ET.

Coach Saban implored Bama fans not to become arrogant after their dominating win, but I gotta tell ya it’s gonna be hard to curb my enthusiasm.  I’ve got my Alabama Barbecue Sauce ready and some tasty recipes for throttled hog:  bacon crusted spareribs, pork bacon rolls, barbecued pork chops, bacon stuffed pork roast, whiskey glazed smoked ham, tenderloin pan skewers, baby back bacon ribs, stuffed barbecue sausage and barbecued sausage sammichs.  Grab your napkins!

ROLL TIDE ROLL!

And because no football post would be complete without some pom-poms, here’s a photograph of some beautiful Alabama Crimsonettes.