Hogs, Rebels meet on similar path

Arkansas running back Rakeem Boyd (left) races to the end zone for a 69-yard touchdown during the first quarter on Saturday, Oct. 13, 2018, at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock.

FAYETTEVILLE -- Upon the 2018 season's end, Arkansas Razorbacks fans and Ole Miss Rebels fans viewed their second football Saturday in 2019 as both their first and maybe last SEC chance.

Nonconference results of their first football Saturday do not alter perspectives.

The Razorbacks of second-year Coach Chad Morris and Rebels of second-year Coach Matt Luke meet in their SEC opener at 6:30 p.m. Saturday at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium in Oxford, Miss., televised by the SEC Network.

Arkansas' 2-10 for 2018 includes 0-8 in the SEC.

Ole Miss went 5-7 overall but only 1-7 in the SEC. The Rebels' lone win: over SEC West rival Arkansas, of course, 37-33 in Little Rock.

Despite the Razorbacks closing 2018 drubbed 52-6 and 38-0 in SEC games at Mississippi State and Missouri -- and the Rebels left with 35-3 Egg Bowl on their faces from their annual Thanksgiving finale vs Mississippi State -- both programs preached better things for 2019.

Off last Saturday, their fan bases profess it's time to start practicing what they preach.

At Reynolds Razorback Stadium, the 28-point favored Razorbacks needed safety Joe Foucha's interception with 11 seconds left to seal a 20-13 victory over the Portland State Vikings.

PSU of Portland, Ore., is a Big Sky Conference team that went 4-7 last year and in the Football Championship Subdivision tiered lower than the major schools' Football Bowl Subdivision.

Morris knew Arkansas fans expected a showier start. So without directly referring to last year's 2-10, Morris asserted, "Never will I ever apologize for winning. There's no such thing as a bad win."

Before the Hogs finally prevailed in Fayetteville, the Rebels lost 15-10 to the Memphis Tigers in Memphis.

The Rebels were actually 4.5 points underdogs. Memphis, of the American Athletic Conference, comes off an 8-6 in 2018.

Yet even as underdogs, SEC football fans pregame presume their team beats Memphis. SEC snobbish, they deem Memphis the SEC neighborhood team somehow not football fit for the SEC

Those Memphis football games don't always follow the SEC fans' script.

Ask Arkansas, 2-3 against Memphis in the 1990s after the Razorbacks switch from the Southwest Conference to the SEC.

In their postgame summations Saturday in Fayetteville and Memphis, Morris and Luke sounded remarkably similar.

"I thought our defense played well, I thought they swarmed to the football," Morris said, qualifying that with criticism of two "unacceptable" personal foul penalties. "I was very disappointed offensively. I don't think that we really ever got into rhythm."

Luke said what Morris would say.

"I thought on defense there were some bright spots for sure," Luke said. "Offensively we really struggled in the first half, got a little better in the second half. We've got to grow up in a hurry. We're going to move forward and get that bad taste out of our mouth."

Moving forward and ridding bad taste became the Arkansas and Ole Miss mantra since closing 2018.

One game into 2019 it still is.

Sports on 09/02/2019