FAYETTEVILLE -- The Arkansas Razorbacks will face a TCU defense Saturday feeling pretty good about itself.

The 23rd-ranked Horned Frogs held FCS member Jackson State to 65 yards last week in a 63-0 victory. Only Mississippi State, which shut out Charleston Southern on 33 total yards, had a better defensive performance in its season opener.

TCU was one of five teams to score two defensive touchdowns in their season opener.

TCU has led the nation in total defense five times -- all in the last 17 seasons -- with Gary Patterson serving as its defensive coordinator or as head coach. Only Alabama, which has had the nation's No. 1 defense six times, has more seasons atop the defensive standings than TCU.

"They really, really understand their scheme very well," Arkansas offensive coordinator Dan Enos said. "They're very athletic, their ends can move and their D-tackles are quick. They move them a lot. They're not going to sit there and just let you block them."

Weather report

The temperature is projected to be about 80 degrees for the 2:30 p.m. kickoff at Reynolds Razorback Stadium for TCU at Arkansas. As of Thursday, the chance for rain Saturday is very low, about 10 percent, and the humidity is projected at 44 percent and dropping by game time.

Personnel update

Coach Bret Bielema said on his radio show Thursday night that sophomore receiver Brandon Martin tweaked his hamstring in practice Wednesday and will not be available for Saturday's game.

Freshman safety Montaric Brown is practicing, but he still hasn't been cleared by the NCAA for eligibility yet, Bielema said.

Hogs-Frogs series

Arkansas has an all-time record of 44-23-2 against TCU, but it came after a rocky start in the series.

TCU controlled the first 21 games in the series, which began with a 19-2 victory by the Horned Frogs on Oct. 16, 1920, in Fayetteville. TCU held a 14-5-2 record through the 1944 game, which ended in a 6-6 tie in Fort Worth.

Arkansas won 27-14 the following season to start a five-game winning streak as part of an 8-6 run. The Razorbacks turned the series around with a 3-0 victory in 1959 that kicked off a 22-game winning streak through 1980. The Horned Frogs snapped the streak with a 28-24 upset over the No. 18 Hogs in 1981.

Get-back guy

Former Razorback Kiero Small, now an assistant strength and conditioning coach, served as defensive coordinator Paul Rhoads' personal pull-back man on the sideline. Rhoads, a demonstrative coach, was often straining toward the field with Small pulling his shirt from behind.

"I realized a couple of weeks before the season that I was going to need assistance in remaining on the sideline out of excitability," Rhoads said. "I asked him to help me out. He made sure to remind me at one point that it was him pulling on me constantly, and that's great."

The Razorbacks were flagged 15 yards for unsportsmanlike conduct when a staff member stepped on the field and bumped the back judge during Henre Toliver's fumble-return touchdown.

Frogs go low

Arkansas center Frank Ragnow touted the TCU defensive front, which has Chris Bradley and Ross Blalock projected as starting tackles, and Ben Banogu and either Ty Summers or Mat Boesen as starting ends.

"They're really well coached," Ragnow said. "You can tell because they play low. They play super low. No. 56 Chris Bradley plays amazingly low. No. 90 [Blalock] plays low. Then on the ends they're quick.

"They like to do a lot of lateral shuffling and they play a little bit off the ball so it's a different scheme than we're used to, but I'm excited to get after that."

Touchbacks

Arkansas kickoff man Connor Limpert got off to a strong start last week with four touchbacks among his eight kickoffs.

Limpert is averaging 62.6 yards per kickoff. The left-footer from Allen, Texas, had one kickoff go out of bounds against Florida A&M.

Last season, Arkansas ranked No. 81 with an average kickoff distance of 60.35 yards and tied for No. 104 with 20.8 percent touchbacks.

QB exchange

Arkansas' Austin Allen and TCU's Kenny Hill each led their respective conference in interceptions thrown last season. Allen had an SEC-high 15 and Hill threw 13 to lead the Big 12.

Each of the quarterbacks threw one interception last week. In last year's 41-38 double-overtime victory for Arkansas, Allen went 17 of 29 for 223 yards, with 3 touchdowns and no interceptions while Hill was 36 of 56 for 377 yards with a touchdown, and his lone interception was returned 47 yards for a touchdown by Brooks Ellis.

Allen ranked No. 29 nationally with a 146.04 quarterback efficiency rating in 2016, while Hill was No. 68 (129.22).

Whose crew?

A Big 12 officiating crew will work Saturday's TCU at Arkansas game. An SEC crew, headed by referee Marc Curles, called last year's 41-38 Arkansas victory in double overtime in Fort Worth.

The Razorbacks' two-game deal with TCU, originally entered into on Nov. 16, 2001, before it was put off until 2016-17, is believed to be the second-to-last football contract remaining that was negotiated by former long-time Athletic Director Frank Broyles, who died Aug. 14. Fittingly, the last remaining football contract worked by Broyles is the back end of a two-game agreement with Texas he signed on April 21, 2006.

Sharp catch

TCU defensive line coach Dan Sharp played a key role in the Horned Frogs' last victory in Fayetteville in 1984. Sharp caught a 34-yard touchdown pass during the 32-31 game at Razorback Stadium.

Go West, Zou

Arkansas Athletic Director Jeff Long reiterated Wednesday that he thinks Missouri should eventually become part of the SEC West. When the SEC expanded to 14 teams in 2012, Missouri joined the East while Texas A&M was placed in the West.

In May, Auburn Athletic Director Jay Jacobs floated the idea of his school swapping divisions with Missouri based on the makeup of Auburn's student population and other factors. The topic was not an agenda item at the SEC spring meetings.

The University of Missouri, located in Columbia,Mo., is the third-westernmost campus in the SEC behind Texas A&M and Arkansas, with LSU a close fourth.

Long got a laugh from the crowd at the Northwest Arkansas Touchdown Club when he said of the potential Auburn-Missouri swap, "Those [comments] were made by colleagues of mine who didn't follow the conference doctrine of not talking and discussing those things in public."

Extra point

• Former Arkansas Coach Ken Hatfield spoke to the Razorbacks on Thursday with a message that "was one for the ages" according to Bret Bielema.

• Henre Toliver's 18-yard fumble return touchdown last week was the first of that variety for the Hogs since Taiwan Johnson recovered a fumble in the end zone in the 2014 Texas Bowl.

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Sports on 09/08/2017