TODAY’S SEC FOOTBALL NO. 25 ARKANSAS (6-3, 2-3 SEC) AT LSU (4-5, 2-4)

Booting up time: Hogs,Tigers going unparalleled routes

Arkansas Coach Sam Pittman has the Razorbacks on solid footing heading into today’s matchup at LSU. The Razorbacks, who have a College Football Playoff ranking for the first time in five years, are favored by 2 1/2 points against the Tigers.
(Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Thomas Metthe)
Arkansas Coach Sam Pittman has the Razorbacks on solid footing heading into today’s matchup at LSU. The Razorbacks, who have a College Football Playoff ranking for the first time in five years, are favored by 2 1/2 points against the Tigers. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Thomas Metthe)

BATON ROUGE — Nineteen games into the Sam Pittman regime at the University of Arkansas, the Razorbacks have already scaled a couple of lofty, though relatively modest, peaks.

Arkansas pulled down the No. 25 spot in this week’s College Football Playoff rankings, the program’s first appearance in the standings in five years.

Additionally, the Razorbacks (6-3, 2-3 SEC), who had not been a betting favorite in Pittman’s first 14 games against Power 5 competition, are installed as a slight 2 1/2-point favorite for today’s 6:30 p.m. road game at LSU (4-5, 2-4 SEC) in Tiger Stadium.

Arkansas went 5-9 in those 14 games versus Power 5 teams as an underdog under Pittman, who could not have foreseen the program turning things around to reach this point so soon.

“We came here to try to win football games the best we know how, but no, going to LSU at night and being favored in Year 2 … honestly, probably no,” Pittman said when if he’d have believed this moment could have occurred when he took the Arkansas reins in December 2019.

LSU Coach Ed Orgeron has already agreed to step down at the end of the year with a hefty buyout, two years after leading the Tigers to the pinnacle of college football with one of the best teams in the sport’s history.

“Our team is ready to fight,” said Orgeron, whose team gave No. 2 Alabama a scare in a 20-14 road loss last week. “We said we’re going to fight to the end and I’m going to fight to the end and that was evident last week.” Orgeron is stepping down soon, but he’s glad to see a man like Pittman still in the league.

“I want to compliment Coach Pittman on the great job he’s done at Arkansas,” Orgeron said. “I think he’s an outstanding man. He’s great for the league. He’s done a wonderful job there in the short time he’s been there. I respect him as a coach.” Consider the implications and the changes in fortune for both programs from just two Januarys ago.

LSU went 15-0 in 2019 and won the SEC and CFP championships with one of the strongest offenses ever in college football. Those Tigers averaged 48.4 points and 568 total yards per game while blowing the doors off several perennial powers.

The Razorbacks, meanwhile, were mired in a 19-game losing skid against SEC competition, were changing head coaches for the third time in three years and were considered one of the worst teams in the Power 5 ranks.

The movements in both programs since then are mind boggling.

Orgeron is finishing out a sixth season as a lame duck head coach, presiding over a team that has suffered widespread injuries and player losses, as well as head-scratching results like a 38-27 setback at UCLA to open the season and a 42-21 loss at Kentucky on Oct. 9 that likely sealed Orgeron’s fate.

And yet the Tigers have rallied up and beaten then-No. 20 Florida 49-42 and then played Alabama within 20-14 last week.

“This was LSU-Alabama,” Orgeron said. “It’s a rivalry. We were hearing that they were going to crush us, that we didn’t have a chance, all that stuff. So we went in there guns a-blazing. Hey, throw it all. Let’s go.

“Fake punts, all that stuff. We were ready man. It was just one of those nights. We were in that zone. That’s all that was.” The Razorbacks, who soared to a No. 8 ranking in The Associated Press Top 25 poll after a 4-0 start, are trying to recreate that early magic. Beating LSU on the road would mark a magical milestone in Pittman’s reclamation project.

Arkansas hasn’t won the Golden Boot trophy against LSU since Pittman was assistant head coach on the 2015 team that dealt the No. 9 Tigers a 31-14 loss at Tiger Stadium, a costly blow for then-Coach Les Miles.

“We’ve had to show the team what the trophy looks like because we’ve never seen it,” Pittman said. “We’d like to have it. I’m sure LSU would like to keep it, but we’d like to have it too.” Orgeron, a graduate assistant strength coach for Ken Hatfield’s Razorbacks in 1986-87, has not lost to Arkansas while at LSU. He has a 5-0 record in the series.

“I enjoy playing Arkansas,” Orgeron said. “Man, I love the place up there. I have a lot of respect for the university. They were very good to me. I just enjoy playing the Hogs. It’s going to be a battle.” Arkansas has beaten LSU just three times in Baton Rouge in 16 meetings.

The highlight of those was an epic 50-48 triple-overtime victory over the No. 1 Tigers in Coach Houston Nutt’s final game at Arkansas. The Tigers went on to claim the Bowl Championship Series national championship that season with two triple-overtime setbacks.

The last Arkansas win at Tiger Stadium came in 2015, when the Razorbacks raced to a 21-0 lead behind Dominique Reed’s 52-yard catch-and-run touchdown from Brandon Allen and Alex Collins scored touchdowns from 80 and 5 yards out.

Since then, LSU has outscored Arkansas 89-30 at Tiger Stadium under Orgeron.

Arkansas’ KJ Jefferson was part of that history, as the sophomore quarterback will return to the scene of his first college start as the dual-threat leader of the offense. Jefferson was knocked out of a 56-20 loss on Nov. 23, 2019, with a concussion and a shoulder injury under interim Coach Barry Lunney.

“We’ve got to come with our ‘A’ game,” Jefferson said. “It’s the SEC. The Boot is involved. A trophy is involved, so we’ve got to put our best foot forward, prepare like it’s a championship game and go out there and play ball.” Arkansas safety Joe Foucha will be returning close his home in New Orleans. By Tuesday he had secured 24 tickets for friends and family but was angling to get more.

In Foucha’s first three seasons, LSU has outscored Arkansas 107-61.

“It’s just another game, but I feel like it’s more to it,” Foucha said. “I’m back home. Last time back home. I’ve never had the Boot trophy so it’s a big game for us all, not just me.” Arkansas is 1-0 in trophy games this season, having won the Southwest Classic Trophy by defeating Texas A&M 20-10 on Sept. 25. The Razorbacks have three trophy games — against Texas A&M, LSU and Missouri — and they have never held all three at once. In fact, the Razorbacks have not been in possession of two of those trophies since after the 2015 season.

“It’s very big,” Arkansas tight end Trey Knox said. “Just knowing that we can compete with these boys and we can get the boot back and bring it back home, it’s a big game just to keep this run going and trying to get to a better bowl. So it’s very important.” Only a couple of current Razorbacks have ever beaten the Tigers. Transfer defensive linemen Tre Williams and Markell Utsey played on the Missouri team that outscored LSU 45-41 in Columbia, Mo., on Oct. 10 in a game that was originally slated for Baton Rouge before Hurricane Delta in the Gulf of Mexico forced the venue change.

“LSU’s been I guess a pretty successful program,” Williams said. “Playing them at Missouri last year when I was at Missouri, the quarterback scrambled a little bit and they ran the ball a lot.” Williams has studied up on the Arkansas-LSU rivalry.

“If you go back and look at the history of Arkansas, you know they kind of make Missouri our rival, but if you go back and look at the history of Arkansas, LSU is really, really our rival,” Williams said. “So going into this game with fire and confidence is the main thing we’re thinking about right now.”

 

LSU head coach Ed Orgeron reacts after a LSU touchdown in the first half of an NCAA football game against Alabama Saturday, Nov. 9, 2019, in Tuscaloosa, Alb. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)
LSU head coach Ed Orgeron reacts after a LSU touchdown in the first half of an NCAA football game against Alabama Saturday, Nov. 9, 2019, in Tuscaloosa, Alb. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

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