Portland State football to play Arkansas

TUESDAY SPORTS NEWS/Vikings set road game against Razorbacks to open 2019 season

Portland State will face its first-ever Southeasern Conference opponent — Arkansas — to open the 2019 football season.

PSU will play the Razorbacks on Aug. 31, 2019. One source says the Vikings will get a payout of $550,000 to play the game.

Arkansas went 7-5 this season and will face Virginia Tech in the Belk Bowl on Dec. 29 at Charlotte, North Carolina.

"You gotta love the challenge," PSU coach Bruce Barnum says. "When I was coaching at Idaho State, we almost beat Kentucky. I believe we'd have been the first Big Sky team to beat an SEC team."

Scheduling that caliber of a game, Barnum says, "will help recruiting. The pageantry of the SEC — kids can get excited about that. What an experience."

Portland State, an FCS school, schedules at least one "money game" on the road against an FBS opponent each season to help balance the budget. In recent years, it's been two.

In 2015, PSU upset Washington State 24-17 and clobbered North Texas 66-7. This season, the Vikings were trounced by San Jose State (66-35) and Washington (41-3).

In 2017, Portland State will play Brigham Young and Oregon State. In 2018, PSU will go up against Nevada and Oregon. The Vikings also have a game scheduled at Hawaii in 2021.

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