Much at stake for Reddies, Bears today
In case you haven’t heard, it’s been a successful November of college football for in-state teams other than the Arkansas Razorbacks and Arkansas State Red Wolves.
After an early sinking spell, the Razorbacks have won four straight games and become bowl eligible. Arkansas plays Mississippi State tonight in Fayetteville on ESPN with dreams of a November sweep to 8-4 and possibly a share of the Southeastern Conference Western Division title. Try to remember a day in September when any of that seemed possible.
The Razorbacks can boost their credibility with a victory over a Dak Prescott-led team before what should be an emotional home game Friday against Missouri and retiring coach Gary Pinkel. A Florida bowl game is possible if Arkansas runs the table. Memphis, Nashville or Charlotte could be the alternative.
Arkansas State, which hasn’t played at home since Halloween and won’t again until after Thanksgiving, is putting together a Sun Belt Conference championship season under a fourth different coach this decade. Second-year man Blake Anderson’s squad won a first-place battle with Appalachian State on a recent Thursday night, 40-27 in Boone, N.C., and routinely dispatched ULM (which no longer wishes to be called Louisiana-Monroe) 59-21 last week.
The Red Wolves are 7-3, winning five straight since a Sept. 26 loss to Toledo, the same bunch that beat another Arkansas team in Little Rock two weeks earlier. USC and Missouri also beat A-State early, the Red Wolves getting $1.3 million for a 55-6 thumping in Los Angeles and playing Mizzou close (27-20) in a rare visit by an SEC team to Jonesboro. Plaster will fall from the ceiling at the Broyles Center in Fayetteville before the Razorbacks ever tee it up at Centennial Bank Stadium.
Arkansas State, which gets a scheduling break by not playing Georgia Southern, should get to 9-3 with only New Mexico State at Las Cruces and Texas State at Jonesboro remaining after a bye week. Anderson thus would join Hugh Freeze (Ole Miss), Gus Malzahn (Auburn) and Bryan Harsin (Boise State) as Sun Belt-winning coaches at the school, hopefully resulting in something better than another GoDaddy appearance in Mobile, Ala., where the Red Wolves have played twice in 2015. A strong finish for ASU likely would make Anderson a hot prospect for a coaching vacancy at some larger school, a ritual that Red Wolf fans know all too well.
The third Saturday in November is important to two other in-state programs, which receive much less press coverage than the Razorbacks or even the Red Wolves but still play a good brand of football.
Did you know that Henderson State is Great American Conference champion for the third time in four years? With a 10-1 record, the Reddies hope to break through in the NCAA Division II playoffs when Sioux Falls visits Arkadelphia today for a 4 p.m. game at Carpenter-Haygood Stadium.
Scott Maxfield’s team hasn’t lost since thumped by East Central (Okla.) on a September Thursday night, taking command of the conference race in early October with wins over Arkansas Tech and Harding. The Reddies clinched the GAC title before the Battle of the Ravine but tied the knot neatly on the season with a 21-17 road victory over Ouachita Baptist, getting big plays from quarterback Dallas Hardison and stopping the Tigers cold in the fourth quarter.
Henderson won GAC titles in 2012 and 2013 largely on the strength of Kevin Rodgers’ passing. The Reddies have regained championship form with the
best Henderson defense seen in years, showing their muscle against Tech (17-7) on the same afternoon that Ouachita beat Harding across the road. A Hardison-led drive of 94 yards in the last 1:40 against Southern Arkansas, the quarterback getting the last six on the game’s last play, marked another defining moment for the squad.
My friend Rex Nelson, Ouachita Baptist’s longtime radio voice, filled his plate with football on a rare Saturday to himself. Rex and his son plan to take in the HSU-Sioux Falls game and then head to Conway for a Southland Conference showdown at night.
Like a Jackson Pollock painting or an ee cummings poem, I find Central Arkansas’ purple-and-gray striped football field an acquired taste. The 2015 Bears did not play on “The Stripes” until October but should pack 8,500-seat Estes Stadium for Sam Houston State with a probable berth in the FCS playoffs and the runner-up spot in the Southland race at stake.
Both are 7-3, taking lumps from Big 12 teams (UCA from Oklahoma State, Sam Houston from Texas Tech) and playing commendably against unbeaten conference rival McNeese State (the Bears falling 28-13 in Conway). Coach Steve Campbell’s Bears won a thriller at Nicholls (34-31) last week, raising the stakes for Sam Houston in the latter’s 100th season of college football.
Neither Central Arkansas nor Henderson State has the athletic budget or statewide interest of the Razorbacks, but a football Saturday in Conway or Arkadelphia can be quite entertaining. Touchdowns at their games count six points just like in the SEC, tickets are reasonably priced and getting into and out of the stadiums is so much easier.