Hard to Watch: Arkansas Razorbacks 38, Troy Trojans 28

For a few wobbly moments there in the second half, I was wondering if the football gods were paying me back for indulging in a little schadenfreude after Houston Dale's miserable showing against Vanderbilt.

Alas, the Razorbacks held on, but I doubt that many of us are rushing to bet the mortgage that they will prevail in next weekend's showdown in Tuscaloosa. Sports are funny, though: I remember the basketball Hogs of the mid 1990s - you know, the team that won a national title and then made it back to the championship game the following year - had a frustrating habit of barely beating teams that, on paper at least, they should have taken to the cleaners.

To be sure, there were some alarming signs - Tyler Wilson running for his life for much of the second half and the secondary's dead-on impersonation of their 2009 counterparts being chief among them - but I hesitate to make too much of one game. When all is said and done, perhaps tonight's contest will serve a purpose: bring the Razorbacks' heads out of the clouds after walloping two cupcakes and focus the team before a huge, potentially season-defining game.