#18 Arkansas to host Toledo on Saturday

The Arkansas Razorbacks will venture out of conference Saturday to take on the Toledo Rockets. The Razorbacks ended their 2014 campaign strong, shutting out LSU and Ole Miss, narrowly losing to Mississippi State and Missouri, and blowing out Texas, 31-7, in their bowl game. Bret Bielema and company went into this season highly touted, ranked 18th in the preseason poll, and ready to run over their competition. On Saturday, Arkansas ran and threw all over their opponent, UTEP, en route to a 48-13 victory. Running back Alex Collins rushed for 127 yards on 12 carries with a touchdown, and quarterback Brandon Allen was 14/18 for 308 yards and four TDs. Allen, now a senior, did not throw for 300 yards in a single game last season. Head coach Bret Bielema spoke about how much his team, and especially his QB, has improved. “In the past I think we weren’t throwing it as good as we wanted to, and we weren’t catching it as well as we wanted to. Now we have a quarterback who can put a ball on a dime,” Bielema said. This week’s match up is at home against a Toledo team that went 9-4 last season, culminating in a 63-44 GoDaddy Bowl victory over Arkansas State. The Rockets are led by a pair of juniors, running back Kareem Hunt who rushed for 1,631 yards and 16 touchdowns last season, and quarterback Logan Woodside who threw for 2,272 yards with 19 touchdowns in 2014. If there was one thing to harp on during the Razorbacks’ 35 point win, it was the fact that Arkansas had to settle for a pair of field goals. Both came when the game was well out of hand, but Bielema addressed the issue. “We want to convert every time in the red zone, we had a couple field goals, which is obviously good, but we want to have touchdowns not field goals.” Arkansas is one of 10 SEC teams that are ranked n the AP poll this week, a list that includes every single SEC West team. The Razorbacks take on Texas Tech after Toledo, followed by four straight ranked teams. The stretch of Texas A&M, at Tennessee, at Alabama,

and Auburn will be a challenging one for Arkansas. They take a break by playing Tennessee-Martin, then finish off their season against another four teams that are currently ranked in Ole Miss, LSU, Mississippi State and Missouri. “If you do truly put a weight on strength of schedule, to get through this conference,” Bielema stated, “Everybody is going to make a joke about it, but its truly unprecedented what every team in this league can bring.” Kickoff from Fayetteville on Saturday is at 4 PM, on SEC Network. To hear sound from Arkansas head coach Bret Bielema click below: Bielema on QB Bielema on Field Goals Bielema on SEC