Saturday Big Game for Hogs, Horns but Reasons Different
The hype has begun to build for Arkansas' first big time on the national stage in awhile when the ESPN/SEC Network circus comes to town this week for a game with Texas.
Don't expect the Longhorns to be really surprised with what is likely to be a raucous atmosphere.
"We know it's going to be a hostile environment," Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said at his press conference earlier this week. "They've got a sold-out game for the first time since 2017."
Watch Steve Sarkisian's full press conference
It's going to be loud, too, and the Longhorns have been preparing for that this week.
"One of the keys for us is handling that crowd noise and what we can do from a communication standpoint," Sarkisian said. "Offensively that will be big."
For Texas, who moved up in the polls Tuesday to No. 15, this is a big game because it's on a national stage and they starting to get high goal. It's a team that should be in a pretty good position come bowl time.
For Arkansas this game is (and always has been) about emotion. Hogs fans love to hate the Longhorns, burnt orange and anything else more than they want to win the game.
Sam Pittman knows he can't get around that and has spent this week teaching his players why the fans are so worked up about this game.
Most of them aren't old enough to have a clue why the fans are so worked up about it.
Monday he said when the Hogs played the Longhorns in the Texas Bowl in Houston in 2014 the game had a more electric atmosphere than the Sugar Bowl when Georgia played Texas.
He was the offensive line coach for the Bulldogs, who probably weren't that interested in the game less than a year from coming within a Tua Tagovailoa bomb to Devonta Smith of winning a national title.
Georgia had bigger ambitions than playing Texas in New Orleans for bragging rights.
The guess is the Longhorns are coming to town and this is the first chance they've had to make a statement since announcing they are headed to the SEC sometime in the next few years.
A lot of the talking heads across the league say Texas has no idea what they have gotten into and will be an average team in the SEC.
They are staying focused on the game and what they are trying to achieve in Sarkisian's first season in Austin.
"For us, from a preparation standpoint, we really don't (get into the hype)," he said. "We believe in our routine. We're definitely a routine-based operation regardless of the opponent.
"Hopefully that puts us in a position where we're not having to pick and choose when to get up for a game."
Pittman doesn't have that luxury.
There is no way the Razorbacks don't know how big this game is to the fans and, to a large extent, a state that attendance in churches and offices can be affected by the outcome of this game.
Arkansas WANTS to win the game. Texas thinks it HAS to win to get where it wants to be around New Year's.
That could be a big difference.
