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GRAPEVINE, Texas — The College Football Playoff selection committee rewarded undefeated Tennessee with the top spot in its first rankings of the 2022 season, marking the first time in school history the Volunteers entered the top four.

The Vols were followed by No. 2 Ohio State, No. 3 Georgia and No. 4 Clemson.

Now that the first of six rankings to determine this year’s four-team playoff have been released, let’s look at some broad takeaways, who should be mad, who would win if these four teams made it to the CFP and how a 12-team bracket would look.

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Anger Index | Picks | 12-team bracket

Georgia needs to win more than the Vols on Saturday

Tennessee is at the top of the college football world.

It has the best résumé in the country and the best win — against Alabama. If Tennessee loses to Georgia on Saturday, it’s possible the Vols still finish the season 11-1 with a win against the SEC champions, should Alabama run the table.

If Tennessee wins on Saturday, it could lose to Alabama in the SEC championship game and still finish in the top four, having split with the Crimson Tide and finished as the league’s runner-up.

Georgia appears to have less margin for error, even at No. 3. (Though the No. 3 spot is the unofficial CFP jinx, as only one team ranked No. 3 in the initial rankings — Clemson in 2020 — has made the playoff.)

If Georgia loses on Saturday and doesn’t win the SEC East, it will need to hope desperately that it can finish in the top four without winning its division. Right now, it’s clinging to the lopsided season-opening victory against Oregon to boost its résumé. Without that, Georgia’s opponents are currently 22-26, with the best win against three-loss South Carolina. Without a victory against Tennessee, Georgia would need to hope wins against remaining opponents Mississippi State, Kentucky and Georgia Tech can help compensate for no division title, and none of those teams is currently in the CFP top 25.


Michigan’s nonconference schedule is holding it back

Michigan needs to beat Ohio State.

With Tennessee and Georgia playing each other on Saturday, there’s obviously going to be some room in the top four if Georgia loses and falls out; but if Georgia wins, you could still be looking at two SEC teams in the top four. That’s not ideal for a Michigan team sitting on the bubble behind an undefeated Clemson squad rolling toward an ACC title.

Without a win against the Buckeyes, it’s going to be hard for the committee to justify moving Michigan up. The Wolverines’ nonconference schedule (Colorado State, Hawai’i and UConn) was abysmal, and right now, their only win against a CFP top 25 team is No. 15 Penn State (though they get a shot at No. 16 Illinois this month). The same can be said for Ohio State as far as the Buckeyes’ best win, but clearly the committee likes what it sees on film from Ohio State more than that of Michigan.


Pac-12 isn’t done yet

The Pac-12 hasn’t had a team reach the CFP since Washington in 2016, but with No. 8 Oregon and No. 9 USC both ranked in the top 10, it’s possible the league can snap its drought.

Considering Tennessee and Georgia still have to play each other and that Michigan and Ohio State will meet, there will be movement above them. It’s also possible Alabama and Clemson lose between now and Selection Day, as Alabama has two tough trips to LSU and Ole Miss looming, and Clemson is at Notre Dame on Saturday and still has to face rival South Carolina before the ACC championship game.

The Pac-12 would be helped if TCU loses, which is possible because the Horned Frogs have to win on the road against both Baylor and No. 24 Texas. Oregon has some major opportunities to impress the selection committee, which ranked Utah No. 14 and Oregon State No. 23, opponents the Ducks still have to face during the regular season. It’s also possible that USC and Oregon face each other in the conference championship game, almost guaranteeing them both another ranked opponent. Oregon has to overcome its bad loss against Georgia, though; the 49-3 defeat would be by far the largest for a team making the CFP.

No. 12 UCLA isn’t out of the mix with one loss, either. In 2014, Ohio State was No. 16 in the CFP’s initial ranking — and it went on to win the national title. No team has started out lower than that.


TCU and the Big 12 should be concerned

The undefeated Frogs are behind one-loss Alabama. And they arguably have a better résumé than the Tide. That seems to mean TCU needs to finish as an undefeated conference champion in order to have a shot. The Frogs’ best wins are against No. 13 Kansas State and No. 18 Oklahoma State. — Heather Dinich

Anger Index

It’s outrage season in college football, and with Tuesday’s release of the first College Football Playoff rankings of 2022, there’s plenty of anger to go around.

Here’s Week 10’s College Football Playoff Anger Index.

1. TCU (8-0), ranked seventh: Yes, we know the argument. TCU just hasn’t been dominant. It’s a case that might hold water if dominance was the criteria for the teams just ahead of Horned Frogs.

TCU has had eight second-half drives this season when trailing. That’s actually one fewer than No. 4 Clemson.

TCU has three wins by seven points or less, but the team one spot ahead — Alabama — has two and a loss.

TCU hasn’t proven enough to overcome some of the obvious drawbacks. But hey, Michigan’s seven-point win over Maryland — the Wolverines’ second-best opponent this year — must’ve really impressed the committee.

The folks in the committee room claim to care only about résumé — who have you beaten? — and don’t look ahead or consider past seasons. So how then to make heads or tails of TCU’s No. 7 placement?

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4:20

ESPN’s college football crew discusses the rankings reveal for the Top 6 of the College Football Playoff.

The Horned Frogs have four wins over teams that were ranked. That’s the same as Michigan, Georgia and Alabama combined.

The Horned Frogs have four road wins, double the tally for Ohio State, Georgia, Michigan or Alabama.

The Horned Frogs have run 20 offensive plays in the fourth quarter when trailing. That’s just three more than Georgia, and they all came against better opposition than Missouri.

The Horned Frogs are No. 3 in ESPN’s strength of record, which measures the odds an average top-25 team would have the same record vs. the same schedule. That’s ahead of No. 5 Georgia, No. 6 Alabama and No. 7 Michigan.

But there’s a bigger debate here on how schedule difficulty should be considered. Yes, Tennessee and Georgia have marquee wins, and there’s a reasonable chance TCU would’ve lost had it played Oregon or Alabama. But is it tougher to play a schedule that includes one incredibly difficult opponent and a bunch of cupcakes (as Georgia has) or to go a full month playing decent (if not elite) top-25 teams (as TCU has)?

The argument for TCU is strong — stronger, too, because the committee seemed to indicate a belief in the quality of the Big 12 with the rest of its rankings (Kansas State and Texas fared better in the CFP ranking than in the polls). So it’s unfortunate that confidence wasn’t extended to the Horned Frogs. Because while the opening rankings don’t often mean much in the big picture, they do set the stage. And as it stands, TCU has done as much as anyone save Tennessee, and it’s still not good enough to eclipse even a one-loss Alabama.

For Tennessee, Georgia, Michigan, Alabama and Ohio State, the season will determine who ends up in the top four — starting with this week’s games for those SEC schools. But for TCU, these rankings suggest it’s not just about winning. The Horned Frogs need to win bigger, win better and still hope the teams ranked higher will falter enough to convince the committee to change its perceptions.

2. UCLA (7-1), ranked 12th: How are the Bruins behind USC? The Trojans have played two decent teams: Utah and Oregon State. They nearly lost to the Beavers and they did lose to the Utes. But UCLA? The Bruins’ lone loss came to a top-10 foe (Oregon) and they beat Utah.

3. Tulane (7-1), ranked 19th: The good news is Tulane is the top-ranked Group of Five team. The bad news is the Green Wave are ranked six spots behind Kansas State, which has two losses, including one to… Tulane!

4. Michigan (8-0), ranked fifth: The Wolverines’ brutal nonconference schedule is their undoing. It’s interesting this comes after canceling a nonconference series with UCLA, so Jim Harbaugh can now pass NC State’s Dave Doeren on the “we’re really angry about a canceled game against the Bruins” power rankings.

5. Florida State (5-3), unranked: How did Texas get ranked at 5-3 but Florida State did not? The Longhorns lost three close games — to Alabama, Texas Tech and Oklahoma State. So, too, have the Seminoles — to three ranked teams in Clemson, Wake Forest and NC State. But while Texas’ best win is against an average-at-best Oklahoma, FSU has a win over No. 10 LSU. Is a one-point loss to Alabama better than a one-point win over LSU? — David Hale

Picking the games

Caesars Sportsbook updated its national championship odds Tuesday and No. 1 Tennessee is now +1000 to win the title after starting the season at +10000. Ohio Sate is the betting favorite at +190, followed by Georgia (+200) and Alabama (+375). Here’s how ESPN’s writers see the semifinals going under the current ranking.

Andrea Adelson: Tennessee 35, Clemson 31; Georgia 30, Ohio State 27
Blake Baumgartner: Tennessee 38, Clemson 20; Ohio State 38, Georgia 35
Kyle Bonagura: Tennessee 38, Clemson 17; Georgia 35, Ohio State 31
Bill Connelly: Tennessee 48, Clemson 24; Georgia 28, Ohio State 27
Heather Dinich: Tennessee 42, Clemson 21; Ohio State 24, Georgia 21
Chris Low: Tennessee 42, Clemson 21; Ohio State 30, Georgia 27
Harry Lyles Jr: Tennessee 45, Clemson 27; Ohio State 27, Georgia 31
Ryan McGee: Tennessee 48, Clemson 24; Ohio State 30, Georgia 28
Adam Rittenberg: Tennessee 30, Clemson 27; Ohio State 34, Georgia 30
Alex Scarborough: Tennessee 45, Clemson 24; Georgia 35, Ohio State 34
Paolo Uggetti: Tennessee 41, Clemson 28; Georgia 34, Ohio State 37
Tom VanHaaren: Tennessee 31, Clemson 20; Georgia 31, Ohio State 38
Dave Wilson: Tennessee 42, Clemson 27; Georgia 33, Ohio State 29

How a 12-team playoff would look

Everyone with the power to expand the College Football Playoff wants the field to grow to 12 teams in time for the 2024 season.

But currently expansion is scheduled to begin in 2026, so while discussions continue on how to move up the timeline, we’re taking a look at how a 12-team playoff would look today based on the already-determined model released by the commissioners and presidents.

The field will be comprised of the selection committee’s six highest-ranked conference champions and their next six highest-ranked teams. The four highest-ranked conference champions will earn the top seeds and a first-round bye. The other eight teams will play in the first round, with the higher seeds hosting the lower seeds on campus or at another site of their choice.

Here’s what the playoff would look like if the 12-team format were in place today:

Seeds with byes

1. Tennessee
2. Ohio State
3. Clemson
4. TCU

Remaining seeds
(conference champs in bold)

5. Georgia
6. Michigan
7. Alabama
8. Oregon
9. USC
10. LSU
11. Ole Miss
12. Tulane

First-round games

No. 12 Tulane at No. 5 Georgia
No. 11 Ole Miss at No. 6 Michigan
No. 10 LSU at No. 7 Alabama
No. 9 USC at No. 8 Oregon

Quarterfinal games

No. 9 USC/No. 8 Oregon winner vs. No. 1 Tennessee
No. 10 LSU/No. 7 Alabama winner vs. No. 2 Ohio State
No. 11 Ole Miss/No. 6 Michigan winner vs. No. 3 Clemson
No. 12 Tulane/No. 5 Georgia winner vs. No. 4 TCU

— Dinich

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Low and inside: O’s will again alter LF dimensions

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Low and inside: O's will again alter LF dimensions

BALTIMORE — The Orioles are ready to adjust their wall in left field again.

The team moved the wall at Camden Yards back and made it significantly taller before the 2022 season. General manager Mike Elias said Friday the team “overcorrected” and will try to find a “happier medium” before the 2025 season.

The team sent out a rendering of changes showing the wall moved farther in — particularly in left-center field near the bullpens — and reduced in height.

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Dodgers’ Graterol (shoulder) to sit first half of ’25

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Dodgers' Graterol (shoulder) to sit first half of '25

LOS ANGELES — Dodgers right-hander Brusdar Graterol will miss the first half of next season after having surgery to repair the labrum in his right shoulder.

The surgery was performed Thursday by Dr. Neal ElAttrache, the Dodgers announced Friday.

Graterol is expected to return in the second half of the 2025 season.

Graterol pitched in seven games during the regular season and three games in the World Series against the New York Yankees, which the Dodgers won in five games. He allowed three hits over 2⅓ scoreless innings in those World Series appearances.

The 26-year-old was slowed this season by shoulder inflammation and a hamstring injury.

Graterol, a hard-throwing Venezuelan, spent his first season in the majors with Minnesota in 2019, and the Twins traded him to the Dodgers before the 2020 season. For his career, he has a 2.78 ERA and 11 saves in 188 games.

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‘They absolutely hate our guts’: The weird, wonderful games that define Texas-Arkansas

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'They absolutely hate our guts': The weird, wonderful games that define Texas-Arkansas

At SEC media days in July, Steve Sarkisian inadvertently described a good portion of college football in a single line. “I feel like when you go to Arkansas,” the Texas Longhorns coach said, “I almost at times feel like they hate Texas more than they like themselves. That’s a real rivalry.”

Later that week, Arkansas Razorbacks coach Sam Pittman confirmed Sarkisian’s take. “We hadn’t played Texas for years,” he said, “and when we played them a couple of years back, it was the most excited our fan base has been in a while. So I would say he’s probably right.”

Houston Nutt can testify. Nutt grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas. He idolized legendary Arkansas coach Frank Broyles and watched him battle Darrell Royal and the Longhorns before playing for the Razorbacks himself.

“When Texas came to play Arkansas, it was this huge, huge thing,” he told ESPN in 2019. “I remember being taught at the age of 6 outside War Memorial Stadium [in Little Rock] how to do the Hook ‘Em Horns Down sign.”

Nutt beat the Horns as the Hogs’ coach, a 27-6 win in the 2000 Cotton Bowl, Arkansas’ first bowl win since 1985. He turned around, and threw the Horns Down to the Arkansas fans.

“It was a sea of red, and they were mostly doing the Hook ‘Em Horns Down,” Nutt said. “What did I do? I can’t help it. I’m right there with ’em.”

Conference realignment has broken countless rivalries through the years. There are no Oklahoma-Oklahoma State games on the schedule; Missouri and Kansas haven’t played since 2011; Cal has traded playing UCLA for playing NC State; Oregon-Oregon State and Washington-Washington State have been moved from the traditional bottom of the schedule to the top; Pitt and West Virginia play only sporadically, as do Oklahoma and Nebraska. But in the “thank God for small favors” department, this latest round of realignment at least reignited a few rivalries to replace the further ones we lost. Longtime Big 8 and Big 12 rivals Oklahoma and Missouri played this past Saturday for the first time in 13 years (and celebrated the occasion with a particularly wacky finish), and on Nov. 30 not only will we get our first Texas vs. Texas A&M game since 2011 but it also might have enormous College Football Playoff stakes.

While we wait for Aggies-Horns, however, we get a rivalry game that, for quite a while, outshined Texas-A&M and defined Southwest Conference football. On Saturday, Texas and Arkansas will play for just the fourth time in 20 years and will play as conference rivals for the first time in 33. Most rivalries fit into certain parameters — the dueling heavyweights that split the wins over time, the heavyweight against the aspirant that measures itself by how well it’s faring against the big dog, etc. — but over the course of a few decades, Arkansas-Texas fit into multiple categories. Arkansas was the aggrieved and aspirant underdog for much of the series, but for much of the 1960s, when Royal and Broyles were at the top of their respective games, this was the biggest game in college football. Whichever flavor it takes on at a given time, this game remains spicy.

Texas is 8-1 and listed as a favorite by more than two touchdowns Saturday, while Arkansas is 5-4, having handed Tennessee its only loss of the season but suffered two blowout losses in its past four games. The Razorbacks are volatile underdogs; the Longhorns are SEC title favorites; and, for at least a little while Saturday, Razorback Stadium will be an absolute cauldron. To prepare ourselves, let’s look back at 10 of the most noteworthy games in this revived rivalry’s history.

No. 3 Texas 20, No. 14 Arkansas 0 (1946)

“Steers Trounce Tough Porkers For 5th Victory” was the headline in the Austin American. At 3-0-1, Arkansas was off to its best start in 13 years, and for the first time these teams met as mutually ranked foes. But Texas, also unbeaten and the winner of three of the past four Southwest Conference (SWC) crowns, handled both the moment and the muggy conditions better. Future pro and college football Hall of Famer Bobby Layne threw a pair of touchdown passes — one to Hub Bechtol for 50 yards, one to Jim Canady for 47 — and the Longhorns had scored all their points by halftime. This was a pretty common result: Aside from a mid-1930s run in which Texas lost its way as a program and Arkansas won five of six games between them, UT dominated the early stages of this rivalry, winning 29 of the first 35 battles. It’s been a lot closer since then.

This was the high-water mark for the “Steers,” by the way, as they would fall via road upset to both Rice and TCU, handing Arkansas only its second SWC title. The Razorbacks would head to Dallas, where they endured a 0-0 tie with LSU in the Cotton Bowl.


No. 3 Texas 13, No. 12 Arkansas 12 (1959)

After falling apart under Edwin Price in the mid-1950s, Texas righted the ship by hiring Royal, a former Oklahoma Sooner, to lead the program in 1957. In 1959 the Longhorns embarked on a run of nine top-10 finishes and two national titles in 14 years. Royal won his first two games against Arkansas by a combined 41-6, but second-year head coach Broyles also had things up and running by 1959. The Razorbacks would enjoy eight top-10 finishes in 11 years from 1959 to 1969; in this tight loss, they served notice as to what was coming.

As with much of 1950s college football, this game was decided by disasters. Both teams lost four fumbles; Arkansas recovered a loose ball to set up its first touchdown, but with Texas trailing 12-7 in the third quarter, another future Hall of Famer, Lance Alworth, muffed a punt, which set up a winning touchdown pass from Bart Shirley to Jack Collins. Between 1959 and 1969, eight of 11 Steers-Porkers games would be decided by five or fewer points.


No. 8 Arkansas 14, No. 1 Texas 13 (1964)

Texas won its first national title under Royal in 1963; the Longhorns shined in big games that season, beating No. 1 Oklahoma and No. 2 Navy by a combined 56-13, but they managed only a 17-13 win over Arkansas in Fayetteville. They advanced their winning streak to 15 games early in 1964, but Broyles was building a title-worthy squad of his own by then.

For the third time in four years, this was a matchup of top-10 teams. The most famous members of the 1964 Razorbacks were future Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and future college and NFL title winner Jimmy Johnson, but future Arkansas coach Ken Hatfield made the difference in this one. His 81-yard punt return gave Arkansas a 7-0 halftime lead, and after Texas tied the score in the fourth quarter, Fred Marshall found Bobby Crockett for a 34-yard touchdown to put Arkansas ahead once more. With about a minute left, Ernie Koy scored on a 1-yard plunge; Royal, entirely uninterested in a tie, elected to go for two points and the win, but a pass attempt came up short. Texas’ winning streak was over, and Arkansas would go on to finish 11-0 and score a share of its first national title.


No. 3 Arkansas 27, No. 1 Texas 24 (1965)

By October 1965, Arkansas had extended its winning streak to 16 games, winning its first four games of 1965 by a combined 114-33. But Texas had leapfrogged the Razorbacks to get back to No. 1, thanks in part to a 19-0 win over Oklahoma. That put the chip firmly back on Arkansas’ shoulder.

With the extra dose of motivation — plus, perhaps, some divine intervention: Fayetteville’s First Baptist Church famously posted, “Football is only a game, eternal things are spiritual. Nevertheless, beat Texas” that week — Arkansas raced to an early lead thanks to a pair of Phil Harris fumbles. Martine Bercher recovered the first one in the end zone, then Tommy Trantham took another one 77 yards for a score.

Arkansas went up 20-0 after a Jon Brittenum-to-Bobby Crockett touchdown, but Texas charged back. It was 20-11 by halftime, and David Conway’s 34-yard field goal made it 24-20 Longhorns with just five minutes left. Brittenum scored from a yard out with 1:32 remaining, though, and Arkansas had its second of three straight wins in the series.

The Hogs would run their overall winning streak to 22 before falling to LSU 14-7 in the Cotton Bowl.


No. 1 Texas 15, No. 2 Arkansas 14 (1969)

Don’t you love it when a plan comes together? Texas usually played Oklahoma and Arkansas back-to-back in early October, but Roone Arledge, the innovative head of ABC Sports, had an idea in the offseason. Texas had finished 1968 as the hottest team in the country, winning its last nine games and averaging 37 points per game with offensive coordinator Emory Bellard’s innovative wishbone scheme. Arkansas, meanwhile, finished 10-1 with only a 39-29 loss at Texas. The Longhorns and Razorbacks finished third and sixth, respectively, in the AP poll and headed into 1969, college football’s centennial season, as obvious national title contenders.

According to Terry Frei’s “Horns, Hogs, and Nixon’s Coming,” ABC publicist (and future ESPN analyst) Beano Cook pored over the schedules and determined that Arkansas, Texas and Penn State all had good chances of going unbeaten. “My recommendation involved Penn State and Arkansas finishing the regular season with perfect records and then playing for the national title,” Cook told Frei. “I said we should move Texas-Arkansas to December 6, because I thought Texas might be undefeated then, too.” Arledge told the coaches that former Oklahoma coach and politician Bud Wilkinson could make sure that new President Richard Nixon was likely to attend the game as well. It was going to be a spectacle unlike anything college football had seen.

Sure enough, the Longhorns and Razorbacks both reached December unbeaten (as did Penn State), and Nixon was there in the stands for a game that somehow lived up to all expectations.

With Texas’ offense discombobulated early — the Horns turned the ball over on their first two drives — Arkansas scored on a short Bill Burnett run and, early in the third quarter, a 29-yard catch by star receiver Chuck Dicus. Texas quarterback James Street scored on the first play of the fourth quarter, then scored on a 2-point conversion as well. (Royal decided before the game that he once again wanted to avoid a tie at all costs.)

With the score 14-8, Arkansas drove the length of the field and was on the verge of putting the game away until Danny Lester picked off a Bill Montgomery pass in the end zone. Then came “Right 53 Veer Pass”: On a fourth-and-3 near midfield, Street threw a bomb to Randy Peschel for 44 yards.

Two plays later, Texas went ahead with a short Jim Bertelsen touchdown. Arkansas drove near field goal range in the final seconds, but Tom Campbell picked off Montgomery to ice the game, and Nixon declared Texas the national champion in the locker room after the game. (This rather annoyed Penn State’s Joe Paterno, whose team was also unbeaten.)

College football’s explosion as a television product can be ascribed to countless things, but ABC’s innovative approach to broadcasting, followed by a couple of all-time classics — this and 1971 Oklahoma-Nebraska, to name two — in short succession certainly didn’t hurt.


No. 1 Texas 42, No. 4 Arkansas 7 (1970)

The sequel often fails to live up to the billing. Almost exactly a year after the 1969 classic, Texas was riding a 29-game winning streak, while 9-1 Arkansas was ranked fourth in the AP poll and looking for revenge on national television. It didn’t quite work out.

Texas rushed for 464 yards — Bertelsen and Steve Worster combined for 315 on their own, with five of the Longhorns’ six touchdowns — and picked off Montgomery three times. After a goal-line stand by the Longhorns’ defense prevented Arkansas from tying the score early on, the floodgates opened.

The tide had again turned in the rivalry. Arkansas would finally get some measure of revenge the next year with a win in Little Rock, but after winning four of seven over the Horns between 1960-66, the Hogs won only once between 1966-79.


No. 8 Texas 28, No. 3 Arkansas 21 (1978)

A generation ended when both Royal and Broyles retired after matching 5-5-1 seasons in 1976. They both ended up hiring their younger replacements — 38-year old Fred Akers at UT, 40-year old Lou Holtz at Arkansas — as their schools’ respective athletic directors.

Both led immediate rebounds. Holtz won 30 games, Akers won 29, and both schools finished in the AP top 12 each year from 1977 to 1979. In 1978, Akers’ Longhorns played a unique role, too: spoiler. They welcomed unbeaten Arkansas to Austin and ended the Hogs’ 11-game winning streak. Two Randy McEachern touchdown passes in the final minute of the first half turned a tie into a 20-7 Texas lead, and when Arkansas charged back to take the lead, Johnny “Lam” Jones caught McEachern’s third TD pass, and Johnnie Johnson picked off one pass and broke up another on a fourth down to seal the win. This was the first of four straight upsets in the series, with the lower-ranked team winning every year from 1978 to 1981. My favorite rivalries are the ones that make no sense.


Arkansas 42, No. 1 Texas 11 (1981)

And now for maybe the most shocking result in the history of the rivalry. Akers’ Longhorns entered the 1981 game No. 1 in the country, having just blown out Barry Switzer’s Oklahoma 34-14 to move to 4-0. Arkansas, meanwhile, had fallen out of the AP rankings two weeks earlier after a road loss to an awful TCU team that would finish 2-7-2. Surely a blowout was in store, right?

This was indeed a blowout, but not the one anyone expected. Two fumbles and a safety from an airmailed punt snap gave Arkansas a quick 15-0 lead, and the Longhorns never got closer. The Hogs led 25-3 at halftime and 39-3 after three quarters; Texas actually outgained the home team 421-323, but seven turnovers sabotaged all efforts. A turnaround in the series? Not so much. The last two Akers-Holtz battles ended up a combined 64-10 in favor of the team in burnt orange. But this one was an awfully big thumb in the eye, and it would prevent the Horns from winning a national title — they ended up second in the polls behind Clemson.


Arkansas 14, Texas 13 (1991)

“Ain’t no rematch. Best thing of all, ain’t gonna be no rematch.” That’s Arkansas head coach Jack Crowe, celebrating a Hogs win in the final SWC matchup between the two rivals. He had just weathered one of the silliest games in the series to secure permanent (well, permanent-ish) bragging rights. Arkansas led 14-0 at halftime after touchdowns from Ron Dickerson Jr. and Kerwin Price, but a 14-yard Phil Brown touchdown made it 14-7 heading into the fourth quarter, and a 55-yard burst from Brown tied the score. Or at least, it should have: The Longhorns missed the PAT, then missed a 39-yard field goal attempt with 3:45 left.

The teams weren’t particularly memorable, even if the game was. Crowe’s Razorbacks went 6-6 in their last season in the SWC, while David McWilliams’ fifth and final Texas team went 5-6. The teams had weathered ups and downs, splitting the previous six meetings and producing zero top-10 finishes from 1984 to 1991 as the SWC wobbled through controversies and discontent. In 1990, the SEC announced it was adding Arkansas as part of an expansion to 10 teams; the plan had originally included adding not only the Hogs but also Texas and Texas A&M, but the state legislature intervened, and only Arkansas was on its way out the door. So was Crowe: Broyles fired him (and then tried to get away with announcing he’d resigned) after Arkansas began its SEC tenure with a 10-3 loss to The Citadel.


No. 7 Texas 22, Arkansas 20 (2004)

Since 1991, this has basically been a series of pent-up aggression: Whichever rival takes an early lead when they meet just keeps wailing away for a while. Arkansas won two bowl meetings (the 2000 Cotton Bowl and the 2014 Texas Bowl) by a combined 58-13, Texas won a home game in Austin 52-10 in 2008, and Arkansas won a home game in Fayetteville, Steve Sarkisian’s second game in charge at Texas, by a score of 40-21 in 2021.

A 2003-04 home-and-home series produced some drama, though. Arkansas upset No. 6 Texas by a 38-28 margin in 2003, using an early 21-0 run to build some space, getting 217 combined rushing yards from Cedric Cobbs and quarterback Matt Jones and scoring every time it needed to down the stretch.

But with a young quarterback by the name of Vince Young taking over for UT in 2004, the Longhorns got some revenge. Texas built a quick 9-0 advantage with a safety from a bombed punt snap and a 49-yard TD from Young to David Thomas. And from there, it was the Cedric Benson show: The star running back produced 201 yards from scrimmage and scored via both ground and air. Texas held a 22-17 lead into the fourth quarter, and after forcing an Arkansas field goal with 9:58 left, the Longhorns’ defense forced three consecutive turnovers to ice the win. Arkansas would stumble to a disappointing 5-6 record, while Mack Brown’s Longhorns would finish 11-1 before winning the national title a year later.

The most recent Hogs-Horns game might turn out to have been pretty useful. “I don’t know what Darrell Royal did to Arkansas back in the day,” Sarkisian joked with reporters this week, “but they absolutely hate our guts. And I think we learned that the first time around when we went there.”

Texas knows what it’s walking into, at least. They know to expect a Horns Down or two, though we’ll have to wait and see if Sam Pittman gets in on the act.

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