Tennessee enters Saturday’s contest against Arkansas with the No. 4 ranking, a 4-0 record, and a pair of Top 25 wins to boast in the first third of the season.
Tennessee also enters this weekend’s SEC matchup as a 13.5-point favorite according to Fanduel and an 82.1 percent chance to win according to ESPN Analytics.
What Tennessee doesn’t have on their side, though, is recent history. The Vols will look to stop a program slide against the Arkansas football team when the two clash in Fayetteville this Saturday night.
While Tennessee is 13-6 all-time against Arkansas, the Razorbacks have beaten the Volunteers in four of their last five meetings including the last three games.
Tennessee and Arkansas have only played 19 times with just six meetings since the 2002 season. Arkansas’s late arrival to the conference in 1992 means that the two don’t share much history and their placement in the former SEC West meant that the two rarely squared off even when they were both in the SEC.
Tennessee dominated Arkansas in their first 14 meetings with 12 wins compared to just two losses. Tennessee won all three of their first meetings with two coming in a bowl game: the 1971 Liberty Bowl and 1990 Cotton Bowl.
Tennessee and Arkansas played every year from 1992 to 2002 with the Vols winning every meeting except for 1999.
Arkansas found a win over Tennessee in 2006 to snap a three-game losing streak, 31-14, before losing to Tennessee the following season, 34-13. Arkansas then popped off for three straight wins in 2011, 2015, and 2020.
Tennessee is certainly the favorite heading into Saturday’s game and will have the chance at stopping an SEC slide with a victory over the Razorbacks. I’m not of the belief that sporadic history will have any sort of effect on this weekend’s game but it is a chance for Tennessee to get back on the right side of one of their conference foes.
Arkansas will host No. 4 Tennessee at 7:30 p.m. ET on Saturday night in Razorback Stadium.
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Here’s a look at the highlights from Tennessee and Arkansas’s three most recent games:
11/7/2020 – Arkansas 24, Tennessee 13
- Harrison Bailey: 65 passing yards, Jarrett Guarantano: 42 passing yards
- Eric Gray: 123 rush yards
- Joshua Palmer: 28 receiving yards
10/3/2015 – Arkansas 24, Tennessee 20
- Joshua Dobbs: 232 passing yards
- Jalen Hurd: 90 rush yards
- Alvin Kamara: 34 receiving yards
11/12/11 – Arkansas 49, Tennessee 7
- Justin Worley: 208 passing yards
- Marlin Lane: 58 rush yards
- Da’Rick Rogers: 106 receiving yards
