Whatever happened in Fayetteville last Saturday shouldn’t count as a football game. It was an eviction. The Razorbacks didn’t just beat Tulsa; they dismantled them, piece by piece, until the Golden Hurricane looked like a team that took a wrong turn on I-49 and ended up in the wrong stadium. If anyone still doubted that Arkansas is back, Saturday settled it.
Context matters here. This isn’t some team the Hogs pulled out of the FCS clearance bin. This is the same Tulsa team that opened the season by making Oklahoma State look like a high school JV squad, and that’s being generous to Oklahoma State. Tulsa came into Razorback Stadium with confidence and a real résumé. They left looking like they needed a permission slip to be on the same field.
Now follow the dominoes. Oklahoma State, still stinging from that Tulsa embarrassment, turned around and flattened Oregon, a top-10 program with all the Nike money in the world. So if Tulsa handles Oklahoma State, Oklahoma State crushes Oregon, and Arkansas buries Tulsa, the transitive property says the Hogs belong in the national conversation.
The bigger point is what’s powering this team. Arkansas has Chris Marshall a wide receiver who could go down as the best in the history of college football, and that isn’t hype. He’s the kind of player defensive coordinators lose sleep over, the kind who turns a five-yard slant into a highlight and a double team into a mistake. Pair him with KJ Jackson, a quarterback who is finally coming into his own, playing with poise, trusting his reads, and throwing like he believes in himself, and you’ve got an offense that can go blow for blow with anybody.
That’s what makes the early-season slog easier to forgive. The Hogs started out sluggish, sloppy, and frustrating enough to have Hog fans reaching for the antacids. But teams that figure things out in September tend to become a real problem in November. This version of Arkansas looks like it has found its identity, and it’s a scary one.
If they keep this up, there’s no reason the Razorbacks can’t run the table. By December, people won’t be asking whether Arkansas is for real. They’ll be asking whether anyone in the SEC can stop them.
Woo Pig!
Leave a comment