WOOOOOOOO, PIG! SOOIE!
Sorry, folks. Reflex. I call the Hogs before every stat, and it turns out I also call 'em before every sentence when I'm happy. And friends, I am happy. I'm Bubba Fayette-Dorsey, a grade-school science teacher from up in the Ozarks, and I spend my weekdays explaining the water cycle to fourth graders and my weekends explaining Razorback football to anybody who'll stand still.
This week, my fourth graders got a bonus lesson. It's called "How to End a Streak." Pull up a hay bale.
Part 1: The Night the Skid Ended
WOOOO, PIG! Arkansas 31, Vanderbilt 21, Saturday night in Nashville.
And folks, here's why I'm hollering. According to the AP, that win snapped Arkansas's 14-game Southeastern Conference losing streak. Our first SEC win since 2024. Fourteen straight. I had started measuring that streak in school years. I had students graduate from the fourth grade during it. Okay, that's just one grade, but it felt longer.
Here's how it went down. Vanderbilt scored first, on a 4-yard run with 13 seconds left in the first quarter. Then in the second quarter, defensive back Joker Johnson stepped in front of a pass and took it 25 yards for a touchdown. SOOIE! That's a man who reads a quarterback like a fourth grader reads the lunch menu: fast, and with purpose.
Vandy went back up 14-7, and then Cam Settles scored from 11 yards out with 38 seconds left in the half to tie it. In the third quarter, our quarterback, KJ Jackson, ran in from eight yards, the Commodores tied it again, and then Settles scored his second touchdown, from three yards, with nine seconds left in the quarter. 28-21.
And then the play of the night. With 3:46 left, Vanderbilt drove to our 29. On second-and-12, Miguel Mitchell intercepted the pass. WOOOO! Max Gilbert drilled a 39-yard field goal with 24 seconds left, and the streak was over.
Jackson completed 21 of 31 passes for 251 yards with no interceptions, and he ran for 58 yards and that touchdown. We ran for 187 yards as a team, spreading it around five different runners, as the AP put it. Settles had 45 yards and two scores, and Braylen Russell added 51 yards. Antonio Jordan caught five passes for 74. On defense, Ja'Quavion Smith made 10 tackles and Mitchell had a sack to go with his interception. We didn't turn it over once and held the ball for 33:47.
Hog Call Science Corner
Every week I explain one thing like I would to my class. This week: momentum. An object in motion stays in motion. For 14 straight SEC games, our object was not in motion. Saturday night, Joker Johnson applied an outside force, 25 yards' worth, and now we're rolling. That's Newton's first law, kids. Isaac Newton never called the Hogs, but I like to think he would have.
The Honest Lab Report
A good scientist reports all the data, even the ugly results. WOOOO, PIG, here comes the ugly data. We're 3-4 and 1-3 in the SEC. We lost at Utah 43-10, to Georgia 45-17 and at Texas A&M 34-7, and we lost 24-17 to Tennessee, which just beat Alabama by 16. We score 21 points a game and give up 26.7. Those numbers have room to grow, like a bean sprout on a windowsill.
Part 2: This Week, Nap Time. Next Week, Missouri.
WOOOO, PIG! Here's the honest schedule note: Arkansas has an open date this Saturday, Oct. 24. No game. The Hogs get a week to rest, heal, and, I hope, watch the Vanderbilt tape a few dozen times just to feel good about themselves. I know I will.
Then on Saturday, Oct. 31, No. 22 Missouri comes to Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville. Kickoff time hasn't been announced as I write this. Halloween in the Ozarks, folks. I'll be in costume. I'm going as a stat sheet.
Now, I'll be neighborly first. Missouri is 5-2. It's unbeaten at home, the AP noted, beat Florida 45-17 and Texas A&M 27-6, and it was ranked 13th until last week. Its running back, Jamal Roberts, has 867 rushing yards and eight touchdowns. Its quarterback, Austin Simmons, has thrown for 1,773 yards with 14 touchdowns and two interceptions. Daeden Hopkins has seven sacks. That's a good football team, and I won't pretend otherwise.
But let me show you some data from last Saturday. WOOOO, PIG!
Missouri lost 31-3 at Ole Miss. Three points. Roberts, who had run for more than 200 yards in each of his previous two games, ran 20 times for 39 yards. Missouri as a team ran for 39 yards on 26 carries. And when the Tigers had first-and-goal at the Ole Miss 2, they lost yards twice, threw an incomplete pass and then missed a 23-yard field goal. Friends, I have fourth graders who can get a pencil sharpened faster than Missouri got that ball across the goal from the 2.
And that wasn't their only road trouble. Missouri also lost at Mississippi State 31-24. So the Tigers are unbeaten at home and 1-2 away from it. Guess where they're playing on Oct. 31? Not at home, folks. Here. In the Ozarks. On Halloween. Spooky.
Who to Watch
WOOOO, PIG! KJ Jackson, our quarterback: 1,444 yards, seven touchdowns, four interceptions on the season, and coming off his cleanest SEC night.
Chris Marshall, receiver: 43 catches for 633 yards, our leader.
Ja'Quavion Smith: 48 tackles, our leader. Quincy Rhodes Jr.: three sacks.
Jamal Roberts, Missouri running back: 867 yards. Ole Miss just showed the world how to slow him down. We've got two weeks to take notes.
Cayden Lee, Missouri receiver: 47 catches for 678 yards and five touchdowns.
A Brief History Seminar
I'll be honest: Missouri leads the series 13-4, according to CollegeFootballData.com, and has won the last four meetings. That's a streak, folks, and if there's one thing the Hogs just proved, it's that streaks end. Ask Vanderbilt.
Ozark Report: A Tale of Two Towns
Fayetteville. The 2020 census counted 93,949 of us, and Fayetteville is the most populous city in Northwest Arkansas. We sit in the Boston Mountains, part of the Ozarks, and when the leaves turn at the end of October, there's no prettier place on God's green earth. Dickson Street is the best-known entertainment district in Arkansas. Our track and cross country teams have won so much that folks call Fayetteville the "Track Capital of the South." Razorback Stadium seats 76,212. Our live mascot, Tusk, rides up from a family farm in Dardanelle, a two-hour trip, for every home game. And Arkansas claims the 1964 national championship, when the Hogs were the only major team to go 11-0. Then there's the Hog call itself, which got its "Sooie" back in the 1920s. Hundred-year-old tradition, folks. Older than some of the hills, almost.
Columbia, Missouri. Now, Columbia's a nice college town. I'll say it. But Wikipedia says folks there used to call it the "Athens of Missouri," and now it's "more commonly called 'CoMo.'" Friends, they went from Athens to CoMo. That's like a science fair project that started as a volcano and ended as a potato battery.
They're very proud of the Missouri School of Journalism, founded in 1908. Great school. Real history. So I've got a story for those student reporters, free of charge, and the headline writes itself: "Missouri Scores Three Points in Oxford." Run it above the fold, kids.
Missouri calls itself the Show-Me State, so let's do it. Show me, Missouri. Show me a touchdown from the 2. We'll wait.
And their mascot, Truman the Tiger, is named after President Harry S. Truman. That's a fine man to name a tiger after. Our mascot is a real hog named Tusk. Truman is a costume. Tusk is a hog. Science says the hog wins.
The Last Hog Call
Here's my hypothesis, and I've tested it all week. We just ended a 14-game streak. We have two weeks to prepare. Missouri is coming off a game where it ran for 39 yards and scored three points, it's 1-2 on the road, and it's coming to the Ozarks on Halloween, where the leaves are orange, the stadium is red and the noise is a hundred years old.
Results pending, kids. But I like this experiment.
WOOOOOOOO, PIG! SOOIE! Razorbacks!