Arkansas Business

This story is from the archives of ArkansasSports360.com.

We know. You want to read what the Arkansas football team will do about all those opening-game defensive questions and if the offense can stop giving away scoring chances with careless turnovers. And yes, we know — Arkansas should have piled up 63 points in that game and given up 14. That’s what Hog Nation expected and what much of the Arkansas media forecast (and chances are, that’s exactly what the Razorback players expected, hence the below average performance in a 49-24 victory against a good Football Championship Subdivision program).

We’re thinking Louisiana-Monroe will answer a lot of the questions, but then, really, does Hog Nation want a perfect performance on Saturday in Little Rock against the Warhawks, or a peak effort against Alabama?

Let’s let the next three weeks play out. We'll know all we need to know then. Alabama's scary good, and the Crimson Tide might run through Arkansas just like they've done three of the past four games with the Hogs. But they did surrender a long bomb Saturday against Michigan, albeit when it was 31-0.

Indulge us for a minute with some Razorback basketball talk.

In all the talk and worry about Arkansas football, you may have missed the release of the full Arkansas basketball schedule.

Now, you want to talk about a team that has its hands full — Mike Anderson has loaded up a young team coming off 18 victories with challenges from start to finish.

Assistant coach Matt Zimmerman and I exchanged tweets earlier this week about just how strong this schedule is compared to those of past Arkansas teams. Zimmerman surmised it is the toughest schedule the program has yet to take on.

I contend that outside of that big-time slate Nolan Richardson lined up for his defending national champions in 1994-94 (UMass, Georgetown, Memphis, the Rainbow Classic with Cincinnati, etc.) this one is up near or at the top.

This year’s squad will face the likes of Syracuse, Michigan and Arizona State, plus Oklahoma, a program on the rebound under Coach Lon Kruger.

Syracuse takes the place of UConn as Arkansas’ opponent in the SEC/Big East Challenge. The Hogs are returning a game with Michigan in Ann Arbor after shocking the Big Ten opponent last year in Fayetteville. Oklahoma has become a yearly rival. Arizona State is part of a two-game trip to Las Vegas on Thanksgiving weekend; Wisconsin or Creighton, both tough challenges, will await in round two.

This team, which went to Italy in August and swept four exhibition games, will still require December fine-tuning before entering the 18-game SEC portion of the slate (which includes Kentucky at Fayetteville, plus Missouri and Texas A&M). So Anderson made sure to include some delightful cupcakes around the bigger-name opponents and around the semester test schedule.

The Hogs play Alabama A&M of the Southwestern Athletic Conference at North Little Rock’s Verizon Arena on Dec. 22.