The Razorbacks travel to Little Rock to close the season once again against the Missouri Tigers. The Hogs will try to avoid a 2-10 repeat by knocking off Barry Odom's struggling 5-6 Tigers.
Missouri's season started off with a low, a close loss at Wyoming littered with costly turnovers, but went on to win five in a row at home against West Virginia, Southeast Missouri State, South Carolina, Troy and Ole Miss. Since then, they've dropped games against Vanderbilt, Kentucky, Georgia, Florida and Tennessee.
The Tigers haven't allowed any team to score more than 30 since the first loss to Wyoming but the offense over the last five games has averaged just 9.4 points per game.
Former Arkansas transfer target from Clemson, Kelly Bryant, missed the Georgia game due to injury but has racked up 2,215 yards over 10 games with 16 touchdowns and six picks. Bryant, a dual-threat, has been one-dimensional in the Missouri offense this season and is averaging just 24.2 rushing yards per game.
Arkansas's defense will probably still make Bryant look pretty good. The Hogs have given up 461.7 yards of offense per game this season.
The Razorbacks have a lot to fight for Friday at 1:30 p.m. in front of the home crowd in War Memorial, as do the Tigers with their head coach very much on the hot seat.
The Vegas line opened at Missouri -13.5 with an over/under of 56, it's at -11.5 as of Monday morning.
Series History
As many fans know, Arkansas and Missouri have an illustrious history playing each other in the Battle Line Rivalry (presented by Shelter Insurance). It was such a big deal that it replaced the Razorbacks’ annual Black Friday game against LSU and it is now being played at War Memorial Stadium.
Before the Tigers joined the SEC, they had played Arkansas just five times - and only twice in the previous 50 years. Those matchups came in the 2003 Independence Bowl (Arkansas won 27-14) and 2008 Cotton Bowl (Missouri won 38-7 behind Tony Temple’s 281-yard, four-touchdown performance). Before that, the most notable interaction between the schools came in the late-1950s, when the Razorbacks hired a young coach named Frank Broyles away from Missouri.
Since becoming each other’s annual cross-divisional opponent, Missouri has dominated the series 4-1. Arkansas’ lone win came in 2015, as it beat the Tigers 28-3 on a rainy day that proved to be Gary Pinkel’s final game. Of the Razorbacks’ four losses, three of them have been decided by one possession.
In 2014, Arkansas gave up 15 points in the fourth quarter to blow what would have been an upset win at No. 17 Missouri. Two years later, the Razorbacks led 24-7 at halftime and still found a way to lose in one of its largest collapses in 40-plus years. When the game returned to Fayetteville the next season, Arkansas lost a 48-45 shootout to cap a 4-8 season that led to the immediate firing of Bret Bielema.
Last season was an outlier in that the Razorbacks weren’t even competitive. Missouri cruised to a 38-0 victory behind a huge game from Emanuel Hall, who caught six passes for 153 yards and two scores.
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