ATHENS, Ga. — In a sport rife with traditions and grandstanding and some outright fantasies, there remain some seemingly gospel truths.
Eighth-ranked Arkansas, college football’s darling of the week, learned this one on Saturday during a trip to No. 2 Georgia: In a top-10 matchup, two false-start penalties before the first offensive snap are as perilous as they are foreboding.
But that was how Arkansas opened its afternoon in Athens, where the few Razorback fans who dared surface at Sanford Stadium could have been forgiven if they headed toward Broad Street’s bars not long after kickoff. A matchup that seemed potentially titanic in the late morning had the makings of a rout by early afternoon, as Georgia railroaded, bullied and otherwise embarrassed Arkansas, 37-0.