Who Will Be Playing When Texas Tech Meets Arkansas In The Liberty Bowl?

I feel like college sports are kind of a mess right now, but I guess this part of it may have been happening for a while. 

The Game

Texas Tech is set to take on Arkansas in the Liberty Bowl on December 27th (kickoff at 6:00 p.m. for you true fans). It should mark what eventually turned out to be a strong season for Texas Tech at 8-4 versus Arkansas that checked in at at lowly 6-6. The fact that Texas Tech is playing a team that appears to be down on it's luck, is only the beginning of the story.

Not Playing

The real story behind this and other bowl games are the "opt outs"; the players who were part of the regular season but will not be on the field for this one. Sometimes bowl games feature teams that don't even resemble the ones that were responsible for getting them there. There are any number of reasons to opt out, but I you could probably group most of them into a category called, "I don't want to get hurt in a game that means nothing jeopardizing my future career".

Bad Hogs

This has become an issue for the Liberty Bowl because Arkansas released an extensive list of "opt outs". So far a three players opted out, and total of 25 Arkansas players have hit the transfer portal. Just to put that in perspective, that's enough for a full offense, a full defense, and more than half of a special teams unit...it's a HECK OF A LOT of players. All of this on just day one of the transfer portal.

Red Raiders

So what about Texas Tech? According to my source there has been no announcement of opt outs yet, but 11 players hit the transfer portal so far, mostly underclassmen. This situation, as with Arkansas, is very fluid and likely to increase.

All Newbies?

So who is going to be on the field during the Liberty Bowl? It would absolutely be a fools errand to try to even guess at this point. As far as the game itself, the smart money says that Texas Tech is in better shape facing a "meh" Arkansas team that appears to be in complete disarray.