FAYETTEVILLE — As Florida players ran onto the field Saturday, Arkansas' student section welcomed them with a giant banner - known as a tifo - that read, "Welcome to the SEC West: The Best Division in College Football."
It may have been as much a taunt as a warning to the No. 11 Gators, which had won six of seven by beating up on teams from their own division and group-of-five conferences. Arkansas was Florida's first test from the West because a hurricane postponed an earlier game between the Gators and LSU.
Like its SEC Championship Game performance against Alabama last December, Florida failed its test against college football's best division, and it did so badly.
From the opening kickoff to the final kneel-down, the discrepancy between the East and West looked as wide as ever. The team tied for fewest wins in the West manhandled the first-place team from the East for a 31-10 win.
The SEC West improved to 9-1 this season against the East. The lone blemish came two weeks ago when Kentucky kicked a 51-yard field goal as time expired to beat Mississippi State.
Many throughout the week picked the Razorbacks to "upset" the Gators because of their path to November. It probably wasn't an upset at all.
Arkansas had played (and lost to) three teams ranked in the top 10 of the first College Football Playoff rankings; Florida hadn't played a team in the top 25.
The biggest difference was Florida had not played a team as physical as Arkansas along the line of scrimmage. The Razorbacks hadn't played an SEC team less physical than the Gators.
The stats show Arkansas' dominance in the trenches. The Razorbacks out-gained the Gators 223-12 in rushing yards, had two more sacks and kept the ball for nearly twice as long.
Perhaps most telling, Florida had eight players leave the game with injuries.
The play along the line is where the West sets itself apart from the East. Teams like Florida, Georgia and Tennessee recruit the skill positions well, but the linemen are found at places like Arkansas, Alabama, Auburn, LSU and Texas A&M.
Florida's defensive line didn't look so daunting when compared to lines that included Myles Garrett and Daeshon Hall, Jonathan Allen and Da'Ron Payne, or Carl Lawson and Montravius Adams. The Gators don't see a lot of Dan Skippers or Deatrich Wises on their side of the conference.
Three eastern division teams - Florida, Georgia and South Carolina - have hired Nick Saban assistant coaches to try and replicate that style, but all are in their first or second season and the wins haven't followed, at least not against their western division counterparts. Those teams are 0-4 against the West this year with losses by a combined 127-51.
The demand to match Alabama's success is higher in the West and that is showing up in the cross-divisional games. It has created at least five West teams that would probably win the other division.
One of those is Arkansas, which was clearly the best team on the field Saturday. Competition matters and it showed.