ANDY’S PICKS: Hogs finally done playing AT&T Stadium regular-season games

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Maybe there was a time when Arkansas playing a football game at AT&T Stadium made sense. All of that changed for a variety of reasons and it will be over Saturday evening.

In the final game of the Southwest Classic that has a trophy and a fancy name, the Razorbacks and Texas A&M will start playing at each other’s campuses every other year. That’s going to work out for everyone except for the folks who like to make the trip to Arlington, Texas, in dwindling numbers each year. Now it’s down in the 50-something thousand every year.

In other words just slightly more than could fit in War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock, Ark., which is also down the last few years. It’s in the Hogs’ best interests these days to play as many games as possible on their home campus.

Now they are trying to halt a revolting set of circumstances against the Aggies. Arkansas has lost 10 of the last 11 games. So much for folks that said it would take A&M a decade to be competitive when they joined the SEC in 2012.

Say what you want, but Jimbo Fisher didn’t get fired at A&M because he couldn’t get the players there. He just didn’t win enough games. Different numbers, but the same bottom-line reason the coach before Sam Pittman got fired at Arkansas.

There ae still a couple of players on the current roster recruited by the previous head coach of the Hogs. Others got drafted into the NFL … in the first round. Defensive lineman Landon Jackson may be the only Arkansas player projected to be in the top couple of rounds of the draft in April.

A&M has more than that. The Aggies still have a lot of the players Fisher rounded up a couple of years ago that launched a hillbilly argument between a couple of West Virginia natives that went into coach when Jimbo and Nick Saban started trading jabs.

That’s what makes up the lines of scrimmage at A&M. While the Hogs have definitely improved over last year, on paper they don’t have the same players. The Aggies may be sorting things out with a new coach in Mike Elko, but they are ranked No. 25 in the country right now.

It’s headlines when the Razorbacks get three votes just to be in the poll.

No, this game won’t be a blowout because it never is. Arkansas has found creative ways to lose games over the last 11 years. Dropping overtime games and even bouncing a field goal at the end off the top of the upright come immediately to mind. Maybe it would be the most Razorback thing ever to be the winner in a blowout of epic proportions.

Then start a stretch of really big games against Tennessee, LSU, Ole Miss, Texas and Missouri with Mississippi State and Louisiana Tech mixed in there for good measure.

Right now the Hogs are sitting at 3-1. Auburn was worse than most projected before the season and the Hogs just might be better. But there are still questions searching for answers we will have by next week.

For now, though, the questions are if the Razorbacks can run the ball on the Aggies’ talented defensive front or handle A&M’s offensive line to get pressure on whichever quarterback they’re going to play. Despite what Sam Pittman said earlier this week, that’s a dilemma for any defensive coordinator.

Taylen Green is going to face the best defense he’s seen this year and he’s going to have to find somebody else to throw the ball to other than Andrew Armstrong. Maybe he finds that in Arlington, but somehow I don’t think that’s what will happen. This one probably won’t be a thing of beauty in terms of a game and will either be a wild, high-scoring affair, or an old-fashioned slugfest.

Either way, I’m not much for picking trends to be broken and A&M is on the upside of that trend these days.

Aggies 27, Hogs 23

Apparently, Pete Morgan is feeling cocky after one of those weeks when things went wrong. Apparently he’s forgetting the first couple of weeks when I’m probably up with enough cushion to take some chances.

He offered some ridiculous back-handed thing on placing your hard-earned money using his picks as a guide. Do as you wish. I do not make any offers like that, but do have a warning. If you wager real money off my picks you deserve whatever happens to you.

Just be aware if I didn’t catch it, he didn’t even pick the Aggies-Hogs game by the same margin in two different places. Keep that between us.

On the surface, this week’s SEC slate has one really good matchup, a coupl ethat could be intriguing and Texas’ introduction to the league may be in a blowout win.

Kentucky at (6) Ole Miss: If Ole Miss quarterback Jaxson Dart doesn’t forget what he’s doing, this one could be a blowout. Because of the Wildcats’ strong defensive front, the Rebels probably won’t be able to run, which is fine. Kentucky struggles against good passing teams and they are going on the road against a Heisman candidate on a hot streak. Rebels 41, Wildcats 9.

(21) Oklahoma at Auburn: The Tigers may be jettisoning Hugh Freeze into the hot seat zone occupied by every coach there since Shug Jordan’s days. Sooner or later, it happens to every one that has been in charge there. After a loss to Arkansas last week, the eagle may refuse to fly out of the cage. The Sooners, meanwhile, didn’t show up that badly against Tennessee in a loss and aren’t that bad. Sooners 24, Tigers 21.

Mississippi State at (1) Texas: The Bulldogs are struggling in Jeff Lebby’s first year. The main thing State folks need to remember is Bevo charged the last Bulldog from the SEC that wandered too close to him at the Sugar Bowl a few years ago. It didn’t look good for UGA, so Bully needs to stay away Saturday because the football team is going to be taking a trampling. Longhorns 51, Bulldogs 13.

(2) Georgia at (4) Alabama: The best game in the league by far and will be in the prime time slot on ABC at 6:30. The Crimson Tide are a very, very good team and there’s not a whole lot of drop-off in the coaching change, despite what you may think. Even Saban thinks that, saying Friday some things have changed he should have thought about. But the Bulldogs want to get over their Alabama Problem. They are still burned by last season’s end. Bulldogs 24, Crimson Tide 21.

South Alabama at (14) LSU “Pete’s Good Grief Game:” I would actually put the Texas-Mississippi State blowout into this category. South Alabama is an improved team and they probably won’t win the game, but it may not be the blowout most expect. The Tigers are still trying to figure out what kind of team they really have. Tigers 42, Jaguars 23.