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Razorback Stadium finally announces full capacity on home games

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While most other schools across the SEC and college football announced their stadiums would be at full capacity this fall over a month ago, Arkansas finally joined in.

The announcement came from the UA in an announcement Tuesday morning.

Along with full capacity inside the stadium, tailgating and HogTown return to pregame festivities for Razorback fans. Featuring live music, food trucks and family activities, HogTown returns as the go-to spot for fans prior to games at the corner of Razorback Road and Maple Street.

Coach Sam Pittman will lead the Razorbacks down the Hog Walk after the team’s arrival then out through the A on the field prior to kickoff. Halftime performances return as well with the band, cheerleaders, pom squad and mascots performing on the field.

Pittman begins his second season atop the Arkansas program after at squeezing the most excitement in a 3-7 regular season last year as possible.

The Razorbacks open the 2021 campaign with a pair of former Southwest Conference foes in Rice and Texas.

The Hogs and Owls kick off the season on Sept. 4 in Razorback Stadium at 1 p.m. online at HitThatLine.com. You can also hear all the games on ESPN Arkansas 99.5 in Northwest Arkansas, 95.3 in the River Valley, 96.3 in Hot Springs and 104.3 in Harrison-Mountain Home.

The Longhorns return to Fayetteville for the first time since 2004 on Sept. 11 to renew one of the Razorbacks’ oldest rivalries in prime time at 6 p.m. Fans will be asked to stripe out Razorback Stadium in red and white for the match-up with the Horns on the 20th anniversary of 9-11.

Arkansas hosts Georgia Southern on Sept. 18 during Family Weekend at the University with game time scheduled for 6 p.m.

A year after the two teams met in College Station, the Hogs return to AT&T Stadium on Sept. 25 to take on Texas A&M.

Homecoming is Oct. 16 against Auburn after the Razorbacks return from back-to-back road games at Georgia (Oct. 2) and Ole Miss (Oct. 9).

Arkansas hosts a Salute to Heroes at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock when the Hogs take on UAPB (Oct. 23) then will honor the military on Nov. 6 when Mississippi State visits Fayetteville.

The Razorbacks end the regular season with road games at LSU (Nov. 13) and Alabama (Nov. 20) before wrapping up the schedule with Missouri (Nov. 26).

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If you’re confident Hogs will win 6, you can put your money down

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While it’s easy to guess what you think Arkansas will do in Sam Pittman’s second year, the first wagers are being made on the over-under on wins.

The majority of folks don’t think the Razorbacks will hit the current total of 5.5 wins, which is where the first season projections at sports books has set the line.

As of Saturday evening, the under was a -115 in folks putting down their money.

The Hogs have more questions than answers right now. Longtime buddy Lynn Scarbrough was on ESPN Arkansas with Ruscin & Zach on Friday afternoon and said with nine starters returning on defense that was a positive.

Bear Bryant said in the 1970’s the last thing he wanted was a bunch of players coming back from a bad team.

Urban Meyer said at SEC Media Days in 2008 he would “take talent over experience every time” when asked about playing some talented incoming freshmen.

Bringing back a whole bunch of players on a mediocre team that didn’t exactly finish the season getting better usually doesn’t exactly fulfill the promise of improvement.

Defensive coordinator Barry Odom has a group that is playing harder and faster than the previous few years. There are some potentially great players on the field and some really good ones.

There will be big plays. Jalen Catalon, Grant Morgan and Bumper Pool will see to that. Right now, though, whether there are enough other players that perform at that level is unknown. They will probably have to get a bunch of breakout performances to get to that six-win total for a bowl game.

Offensively, KJ Jefferson and Malik Hornsby have to provide the answers to the biggest questions. There is promise with both, but outside of Jefferson doing enough to win the Missouri game last year there isn’t a big database to provide an answer either way.

They should have a pretty solid group in front of them.

The offensive line in front of them is experienced and that group is one where experience can overcome youthful raw talent because it requires some synchronization among all the guys up front to have success.

Pittman spent the overwhelming majority of his time as an assistant developing championship-caliber offensive lines. He’s the head coach of the Hogs, though, and he’s having to oversee every position group on the field and how much time he spends on any one is probably limited at best.

With this year’s four days of propaganda at Media Days just four weeks from Monday, there will be thousands of words written and talked about on what everybody is guessing will happen with the Hogs and everybody else in the league.

Where people are putting down their money, though, the Hogs are 12th in the league in the over-under on wins … and last in the West.

That’s pretty much staying with the numbers.

Arkansas will be favored in three of the four non-conference games (Rice, Georgia Southern and Arkansas-Pine Bluff). They should win all three.

Texas is probably going to roll into Fayetteville the second week of the season and we’ll have some answers after that game. The Longhorns have better backups talent-wise than anybody expects from the Hogs’ starters.

If the Hogs don’t get past Texas that means they’ll have to win three games against eight SEC teams and last year has absolutely nothing to do with this season. Especially considering last season was the most dysfunctional for college sports since World War II.

While Arkansas hopes they have improved, so does everybody else in the SEC.

And the Hogs have the toughest schedule in all of college football … again. To be honest, most of that is because Arkansas is not on the Hogs’ schedule.

If you’re confident, you can put your money where your mouth is with sports betting now as legal as sweating in Arkansas.

Which might be what many will be doing if they take the over.

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After being named top pitcher, Kopps wins Dick Howser Trophy

A day after being named the top pitcher in college baseball, Arkansas’ Kevin Kopps won the Dick Howser Trophy as college baseball’s player of the year Friday.

The only other Razorback to earn the honor was Andrew Benintendi in 2015. College baseball writers vote on the award.

Other finalists were Texas Tech second baseman Jace Jung, Florida State catcher Matheu Nelson and Vanderbilt starting pitchers Kumar Rocker and Jack Leiter.

The trophy is named for Dick Howser, the All-America shortstop, head coach at Florida State and manager of the 1985 World Series Champion Kansas City Royals.

Kopps has also been named Collegiate Baseball Player of the Year, College Baseball Foundation National Pitcher of the Year, first-team All-American by Baseball America and NCBWA, SEC Pitcher of the Year and All-SEC First Team in addition to being an NCBWA Stopper of the Year Award finalist and Golden Spikes Award semifinalist.

Kopps re-invented himself in 2021, becoming one of the most dominant pitchers college baseball has ever seen, and that is not an exaggeration.

Kopps led the nation in earned run average by nearly a half-run at 0.90 while pitching in the SEC against what proved to be the most difficult schedule in the country.

He was also tops in the country in WHIP (walks and hits per inning pitched) at 0.76 while finishing third in total victories and tenth in saves. He ranked seventh in the nation in total strikeouts and 11th in strikeout-to-walk ratio.

In 33 appearances, Kopps finished the season with a 12-1 record and 11 saves over 89.2 innings pitched for the Razorbacks, who spent most of the year ranked as the unanimous No. 1 team in the country. Not a closer but more of a finisher, Kopps became a multi-day, multi-inning weapon for Arkansas on the weekends.

During SEC regular season play, Kopps allowed three total runs in 18 appearances and 50.2 innings.

At the SEC Tournament in Hoover against Vanderbilt and Tennessee, he pitched six scoreless innings, allowing four hits and one run while striking out eight batters.

Kopps was named the MVP of the NCAA Fayetteville Regional after pitching 13.1 innings, allowing zero runs, six hits and striking out 15 over three games.

In the winner-take-all final against Nebraska, he came on in relief to throw seven shut out innings as the Hogs rallied back from an early 2-0 deficit to survive and advance.

In Super Regional play against NC State, Kopps pitched 10 innings, allowing three total runs and piling up 11 strikeouts.

The season finale against the Wolfpack was Kopps’ first start and only loss of the year and it wasn’t his fault. He worked into the ninth inning and threw 118 pitches.

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