The Alabama Crimson Tide find themselves in a familiar spot as steep favorites on the road. They'll travel to Arkansas as five touchdown favorites against a 1-4 Arkansas team. Consecutive weeks of falling short of the number may steer bettors clear of Bama. Yet this is an Arkansas team that has freefallen since a loss on the road to Colorado State that grew worse with a home loss to North Texas. Grab Bama.

"Can Alabama cover?" was one wild game show in September, and it appears that it will carry over to October. The Crimson Tide didn't cover in each of the last two games, but those were against teams coached by former Nick Saban assistant coaches. Arkansas isn't. But perhaps more importantly, Alabama's starters need to -- at some point -- play more than one half of football per week to prepare for more dangerous games down the road. Saban will treat this like an NFL preseason game in Week 3. The starters will stay in for a long time, the second-team will polish it off, and both of them will have the whole playbook in the game plan. Because of that, this game will get super-sideways.

The Crimson Tide are a well-oiled machine on offense this season, showing the balance that many believed they'd never be able to have under head coach Nick Saban. The problem in this game for the Razorbacks is that once the reserves come into the game for Bama, the backup QB is Jalen Hurts. That means there won't be any drop off from 1st team to 2nd team. Also, defensively the Razorbacks are having one of their worst seasons in the last 5-6 years. This one could be over pretty quickly.