Setting Out the Good China for a Tornado

GEORGIA MONEYBALL — Saturday, September 19, 2026

Arkansas will pack its sideline with recruits Saturday, just in time for them to watch No. 2 Georgia come to supper.

ALBANY, GA — · By the RFA Sports Desk

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports the Razorbacks will line their sideline Saturday with the season's second big batch of recruits, headlined by one of the top prospects in the whole 2028 class, plus several priority targets — some of them, bless their hearts, from the state of Georgia. Now, I admire hospitality as much as the next Southerner. But inviting impressionable teenagers over on the very afternoon the oddsmakers have made you a 24-and-a-half-point underdog to No. 2 Georgia strikes me as setting out the good china for a tornado.

The sales pitch, presumably, is that football is a funny old game, and the sport has done its part lately. Oklahoma State, a 23-and-a-half-point underdog fresh off losing to Tulsa, beat No. 6 Oregon, 39 to 31, and ended a 21-game losing streak in the bargain. Texas climbed out of a 23-to-3 hole to beat No. 1 Ohio State, 24 to 23, on a one-yard plunge by a fellow named Hollywood Smothers with 25 seconds left. Unranked Michigan handled No. 11 Oklahoma, 17 to 10. Miracles occur. They just tend to occur to somebody else.

Inviting recruits over on the day you're a 24-and-a-half-point underdog is setting out the good china for a tornado.

Georgia, meanwhile, does its recruiting the way a bank does its lending — on collateral. Five-star Carrollton cornerback Tyler Boyd, one of the top corners in that same 2028 class, told DawgNation this week that the proof is in the pudding, and that when you come to Georgia and play at Georgia, you go to the NFL. He said it after taking in the White Out win over Western Kentucky alongside two old Carrollton teammates, Zykie Helton and Ryan Mosley, who are Georgia freshmen now. It is rather hard to out-pitch the pudding.

As for what Arkansas's houseguests will see from the visitors, the ledger is not encouraging for the hosts. This Georgia offense has converted 100 percent of its short-yardage and goal-line tries, the best figure in three seasons of records, and its open-field yards per carry have climbed from 1.49 in 2023 to 3.96 now. In plain talk: when Georgia needs a yard, Georgia gets the yard, and when it doesn't need one it is liable to take a great many. That is the sort of thing a young man remembers come signing day.

The housekeeping, then. Georgia's availability report rules out cornerback Justice Fitzpatrick along with two other defenders, while receiver Thomas Blackshear, who missed the Western Kentucky game with a wrist injury, is good to go, as On3 noted. Whole Hog Sports reports Arkansas hasn't changed a line of its depth chart in two games and is staying with junior KJ Jackson at quarterback. Kickoff comes at noon Eastern in Fayetteville, with the class of 2028 watching from the fence. Somebody ought to tell those boys it's considered impolite to stare.

The Notebook

• THE ONE THEY'RE ARGUING ABOUT: No. 13 Texas Tech slipped past No. 22 Houston Friday night, 28 to 26. Oregon beat Portland State 84 to nothing, which is less a final score than a citation.
• TONIGHT'S HONEST GAME: The Bayou Bengals visit the Oxford Rebel Roosters at 7:30 Eastern, giving just 3. The desk calls it a coin-flip, and for once the number agrees.
• KICKOFF: Georgia at Arkansas, high noon Eastern. The line sits at Georgia by 24 and a half, and the desk has it filed under lock.

Written in the tradition of Lewis Grizzard, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 1946–1994.

Hear the desk read tonights report on Radio Free Albany, WPFQ 96.7.