While Arkansas is probably not going to show a whole lot against Florida A&M on Thursday night, they won’t see much in their first serious opponent, either.
That’s because TCU opens at home against Jackson State, a SWAC school.
Talk about planned scheduling. You can bet Gary Patterson or Bret Bielema looked at the other’s schedule and got someone similar. Whichever opener was scheduled first, the other mirrored it.
All of this means scouting won’t reveal much.
And it reminds one of the time Arkansas played LSU in the 1947 Cotton Bowl (no, I wasn’t there) and former athletic director told how he was “scouting” the line play during the game for coach John Barnhill.
“He sent me down to the end zone to try and get an idea what our line was doing against their line,” Cole related years later. “You could do that in those days. Well, the whole first half was played within 40 yards of where I was sitting, so I didn’t get to see anything of how they would do normally.”
At halftime, tied 0-0, on a field that closely resembled an ice rink, Barnhill asked Cole what he found out.
“Well, I can tell you all about our goal-line defense,” he said.
That one turned out to be a 0-0 tie in conditions that were beyond miserable for the time.
The Hogs may not find out much more about TCU than that this week.
Based on results from the first week of games, Florida A&M might hang 50 on Jackson State.
While the Rattlers were winning their opener against Texas Southern, the Tigers were being throttled by Alcorn State, 35-16.
So much for limiting access to practices.
Both Arkansas and TCU will be holding a scrimmage on national television. If so inclined, you can catch the thrilling warmup for the Horned Frogs on Saturday night at 7 p.m. on Fox.
