The Sugar Bowl takes place tonight, but the game comes in with some controversy with five Ohio State players that are allowed to play for breaking NCAA rules with their suspensions being postponed to next year where they will miss five games.
Since the Ohio State is coming in at full strength this game will feature two of the best quarterbacks in the country with Arkansas' Ryan Mallet who has the golden arm and Ohio State's dual threat Terrell Pryor. Ohio State's defense will be one of the best that Arkansas has faced all year and will provide a stiff challenge to Ryan Mallet. Ohio State gives up only 13.3 points per game while the Arkansas offense averages 37.3 points per game. This will be a challenge for both units to see who can outperform the other.
Ohio State's offense is just as high scoring as Arkansas' but the difference is that Arkansas' defense is no where near the caliber of Ohio State's defense. The Razorbacks give up 23 points per game.
Even with the Arkansas defense not stacking up to the Ohio State defense the Buckeyes are only a field goal favorite.
Rivals - The four writers are split on this game and only 58 percent of the Yahoo users in the pick'em game take Ohio State.
CBS Sports - Four of the five take Ohio State to beat Arkansas.
USA Today - Five of the eight writers are taking the other direction by taking Arkansas over Ohio State.
Fanhouse - Brett McMurphy makes his picks by the spread and takes Arkansas and the three points.
AccuScore - The computer takes Ohio State 64 percent of the time with an average score of 29.9 to 23.1.
ESPN Bloggers - Big 10 blogger Adam Rittenberg takes Ohio State to win 24-21 while SEC blogger Chris Low takes Arkansas to win 34-24.
The Sugar Bowl takes place tonight at 6:30 p.m. (MT) on ESPN at the Super Dome in New Orleans, La.