FAYETTEVILLE — Reigning national champion Alabama has won 14 straight games over Arkansas and is a solid favorite to beat the visiting Razorbacks again this weekend.
That isn’t fazing the underdogs.
Arkansas sixth-year senior linebacker Grant Morgan is confident the No. 21 Razorbacks (7-3, 3-3 SEC) have a legitimate shot to take down the No. 2 Crimson Tide (9-1, 5-1).
“The word 'believe' is thinking something is going to happen without you seeing it,” Morgan said.
“We like the word know around here. We like to know that we are going to do it. We’ve seen what we can do, we’ve seen we can win games. We beat LSU at LSU, we played a really good Texas A&M team really well at a neutral site."
Morgan said the Razorbacks know what they are capable of doing and the key Saturday is to focus on themselves.
“It is very important to be on one page," Morgan said. "If we have guys who don’t think can win, then it's obviously going to combat everybody and be like people going against us.
“It is huge to be able to say we that we can win, that we can go beat Alabama at Alabama. It’s a logo on the side of their helmet. They play football just like we do. They have a 100-yard field."
Arkansas receiver Treylon Burks is another Razorback with visions of an upset Saturday.
“That is really big to win 14 games in a row, but honestly we are just going to go out there and take the opportunity to play Arkansas football and the outcome will be the outcome," Burks said.
Arkansas offensive lineman Dalton Wagner does not see Alabama as more imposing than some other teams on Arkansas’ schedule.
“It is about taking it one play at a time and just going after it,” Wagner said. “We have gone against so many top-tier opponents this year and we have just got to make sure we take that same approach.”
Arkansas was clearly shellshocked when it lost 37-0 at Georgia on Oct. 2. Wagner doesn’t think that will be the case Saturday.
“The experience of Georgia of having that first real prime-time game, a nationally televised game, we had not had that years prior,” Wagner said. “This week — and all last week, too, for LSU — we have been just prepping for crowd noise as much as we can. Anything we can get, we are ready for it.”
Arkansas safety Myles Slusher, who has taken over a starting role for the injured Jalen Catalon, sees it as just another game on the schedule.
“We are preparing like we have been preparing the last few weeks and really the whole season," Slusher said.
“I really believe in what the game plan is for for this week so we can go on to win this game.”
Alabama downed LSU 20-14 in Tuscaloosa, Ala., two weeks ago while the Razorbacks took down the Tigers 16-13 last Saturday in Baton Rouge, La.
“I came back for a sixth year for games like this, to be able to win games like this, especially on the road against LSU,” said Morgan, who was named a finalist for the Burlsworth Trophy on Tuesday. “It just shows the type of program we have, the type of culture we have.”