I think Texas State is going to be another challenge for the Hogs. They are a spread team and have a QB that can run and throw. They beat a pretty good Ohio team on the road in week one.
I sure hope the Hogs can put this one away early, but I wouldn’t bet on it. This is a Toledo type team. Both sides of the ball need to come ready to play.
You piqued my interest - so I looked them up. QB was on Manning Award list in week 1 - 40 completions and 411 passing yards - Starting oline averages 6’5" and 307 lbs across the front. This could be a tough, tough matchup this week. I hope the Hogs heads are not in the clouds! These folks are for real and are hosting Houston the next week at home… We can look real good or real bad on the outcome of this game. No time for vanilla sets and so much for getting freshmen experience…
I’d love to get some Jimmy Carter analysis on this game …
With sprinkles
They’re the 3rd best of our non-conference opponents. They’re a team we should beat handily if we take them seriously. However, that’s a bigger “if” than it used to be. There’s simply more parity these days. If’ we’ve learned anything over the past two weekends, teams that used to be typical cupcakes don’t act like cupcakes anymore. But I think this staff does a good job of getting the team ready. I’m not really worried even though I know it’s possible for us to lose.
DO NOT overlook this team. This team plays faster than TCU and they have a good dual-threat QB. What gives Arkansas fits? Dual Threat QBs. There were numerous times last week when the DL was out of position at the snap of the ball. The defense was worn out by the end of regulation and hung on for the OTs. Texas State will test our legs again.
I couldn’t agree with you more, Buck. I could not believe when I saw the 31 point line. I am baffled at everyone’s optimism regarding this game. How are they any worse than Louisiana Tech?
Just went to RealtimeRPI.com La Tech is #74. Where is Tx State? Try #59; ahead of teams like NC State, Va Tech, Missouri, Cal, Ga Tech, Penn St.
These guys are for real people. $1000 on Tx ST +31 could be the safest bet of the weekend, IMVHO.
I have seen no evidence that RealTimeRPI knows anything about football. RPI for basketball? They know that. I think they just throw some numbers out for football because people expect them.
Yeah, Texas State ran up huge numbers against Ohio, which then turned around and beat Kansas. So what? I think Bentonville High could beat Kansas. I think Texas State is worse than LaTech and much better than Alcorn State.
Computer ratings are not very good at this time of year (another issue with RealTimeRPI even if they did know anything about football). There’s not enough information. Some of the computer ratings aren’t even doing numbers yet because of that. Particularly the information is lacking about Texas State, which has only played one game while almost everyone else has played two. But looking at some of the old BCS computers, Sagarin has them #132 in CFB. LaTech is #84. Alcorn is #198. Massey has TSU #102, LTU #69. Colley has LTU #69, TSU #33, which is a huge outlier, even more than RealTime. But again, not enough information yet. RPI in hoops doesn’t become valuable until January. By the basketball analogy, this football season isn’t even to Thanksgiving yet.
Recognizing the limitations of computer rankings in mid-September, I looked at Sagarin’s predictor numbers, which are designed to be used for (duh) predictions. On a neutral field, we would be a 27 point favorite over Texas State. Add in 2.6 points for home field, and it becomes Hogs -30. Which is just about what Vegas is listing.
Texas State had a lot of passing yards against Ohio, but did not run the ball very well. Their QB is a senior and they have 300 pounders on the OL(just like every body else these days). Before you get too excited, though, remember that their OL gave up six sacks against Ohio, despite the fact that most of their passes were short routes. The QB also threw two interceptions.
On defense, Texas State is undersized up front and generally not good against the run or pass. Ohio had 630 yards of total offense, including about 550 in regulation.
Lastly, they have no depth. If you go to their web site and look a the participation chart for the Ohio game, you will count 27 names, including kicking game specialists. Even if that chart is short a couple of names, they basically played their starters the whole game in a three overtime game.
So we are not going to shut them out, and we may not cover the big spread, but Texas State should be the easiest win so far this season by a wide margin.
I don’t expect it to be a La Tech/Toledo type game.
Their tempo could present a challenge. There were a few times Arkansas had trouble getting lined up against TCU and Texas State can play quicker than the Horned Frogs. Texas State ran 87 plays in regulation at Ohio. TCU is averaging 84.5, excluding the OT plays last week. But Texas State snaps the ball a bit quicker.
Their QB does have experience and is dual threat, but he’s not in the same class as a Kenny Hill. Like someone else mentioned, their OL gave up six sacks against Ohio, so his protection is an issue. He’s got a career 2:1 TD/INT ratio, which held true in this year’s opener under a new coach. I think they’ll struggle to block Arkansas’ pass rush and have trouble running the football.
I’d be surprised if Arkansas didn’t have its way with their defense. Last year, Texas State ranked ninth in the Sun Belt in scoring defense (39.2 points per game) and 10th in total defense (521.8 yards per game). Allowed an average of 258 rushing yards per game on 5.7 yards per carry. They’ve got six starters back and the new staff switched to a 3-4 scheme, but they still were pretty bad against Ohio (630 yards allowed, 560 in regulation).
Obviously preseason polls can be way off and are far from the end-all, be-all. But, for reference, Texas State was picked to finish 10th out of 11 teams in the Sun Belt after going 3-9 last year. Ohio was picked to finish second, nearly first, in the Mid-American Conference. Bowling Green barely beat them out. Kansas was picked last in the Big 12 and received less than half the votes of the ninth-place team (Kansas).
I think I picked Arkansas 52-13 in the magazine. I could see Texas State scoring maybe in the low 20s, but I have a hard time seeing it being able to keep pace with/slow down Arkansas enough to make it a game.
Texas State has a good coaching staff, and they could stay close for a while. Their depth depends too much on young players and transfers, because the new coach got rid of a lot of Franchione’s problems.
I think Arkansas is getting better on defense against the spread. The one play that concerns me is the QB run, that’s called plays for the QB. I am expecting Texas State to offer some empty backfield sets with called QB runs. Arkansas will have to play that set different than it did against TCU. When you get burned by a play, the next week is the time when you expect it the most. I bet Arkansas does not take the mike linebacker out of the middle of the field against empty sets.
Arkansas should be able to run the ball against this defense. I think there could be some interesting twists in the game with an offense capable of scoring some (Texas State), but I think the Hogs will play well. They got better from week one to week two. I think the Hogs will take another step forward.
Why don’t we assign someone to shadow a running QB? This has been a problem for us for years.
Thank you, Jimmy! I feel a little better 
I don’t think Texas State is close to the level of Louisiana Tech. If Arkansas can win at TCU, it should be able to win this game by 20-plus.
They gave up 500+ to Miami (OH) there is no reason to think this will be anything less than a blow out.
Good (thorough) analysis JC, and thanks for sharing it. While I love what I have seen from this team so far and have high hopes for much continued success throughout the remainder of the season, I am not really sure that we know how good we really are. A case can be made that we were actually “lucky” in both of our early wins, which could have easily been losses. Hopefully you are totally correct, but I suspect that it will be a couple or three weeks before we can really say that we have “arrived”. It is very hard for a football team to be “up” for every game, and the weekend after TCU with a big favorable point spread makes it even more difficult. Hopefully we’ll bring our “A” game again. WPS!!!
Other than the fact you could have said the same the first week against LaTech
Thanks JC, great work as always.