FAYETTEVILLE — Every football team in the SEC yearns to play the Vanderbilt Commodores.
Until the week they play them.
It used to be the same with the Rice Owls during the Southwest Conference’s latter decades.
Private school academic bastions Vanderbilt and Rice aren’t known for winning football conference titles. But as football foes, they have led their leagues in “be careful what you wish for.”
The what-if of losing to a team considered your league’s lone gimme has left coaches everywhere with sweaty palms, gnashing their teeth and ultimately exasperated.
Even a cool, confident customer like Arkansas’ Bobby Petrino likely experiences a few what-ifs heading into tonight’s game against Vanderbilt.
The No. 19 Razorbacks (5-2, 2-2 SEC) are a 21-point favorite and should win their 6 p.m. homecoming game at Reynolds Razorback Stadium.
But what if they don’t?
Blooping one vs. Vandy (2-5) would be the worst way to kick off the fundraising campaign for the palace that Petrino and Athletic Director Jeff Long deem essential to headquarter the football program’s offices and locker rooms.
The Razorbacks brass want to induce boosters to match and exceed the $10 million matching grant of the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation by asserting the facility is required to keep up with the league’s best.
Those wallets may snap shut if Arkansas can’t beat the league’s presumed worst.
Even with Vandy sporting a bigtime defense.
Arkansas offensive coordinator Garrick McGee asserts that lockdown corners Casey Hayward and Eddie Foster enable Vandy to play man coverage. That frees middle linebacker Chris Marve - “As good as you are going to see,” Mc-Gee said he was told by Northwestern Coach Pat Fitzgerald - to be the man.
Northwestern is 5-2 but only escaped Vandy 23-21.
Arkansas offensive line coach Chris Klenakis warns that the Hogs haven’t faced a defense playing any harder.
“You turn on the film, boy, you see you had better bring it every play because they are going to bring it at you,” Klenakis said.
Vandy brought it Sept. 18 at Ole Miss and won 28-14.
From his Arkansas days and current Ole Miss days, Houston Nutt is the poster coach for “be careful what you wish for” when it comes to Vandy.
Nutt arrived at Arkansas in 1998. Amid Arkansas grumbling as theSEC reshuffled the East vs, West rotation, Nutt didn’t get to play Vanderbilt until 2005 and 2006.
In 2005, Vandy shocked Arkansas 28-24 in Fayetteville. Vandy was a wind-blown missed field goal from winning again in 2006. Arkansas prevailed 21-19 in Nashville, Tenn.
From their days vs. Rice, former Arkansas coaching greats Frank Broyles and Lou Holtz can commiserate.
Broyles won more than any Arkansas coach, but he went 0-2-1 against Rice in 1971-1973. Even his 1975 SWC champions barely escaped Rice 20-16.
Holtz went 6-1 against Rice but likely never got over the one loss. Taping his TV show at War Memorial Stadium right after Rice won 17-16, Holtz opened with: “Welcome to the Lou Holtz Show. Unfortunately, I am Lou Holtz.”
Holtz’s misery has company when it comes to teams like Rice and Vanderbilt, and it would behoove Arkansas not to add to it tonight.
Sports, Pages 24 on 10/30/2010