Texas Longhorns vs. Arkansas Razorbacks Odds & Game Pick (2021)

Sep 10, 2021 - 10:02 AM

New Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian gets his first road test as a Longhorn this week as he takes his team to Fayetville to face a future inter-conference foe in the Arkansas Razorbacks. There, second-year head coach Sam Pittman is still looking for his first signature win with the program, as his team sputtered to 3-7 in 2020.

Let’s take a closer look at this matchup of two former Southwestern Conference foes, and examine how they should fare against one another this weekend.

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Details

• Opening Line: Texas -6, O/U 51.5
• Current Line: Texas -7, O/U 51
• Last meeting: December 29, 2014, Arkansas 31, Texas 7

	TEXAS	-7 -110	O58.5 -110	-260
	ARKANSAS	+7 -110	u58.5 -110	+215

Overview 

The soon-to-be departed (from the Big 12) Texas Longhorns got their first taste of the Sarkisian experience last week, as the “offensive guru” put up 38 points in the defeat of worthy Sun Belt for Lousiana. With the performance, the team answered many questions and head into Week 2 poised to cross an SEC opponent off their list next. 

Led by freshman Hudson Card, the Longhorns knocked off a Lousiana team that was a trendy underdog pick (by me included) quite easily, in the end, scoring 28 points in the second half to cover easily by 11+ points.

For the Razorbacks, 38 points were also the number for an offense that looks to take a step forward from last year as they return their leading rusher (Trelon Smith), receiver (Treylon Burks), and entire offensive line. While quarterback Felipe Franks has since departed, KJ Jefferson has been the defacto starter since the offseason and showed potential in his limited action last season. 

On the defensive side of the ball, the Razorback’s unit showed flashes of their potential last week in allowing Rice to just 17 points as their six top tacklers return this year. With 10 starters back in total, the Razorbacks lead the SEC with 87% of their tackles returning this season.

This Arkansas defense should be much improved this season as advertised, and I look for that to be put a much more significant test this week vs. Texas.

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Trends 

• Over is 5-0 in Texas’s last five games on the road
• Arkansas is 0-8 ATS in their last eight following a win by more than 20 points

Bottom Line

Bottom Line

This is an interesting matchup for several reasons, most notably what’s going on at each program around the coaching staff and starting quarterback position. While it’s easy to be impressed what Texas did to ULL last week, it’s also easy to forget they did so in front of 100k of their biggest fans; a luxury that I think was widely discounted in the lines and analysis we got in week 1. 

In what will be the Razorback’s first game hosting a non-conference Power 5 foes since 2017, I expect Razorback Stadium to be equally rocking and for this veteran-defense to rise to the occasion vs. a potentially overconfident (and largely young) Texas team.

Pick: Arkansas +7

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Johnny Perun is a featured writer at BettingPros. For more from Johnny, check out his archive and follow him @JohnnyCovers.

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