LSU reveals Tommy Hodson, Bradie James returning as guest captains vs Arkansas
When LSU hosts Arkansas on Saturday, two legends of that program will make their return to campus. That’s right, Tommy Hodson and Bradie James are coming back to LSU, this weekend.
The LSU Tigers will host their first SEC home game this season on Saturday against their rivals to the north, the Arkansas Razorbacks. The rivalry known as ‘The Battle for the Golden Boot,’ has seen LSU win six of the last seven matchups.
Despite the recent history, a rivalry of this magnitude will surely draw the attention of Tigers fans and even former players near and far. And some of those former players will be taking on a more hands-on role in LSU’s preparation to take down Arkansas.
Ahead of Saturday night matchup, LSU revealed that they will add two additional captains for the game as guest captains in former quarterback Tommy Hodson and linebacker Bradie James.
James stalked opposing offenses for LSU from 1999 to 2002. At LSU, he played in a total of 46 games, recording 34 starts. James was a two-time first-team all-SEC recipient in 2001 and 2002. To go along with his first-team all-SEC nod in 2002, he was also a first-team All-American.
Hodson played at LSU from 1986 to 1989 and was one of the more dominant quarterbacks in the SEC during his time. The former Tigers signal caller is a former SEC freshman of the year (1986) and a four-time first-team all-SEC recipient.
Hodson never got his chance to take down Arkansas, as the rivalry was on hiatus from 1957 to 1992. James, on the other hand, split his four meetings against the Razorbacks, going 2-2, including a gut-wrenching loss in 2002, 21-20.
Picking LSU vs. Arkansas
The No. 12 Tigers (2-1, 1-0 SEC) are coming off of a 41-14 throttling of Mississippi State and currently sit as a 17.5-point favorite over the Razorbacks, according to FanDuel.
That is certainly a steep number to reach, but Kayce Smith of Barstool Sports believes LSU has what it takes to cover. Speaking with On3‘s Andy Staples, she based her prediction on not only the dominant performance from the Tigers, but how out of sorts Arkansas looked as it lost 38-31 to BYU in Week 3.
“Last week, I talked myself into Arkansas -8 against BYU,” she said. “I said ‘Arkansas took care of business against BYU last year. KJ Jefferson is supposed to have taken the next step. I think that sometimes we don’t give Sam Pittman enough credit for kind of digging Arkansas out of that gross pit that they were in.’ And they proved me wrong. So I’m not taking Arkansas any more.
“I did take LSU against Mississippi State and I did feel very confident about that. Not because of Mississippi State, but because I thought that LSU was gonna figure out what the hell went wrong. You want to talk about transitive properties on the field, I’m doing it with my betting. Because Arkansas made me mad last week and played horribly against BYU and LSU took care of business, I’m taking the -17.5.”
If LSU is able win by more than the 17.5-point prediction from Vegas, it would go against the recent trend for this game. Four of the past five contests have been decided by a touchdown or less, and each of the past three were won by only a field goal. Interestingly enough, the away team has won all three of those times.