The University of Arkansas has three fewer victories than Kansas State, but could still establish themselves as the lead contender in the Heart of America with a victory over Kansas Saturday.

The Razorbacks already defeated K-State 29-20 on October 18, bringing to an end Kansas State’s impressive four-game conference winning streak. And that opener for Arkansas thus thrust them into the limelight somewhat.

But that’s the only HOA game for Arkansas so far. They’ve added other games to their schedule - a sobering loss to Arkansas State and a competitive 45-15 loss to Oklahoma just last weekend.

“The game against Oklahoma was not a bad performance from us,” said Arkansas Head Coach Warren Fyfe. “They are a good DIA program. I was OK with the result there. For us the problem has been that most of our merit table games are in the spring, so we have a lot of importance in the table games we have now.”

Last year Arkansas came into the season thinking they had a shot at winning the conference, and lost their opener to Iowa State. This year, they avoided a nasty K-State speed bump, but have to be careful.

“If we beat KU it sets us up nicely for the spring,” said Fyfe. “We were very happy with beating Kansas State. We’ve got some good depth this year and some good youngsters coming up. Things are looking good.”

Among the leading players for the Razorbacks is captain Robert Anderson, who anchors the front row. Vice captain Corey Jones is a powerful outside center who worked with the Serevi camps and is athletic if still a little green in rugby terms.

And the team has enjoyed an influx of Texas-based high school players, especially from the Westlake program.

“They have some outstanding foundational skills,” said Fyfe.

In previous years Arkansas has felt they were good enough to do something on the national stage, but a poorly-timed loss here, and presence of Lindenwood in the conference there, has hurt them.

“It would be very good to get to the national tournament and see where we stand,” said Fyfe. “If things keep working the way they have, we can win-out. We are pretty happy where we are right now.”