Arkansas Business

This story is from the archives of ArkansasSports360.com.

A history lesson for Arkansas young 'uns. And by that, we mean anyone under 40: Hating Texas is like feeling sunshine on your skin after a month-long blizzard.

It's like toiling in the August sun for hours and then jumping into an inviting, crystal blue pool. It's like The Rock from Arkansas Burger Co., well, anytime. In other words, it's immensely satisfying.

Young people in Arkansas today just can't understand. Perhaps LSU is getting there; perhaps we need to introduce some SWC history lessons into state schools' Arkansas History curriculum.

Alas, the next chance for us old fogies to hate Texas in person, at least within the confines of our great state, is 2021. The Shorthorns, it turns out, won’t be returning to The Hill until then.

The Hogs, you see, are owed a return game from a two-game series that began in 2008, Bobby Petrino's first year (we don't see a need to go into details of the game itself). But the addition of the Texas A&M series in Dallas necessitated the game's move to 2014, and now other scheduling quirks are pushing it back even further, it was announced Thursday.

They still owe us a game, and we'll get it eventually. But in the meantime, we'll have to satisfy ourselves with that other big orange T, the one of the bright variety. Still, there's nothing quite like hating Texas in person. Sigh ...(you know the old saying -- Avoid the rush, hate Texas early.)

Anyway, Tennessee returns to Northwest Arkansas this week for the first time since 2006. ESPN's College Gameday made its first and thus far only visit to Fayetteville for that game, with the Hogs in the process of shaking off an opening debacle of a loss to USC with a 10-game win streak that actually placed them briefly in the national championship discussion.  

Tennessee remained nationally relevant back then (although cracks were beginning to show) under former coach Phil Fulmer, but the Vols we'll see on Saturday rebuild still. Regardless, if the Hogs are to achieve back-to-back 10-win seasons or even more -- indeed much is riding on this game -- the focus needs to remain narrow. It's doubtful after Houdini-like escapes from Oxford and Nashville the Hogs will be overlooking anybody.

But goodness knows the D must be feeling much better about itself and perhaps even salivating at its prospects this week. As for the fans, it's not Texas Week, of course, but it is a big, orange T. Before the SEC schedulers nixed one of two permanent cross-division games, Tennessee was shaping up into a good rivalry for us.

Meanwhile, no "games of the century" this week, but from Palo Alto to Arkadelphia and points in between, there are some significant ones.

This week's lineup:

• Tennessee at Arkansas — An opportunity to potentially roll against a down Tennessee; it's an opportunity that doesn’t come around often.
• ULL at ASU — The Sun Belt champ comes out of this one …
• Henderson at Ouachita — We think they have some special name for this game, don’t they? Tigers technically have the inaugural GAC championship in the bag thanks to the weird, first-year GAC scheduling construct, but Reddies could argue that this game is for a de facto co-title.
• Oregon at Stanford — Huge game; BCS implications out the ying-yang. Might even end up among the top 10 things people in northern California care about this week.
• Nebraska at Penn State — Had Big 10 championship game implications before … now it just seems surreal that a game must be played this week in State College. Here's hoping it can provide a therapeutic distraction.

And, of course, UCA plays a fairly significant game this week, hosting Texas State with a 1-AA, er, FCS, playoff berth at stake.