Good News for SEC Fans

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(In these uncertain financial times — before you read any farther, I want to make it clear that, when I say "SEC," I refer to the Southeastern Conference, not the Securities and Exchange Commission.

   (I wish I had good news to report about the economy, but I'm afraid you'll have to depend on the nation's leaders.

   (Sorry about that.)

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As a graduate of the University of Arkansas living in Texas, I'm always interested in whether Arkansas' football games are going to be televised where I live.

Experience tells me that the key factor in whether an Arkansas game is televised around here is the Razorbacks' record. Even though there are a lot of Arkansas alumni living in this area, the Razorbacks don't tend to get televised here if they're struggling — unless they're scheduled to play a top-ranked team.

The big schools around here are the University of Texas and Texas A&M — with pockets of loyal supporters for SMU, TCU, Baylor, etc. The UT and A&M games are almost always televised — and, if Hurricane Ike hadn't forced Arkansas and Texas to postpone their game until the 27th, I could have watched the Razorbacks play the Longhorns last weekend.

(At this point, no decision has been made about whether the re-scheduled game will be televised — although I'm inclined to believe that it will be picked up, at least as a regional broadcast around here.)

This week, the Razorbacks are scheduled to play ninth-ranked Alabama.

The Razorbacks are undefeated — but unimpressively so, with narrow wins over Western Illinois and Louisiana-Monroe. Not exactly powerhouses.

I haven't found any indications that Arkansas-Alabama will be televised here (perhaps my friends in Arkansas will be able to see the game, but it doesn't look like it will be shown in my area).

But there should be a few pretty intense SEC games to watch tomorrow as it is.

• At 2:30 p.m. (Central), CBS will show the Florida at Tennessee game. Tennessee has received some modest support in the Top 25 poll but isn't ranked. That would almost certainly change if the Volunteers can beat Florida tomorrow. The Gators are ranked #4 by the Associated Press.
  
  This game probably won't get high ratings in the Dallas-Fort Worth area because Texas A&M is playing Miami (Florida) at the same time on ABC. But the Aggies appear to be going through a rather painful transition right now, so if that game gets out of hand, I wouldn't be surprised if many area college football fans switch to the Tennessee-Florida game.


• The big one in the SEC is going to be shown on ESPN starting at 7:45 p.m. (Central). Sixth-ranked LSU will be playing at 10th-ranked Auburn.
  
  Again, there is some local competition. The #7 Texas Longhorns will be playing Rice on FSN at 6 p.m. (Central). But, by the time LSU and Auburn get started, the Longhorns could well have their game under control.
  
  Even so, LSU and Auburn is clearly the marquee matchup of the weekend. Cory McCartney writes, for Sports Illustrated, that there are three things for football fans to care about in this game:
  
  
  1. "Defense. Defense. Defense." That's certainly true. You're not going to see any video game-like scores in this game.
  
  
  2. "Auburn's spread is still very much a work in progress."
  
  
  3. "LSU is about to test Auburn's run defense."
  
  McCartney predicts a close game — but you'll have to read his article to see which team he predicts will win!
  
  (I'll tell you this much — he thinks 17 points will be enough to win the game.)

Some questions will be answered this weekend, and those answers will have huge implications in the SEC race.

Hurricane Ike Rearranges Football Schedule

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You know people in Texas are getting concerned about a hurricane when football games get postponed.

Saturday's game between my alma mater, the University of Arkansas, and the University of Texas has been postponed for two weeks because of the dire warnings about Hurricane Ike.

Texans are already fleeing the coast ahead of the storm, which is predicted to make landfall sometime early Saturday. Current projections anticipate a Category 3 storm.

The Arkansas-Texas game is supposed to be played in Austin — which lies in Ike's path, even though Austin is roughly 200 miles west-northwest from Galveston on the Gulf coast — but updated projections seem to move the path of the storm away from Austin.

Anyway, the real concern is not so much the hurricane as it is both the unimpeded inland movement of evacuees from the stricken areas and the arrival of the remnants of the hurricane — the wind and the heavy rain — which are predicted to be felt as far north as this area (Dallas) during the weekend.

Both teams have open dates on Sept. 27, so the game has been tentatively re-scheduled for that day. It was originally scheduled to be televised, but that is now undetermined. The time of the kickoff also has not been decided.

The Sept. 27 playing date could still cause headaches for both schools, ESPN says.

"It's the same weekend as the Austin City Limits Music Festival, which annually brings thousands of people to the Austin area. Hotel rooms are difficult to find throughout Central Texas during that weekend. It might be difficult to accommodate the Arkansas team party — much less fans of both schools — because of the festival. And it would also make for a tough stretch for the Longhorns, who start the Big 12 schedule the following week."

ESPN also points out that "Arkansas will also find its schedule more challenging now. The Razorbacks had an open date between games against Alabama and Florida, but now must play the Longhorns in the middle of it."

Well, that's the same three teams the Razorbacks were going to play in the next four weeks, anyway. The difference is that the open date will be this Saturday, not two weeks from now.

But re-scheduling the game won't put the fans or players at risk — unless another hurricane pops up in late September.

ESPN reports that other Texas schools also have made new arrangements for games scheduled for this Saturday:

• The start of the Stanford-TCU game in Fort Worth has been moved up to noon (Central). The game originally was scheduled to start at 6 p.m. (Central).


• Air Force was originally scheduled to play Houston at John O'Quinn Field at Robertson Stadium in Houston. Because of the hurricane, the game has been moved to Gerald J. Ford Stadium at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

The Austin American-Statesman also reports that more than a dozen area high school football games that were originally scheduled for this Friday have been moved up to tonight.

The Arrival of Football Season

This weekend, football season truly will be under way.

A somewhat abbreviated college schedule was played last weekend, and the NFL officially kicked off its season with the New York Giants' victory over the Washington Redskins last night.

And, in many places, including right here in Texas, most high school football teams opened their 2008 seasons a week ago today.

Regular readers of this blog know that I grew up in Arkansas. There, and elsewhere in the region, it comes down to this: Football rules in the South.

When I was growing up in Arkansas, the state was as divided as it could be on many issues, but it seemed that everyone came together for a few hours every Saturday when the Razorbacks were playing.

When you grow up in Arkansas, you learn pretty early that part of the territory, for a Razorback fan, is having to endure some rough years.

And 2008 promises to be a pretty rough year for Razorback fans.

Arkansas started its season last Saturday at home in Fayetteville with a 28-24 victory over Western Illinois. As Wally Hall observes at WholeHogSports.com, this year's Arkansas squad is "probably one of the youngest ever to take the field wearing the Razorbacks uniform" and some jitters were to be expected.

The Hogs, writes Hall, "will most likely improve during the season."

Perhaps they will, but it's far from certain whether that improvement will be reflected in the record.

Hall has been watching Arkansas football for a long time. He had been sports editor for the Arkansas Democrat for quite awhile when I was working on the sports copy desk for the rival Arkansas Gazette in the 1980s.

And he observes that six of the last 10 teams on Arkansas' schedule this year are ranked in the Top 25 — he doesn't mention that four of those teams are in today's Top 10.

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"They will improve as they gain experience, but at the same time the Razorbacks have the second-toughest schedule in the nation, and maybe the most difficult now that Alabama has knocked off Clemson."

Wally Hall

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Beyond that, Hall observes that two other opponents, Tulsa and Ole Miss, will be "highly emotional."

He doesn't mention any reasons why those teams will be so emotional, but I think I can guess at least two reasons:

1) Both schools have coaches and/or players who were at Arkansas in recent years.

2) Arkansas has had rivalries with both schools for quite awhile, although those rivalries never really matched the Arkansas-Texas rivalry when those schools were part of the old Southwest Conference.

Oh, and by the way, Arkansas travels to Austin next week to renew its rivalry with Texas, now ranked 10th in the Associated Press poll.

Here is the AP's current Top 25. Teams that are scheduled to play Arkansas are entered in bold.

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1. Southern Cal (1-0)
2. Georgia (1-0)
3. Ohio State (1-0)
4. Oklahoma (1-0)
5. Florida (1-0)
6. Missouri (1-0)
7. LSU (1-0)
8. West Virginia (1-0)
9. Auburn (1-0)
10. Texas (1-0)
11. Wisconsin (1-0)
12. Texas Tech (1-0)
13. Alabama (1-0)
14. Kansas (1-0)
15. Arizona State (1-0)
16. Brigham Young (1-0)
17. South Florida (1-0)
18. Oregon (1-0)
19. Penn State (1-0)
20. Wake Forest (1-0)
21. Fresno State (1-0)
22. Utah (1-0)
23. UCLA (1-0)
24. Illinois (0-1)
25. South Carolina (1-0)

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