This time around, beating up on a pack of scrubs may actually mean something

At long last, game week is upon us and the mighty, mighty Arkansas Razorbacks take the field against...

Uh, wait a minute. Need to look that up. Hold on.

Oh, yes. Western Illinois. The Razorbacks open the season against Western Illinois in Fayetteville on Saturday.

Any college football fan knows that it's routine for teams from powerful conference to kick a bunch of patsies around the field several times a year. No disrespect to Western Illinois, but the team is simply no match for the Razorbacks. The Hogs compete in the SEC, while Western Illinois dukes it out in the Missouri Valley Football Conference with such premier teams as North Dakota State, South Dakota State and University of Northern Iowa.

Yes, the practice of bringing in a rent-a-win is shameful, but the reasons for it range from "everyone is doing it" to "college football is hard so they need some easy games." The end result is that such mismatches will probably continue for some time and major-conference teams will keep up the questionable practice of spanking minor-conference squads.

Generally, only one good thing comes out of those awful contests against scrubs -- if the home team loses, that's a sure sign that it's time to fire everyone from the coach down to the folks taking tickets at the gate. If your multimillion dollar program has slid so far downhill that a Western Illinois can beat it on it's own field, some major changes are in order.

This year, however, the ugly drubbing that typically serves as Arkansas' season opener could be quite valuable. Why? Because the Hogs have a new coach and everyone's curious to see what changes are in store for the team.

Yes, Bobby Petrino is now the coach and his team takes the field for the first time on Saturday. Will Western Illinois get slaughtered? Of course, but you'd better believe that all 72,000 seats in Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium will be filled as eager fans show up to see what the Hogs are capable of with the new coach on board.

For those not familiar with all things Razorback (shame on you!), a good chunk of last season was taken up by Hogs fans calling for the head of Houston "Rotten Bastard" Nutt. Before angry Arkies could get their pitchforks and torches out and take care of the Nutt problem by force, the rotten bastard fled over the river to Ole Miss -- an SEC West rival that must have spent a lot of time reading the nonsense that Nutt's media team was churning out on a full time basis.

So, this is the year when fans would really love Petrino to prove that we're better off without Nutt. That journey starts Saturday and my fellow Arkies are actually excited about a scrub game for a change. Also, we may actually see a coach in action who puts in a few pass plays rather than simply sending his running back up the middle for three downs in a row.

We can go back to ignoring those "gimme wins" after the Hogs whip the socks of an inferior Western Illinois team on Saturday.

Shameless (shameful?) plug

See that Fiesta MMORPG ad in the upper right-hand section of the screen? I usually don't talk much about ads, but that one leads to a game that's actually a heck of a lot of fun. It's free to register and play, so why not give it a shot?

It's only fair to warn you, though, that you're in for a huge download (around 680 megs, to be exact), but that's not too bad on a fast connection. I sat through it and the game was worth it as I tend to like those online, multiplayer things that involve swinging swords and running around looking like a kid who belongs on a Pokemon episode.

Just thought I'd mention it.