Razorback Fans May Have Gone Overboard on LSU Picks

Tigers on verge of serious blowout of Mississippi State in Starkville; Hogs next at home

Author:
Andy Hodges
Publish date:
Sep 16, 2023 2:51 PM EDT

In this story:

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Arkansas fans are getting a rather sobering preview of next week's matchup with LSU right now. They may not be quite as down as a lot of people thought after their opening-week collapse in the second half against Florida State.

Near the end of the third quarter, the Tigers are beating up Mississippi State in Starkville by four touchdowns and it's not really that close. LSU's offense isn't scoring quickly, but the defense has completely shut down the Bulldogs and Will Rogers early.

There were some that where LSU fell on the Hogs' schedule for years was at the end of the season or right after they had either had an emotional win or loss against Alabama that determined the SEC West. They caught the Tigers over-looking them quite a few times, but this time there is no emotional letdown or too high. Unless LSU is terribly over-confident.

Razorback fans now will have more of a focus on the offensive woes coming up in a few hours in a non-conference game against BYU. If there is a good thing at all for the Hogs' faithful in this one is MSU hasn't gotten things figured out in Zach Arnett's first season after the death of Mike Leach.

That's who most folks thought they would be back in the summer when projecting the Hogs' schedule and put it in the guaranteed win column. The thought was that might be over-looking what is a physical defense. What I didn't take into consideration was they get called for a lot of penalties and have had one player ejected for targeting today.

The Hogs have enough in their immediate future with the Cougars, though. It's the best team they've played in three non-conference games to start that everyone would assume have lopsided scores in the Hogs' favor. Now that the game is here, there is a reduced amount of cockiness from the fans. That could change, of course, with the opening kickoff.

Kickoff is at 6:30 p.m. at Razorback Stadium and the game is on ESPN2 and fuboTV. The weather should be great. You can listen to the pregame show from the starting at 1 p.m. on HitThatLine.com from Stadium Shoppe on Razorback Road with Tye Richardson, Tommy Craft and Christian Johnston.

You can listen to the game on ESPN Arkansas 99.5 in Fayetteville, 95.3 in the River Valley, 96.3 in Hot Springs and 104.3 in Harrison-Mountain Home. After the game the postgame show begins at HitThatLine.com when the network broadcast decides to wrap up (probably about 11 p.m.), then Derek Ruscin, Zach Arns and DQ will be talking about the game.