The Arkansas Razorbacks host the Texas Tech Red Raiders in college football action on Saturday night. The game is scheduled for a 7:00 p.m. start time and it will be televised nationally on ESPN2. Currently the betting odds for the game have the Razorbacks favored to pick up the win by double digits.
Razorback head coach Bret Bielema probably is still dealing with his schedule talk in regards to Big Ten teams, by now he’s surely continued to have egg on his face. The Razorbacks got embarrassed last week at home by Toledo of the MAC, 16-12, and now are the laughing stock of the SEC. Despite Brandon Allen throwing for 412 yards the Hogs didn’t have a passing touchdown and ran for only 103 yards on the ground. Toledo wasn’t impressive on offensive either but did enough defensively to find a way to pull off the huge upset.
Arkansas now has to take on a Texas Tech team that loves to throw the football, spread teams out and score points. The Red Raiders are living life with a smile on their faces, coming in at 2-0 and averaging 64 points per game. Both of their wins came against inferior opponents in Sam Houston State and UTEP, a pair of in-state schools, but the Red Raiders are looking for a solid outing and a potential upset in this one.
Sure, the Razorbacks should be more focused for this one but they are double digit favorites over a team that has no problem moving the football. Either Arkansas’ defense is going to completely ground the Red Raiders or this is simply too many points.
Arkansas will want to run the football against Texas Tech, a team that is giving up more than 525 yards to opponent offenses this year through their two games. That’s a ton of yards and the Red Raider defense will simply have to do better than that in this one, but maybe that’s why the Hogs are favored. They certainly have a better defense and are the big, bad SEC team playing at home but Texas Tech will have some confidence coming into this one.
The Hogs need to get the run game going, Alex Collins has been averaging 5.7 yards per carry but overall Arkansas is running at a 4.4 per carry clip. Collins has 181 yards so far this season, but 70 of those came on one play, he’s averaged just 3.6 yards per carry the other 31 attempts.
Patrick Mahomes has 786 yards through the air for Texas Tech to go along with eight touchdowns. He’s thrown three of those to Devin Lauderdale and the Red Raiders have actually done a decent job on the ground as well, averaging 6.6 yards per carry with seven scores.
If Arkansas’ defense keeps the Red Raiders under control, they’ll cruise in this one. But will the Hogs be able to score enough points to stay ahead long enough to win by double digits? Tough to say.
Free Pick: Texas Tech plus the points
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