Arkansas Business

This story is from the archives of ArkansasSports360.com.

Good news! It’s Red River Rivaly Shootout week, which, as mentioned last year, is my favorite non-SEC game of the year. I love the look of the red and orange side by side, two storied programs clashing, and the spectacle of the Texas State Fair surrounding the Cotton Bowl. The fair is known far and wide for its record of innovation and progress in the fried food arts. Like last year, Saturday Roulette will honor that hard work by wagering some of the new fried food debuting at the fair this year in lieu of betting our usual fantasy dollars.

We had another good week last week, going 5-3. The season total is 26-21. We’re rolling! Here are this week’s winners:

Kentucky (+18.5) @ Arkansas: Both of these teams are incredibly beat up. Both teams have lost significant players to injury for the season. Kentucky’s quarterback Maxwell Smith is out indefinitely, so he won’t get to pick on an Arkansas linebacker corps that’s lost two of the starters from the first game. The differences? Arkansas’ starting quarterback is back, the Razorbacks have much better playmakers on offense. The question is whether the Arkansas defense can maintain the opportunistic tendencies it displayed against Auburn, or if they will allow the Wildcats to set offensive records. I think Arkansas wins but not by enough to cover the spread. I’ll bet a fried bacon cinnamon roll on it.

Texas (+3) vs. Oklahoma: The Sooners snoozed through September, but came alive against Texas Tech last week. Texas has played pretty consistently, scoring points in a way that hasn’t happened since Colt McCoy was its quarterback. Even in the Longhorns' loss, they scored a lot of points, but like most teams this season, couldn’t slow down Geno Smith and West Virginia enough but they came close. I’m not sure what chicken-fried cactus bites are actually like, but I’m wagering them on the more consistent team, Texas.

Alabama (-21) @ Missouri: Oh, Missouri. Just take a knee, Tigers. Spare yourselves. If you can’t beat Vanderbilt at home without James Franklin, you’re not going to beat Alabama. And it won’t be close. But you can enjoy all the deep fried mac ’n’ cheese sliders you’ll win after picking Alabama to cover the spread.

South Carolina (+3) @ LSU: The Gamecocks went from being a team that struggled against Vanderbilt and Kentucky to a national title contender by destroying Georgia last week. It will be interesting to see if it can maintain that buzzsaw attitude when it goes into a hostile environment instead of having the home crowd behind it. I don’t think the Gamecocks will be quite as explosive as they were last week, but LSU’s offense is so atrocious that I’ll bet an order of deep fried jambalaya South Carolina can probably score just enough to pull this out.

West Virginia (-4) @ Texas Tech: I had to refresh my web browser a few times to make sure this line was real. Four points? Against Texas Tech? The Mountaineers just beat Texas in Austin and they’re only four-point favorites in Lubbock? The Red Raiders just lost to Oklahoma at home by 21 points and it was only that close because Tech got a garbage time touchdown. I’m taking all the deep fried Samoa Girl Scout Cookies I can find, which sounds like the best thing ever, and loading them all on West Virginia.

Need some more? Here’s some other lines I like: Ole Miss (-5.5) over Auburn, Washington (+13) over USC, Oklahoma State (-27.5) Over Kansas.

As always, put your picks in a comment below and, remember, wins and losses can be vacated, all of that fried food could kill you.

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Doc Harper is the editor of ArkansasExpats.com and is a regular contributor to ArkansasSports360.com. You can email him at heydocharper@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @doc_harper.