2014 Texas Bowl results: Arkansas obliterates the Horns

Bret Bielema and Arkansas may have beat down Texas 31-7 in the Texas Bowl late last month, but the head coach appears to not be quite done taking shots at the Longhorns yet. Consider this quote, from his Monday afternoon presser:

If that seems mighty specific, you’re right! Texas head coach Charlie Strong happened to instill the following five core values with his players:

The Big 12’s awful Monday did not prove why TCU and Baylor didn’t make the College Football Playoff, that Charlie Strong was the wrong hire in Austin, or that Bob Stoops is almost done in Norman. Three games don’t have to be a referendum on anything in particular.

But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a really, really bad day for the 10-team conference with the 12-team name.

Via ESPN

That lead was more than enough for the Arkansas defense, which held Texas to just 59 yards, nine away from breaking the 71-year-old record for Texas’ worst offensive outing ever (vs. Southwestern in 1943, a 14-7 Texas loss impacted by World War II). A fourth quarter touchdown briefly gave Arkansas more points than Texas had yards.

1. Arkansas is pretty good now... The Razorbacks improved immensely in their second season under Bret Bielema. In 2013, Arkansas lost all nine games it played against major conference opponents, including all eight SEC games, and was rarely competitive. This season, the Razorbacks lost five games to teams ranked in the national top 17 by a total of 34 points, shut out No. 17 LSU and No. 8 Ole Miss in back-to-back November games, and got Bielema his first bowl win since 2009. The defense did not give up more than 20 21 points in its last six games and only gave up more than 30 points in regulation once, despite facing some of the nation’s most talented offenses. It was a far better season than anyone had expected from Arkansas.

You’ll also note Texas has as many penalty yards as it has offensive yards. If all of those had arrived when Texas had the ball, Texas’ offense would have exactly zero yards.

Texas is down early to Arkansas at the Texas Bowl, but according to at least one fan, they’re playing for something bigger.

Those core values include “tucking your jersey in your khakis,” “matching your shoes with your under-jersey turtleneck,” and “buying the medium tub of popcorn.”

Things are really not going well for Texas in the Texas Bowl. A sampling:

Texas and Arkansas square off in the Texas Bowl Monday in one of this postseason’s most intriguing matchups. Both teams finished strong, but which will hit the offseason with a victory?

The Razorbacks started 0-4 in SEC play, all but eliminating hopes for a postseason bid. Arkansas continued to improve as the season went on, beating LSU and Ole Miss by a combined score of 47-0 in back-to-back weeks. Every single conference opponent was ranked at the time Arkansas played them, but a 4-0 record in conference play and those two victories brought them to the postseason.

This past weekend marked the second beginning of bowl season.

If you are playing in a bowl game between December 26 and 31, you are likely a team from a name-brand conference, one with athleticism, upside, and nearly fatal flaws. Of the 10 teams that played on Saturday, nine were from power conferences (and the 10th was Cincinnati, which still feels like a major-conference team), and seven began the day between 6-6 and 8-4.

The game already gifted us Bret Bielema and Charlie Strong in cowboys hats, but Saturday gave us an even better gift.

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Arkansas and Texas are getting together in the Texas Bowl on Dec. 29. Naturally, they went to the rodeo on Friday night, and as one might expect, it was a feast for the senses.

This sport is so weird.

The Big 12 has a big problem, and the new SEC bowl pool system will make postseason recruiting inroads in the state of Texas much more difficult moving forward.

Of the top 30 players in the state of Texas, according to the 247Sports Composite rankings, 11 of them are committed to SEC schools, including nine pledged to the Aggies. The Big 12, meanwhile, has six, with none of the top 15 players pledged to its member institutions.

The AdvoCare V100 Texas Bowl has been a pretty fun matchup in recent years. The 2013 edition featured a Syracuse touchdown with 1:14 remaining to upend Minnesota, and the Golden Gophers were on the short end of the stick again in 2012. In that game, with future Red Raiders coach Kliff Kingsbury looking on, Tech scored 10 points in the final 1:10 to come away with a 34-31 victory. The most Texas thing about the Texas Bowl is that it is played in NRG Stadium, which boasts a record attendance of 80,020 fans who showed up for George Strait’s Cowboy Rides Away Tour last March.

This year, we’ll see another Texas thing ... Texas! The Longhorns will take on Arkansas.