FAYETTEVILLE — The Arkansas Razorbacks and Alabama Crimson Tide experience decidedly different scheduling before their CBS-televised national Top 10 SEC opener Sept. 15 in Fayetteville.
Alabama, the reigning national champion ranked No. 2 in The Associated Press and ESPN/USA Today polls, opens the season Sept. 1 against No. 8 Michigan at Cowboys Stadium, then returns home regrouped for underdog Western Kentucky on Sept. 8 in Tuscaloosa.
Arkansas, No. 10 in both polls, opens with consecutive cupcakes at home: Jacksonville State on Sept. 1 in Fayetteville and Louisiana-Monroe on Sept. 8 in Little Rock.
Advantage: Alabama. The Tide tests its mettle against one national power outside the league before visiting a national power within the league.
Too bad for the Razorbacks that one of the most renowned of their four nonconference opponents for 2012, Rutgers or Tulsa, couldn’t fit into a Sept. 1 or Sept. 8 slot. Tulsa and Rutgers aren’t Michigan, but they are quality teams that advanced to bowls in 2011.
Both would have been better steps toward preparing for Alabama compared to the Mount Everest caliber leap that awaits the Razorbacks on Sept. 15 after facing Jacksonville State and ULM.
For Arkansas, those first two Saturdays are what they are.
Maybe that’s not all bad.
On paper, this veteran Arkansas team should be up to a Top-10 opening challenge like those Michigan Wolverines besetting Alabama, but what reads on paper doesn’t necessarily compute to the field.
Arkansas starting senior linebackers Tenarius Wright and Alonzo Highsmith haven’t experienced an entire full-contact practice this August. Neither has starting safety Eric Bennett nor has 2010 All-SEC running back Knile Davis.
Following Saturday night’s scrimmage, Coach John L. Smith said Bennett (hamstring Aug. 6), Highsmith(hamstring Aug. 4) and Wright (concussion Aug. 6) are deemed fit to practice today.
Highsmith especially needs the work. He missed all the spring practices after tearing a pectoral muscle lifting weights the night before spring drills began. He hasn’t been able to test the repaired pec in a contact drill because of a hamstring pull he sustained earlier this month.
Though recruited in 2008 as a linebacker, the fifth-year senior Wright has lettered only as a defensive end until moved back to linebacker in the spring. Wright and Highsmith still haven’t had a contact practice as an inside linebacker tandem
No panic. The schedule has allowed Wright, Highsmith and Bennett to avoid coming back too fast.
Meanwhile, reserves have logged invaluable first-team experience during their absences.
Anyone watching Knile Davis zoom in practice knows he’s full speed recovered from the Aug. 11, 2011, broken ankle that cost him the entire 2011 season. Most also know Davis’ Arkansas history of major injuries in practices rather than in games.
So as often as Smith said he wanted Davis tackled tested in practice, he’s apparently come around with this early schedule for Davis to take his hits in these early games and not in the practices preceding them.
“We’ve always had a philosophy: Get your good guys to the game,” Smith said after withholding Davis from Saturday’s scrimmage.
Especially when the game is three deep into September.
Sports, Pages 16 on 08/20/2012