Arkansas Business

This story is from the archives of ArkansasSports360.com.

BATON ROUGE, La. — The big game has arrived. No. 3 Arkansas vs. No. 1 and undefeated LSU, with who knows what on the line for Arkansas, depending on which national pundit and network you might listen to. For LSU, a win sends the Tigers to next week's SEC Championship Game against Georgia. For Arkansas, even jumping over LSU in the BCS Standings when they are released Sunday night apparently isn't assured, even if the Hogs win today.

Just play the game, we say. Let everything work itself out. Four years ago, Arkansas has seemingly poked a hole in LSU's balloon with a triple-overtime win here, but LSU still worked itself back into the national championship picture and got a lot of help around the country. The Tigers won the 2007 national championship with two losses.

If Arkansas doesn't get them today, they may win the 2011 with a perfect slate.

We welcome you to our weekly in-game feature, our live blog of the Razorbacks. Join in, add your comments in the comment section at the bottom or visit our Facebook page, ArkansasSports360, where you can leave your comments as the game progresses. You can also follow our comments on Twitter @cbahn and @jimharris360. Or email jharris@abpg.com. You can follow all the media tweeting from the game today by using the hashtag #LSUARK

Remember, if you're picking this up late in the game or going back through the game as it progressed, we're posting in reverse chronological order.

Here we go:

5:50 p.m. 41-17 LSU — If you read our column from Wednesday, you may have picked up on the subtle hints that this "biggest game since the Big Shootout" might go more like the forgotten "Big Shootout II" when Texas trounced Arkansas 42-7 in Austin after a close first quarter and a half.

LSU played football the way the team with much better players ought to play it. The Tigers made one costly fumble that was forced by a big hit by safety Tramain Thomas and caught in midair by Alonzo Highsmith, who returned it 47 yards for a touchdown.

No question Arkansas fans must have been feeling really good at that moment early in the second quarter.

LSU then outscored Arkansas 41-3 the rest of the way. The Tigers put up 21 points in the second quarter, with Tyrann Mathieu's 92-yard punt return and then a fumble by Arkansas on its next drive turning the game the Tigers' way.

But really, when LSU finally got a break in field position and didn't start inside its own 10-yard line, it was pretty much all Tigers.

LSU piled up 286 rushing yards, and 209 of those came in the second half. Jordan Jefferson completed 18 of 29 passes for 208 yards. Jefferson had only thrown the ball 41 times this year coming into the game.