Bill's Blog: Big winds roll in

If you need any further reason to set your alarm clocks early, The Visor comes to town on Saturday morning.

The early evening weather and the forecast for Saturday says that won’t be the only thing blowing into Northwest Arkansas.

The cock-a-doodle-doo at the crack of dawn won’t be a Tyson farmer’s coop this weekend, it will be the arrival of the South Carolina Gamecocks for a game that will require you to be up with the chickens to be ready for the game.

The 11:21 a.m. kickoff for South Carolina and Arkansas marks the return to Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium of one of those great personalities of college sports, Steve Spurrier.

The Old Ball Coach, or as some in the media styled him, The Visor, for his trademark headgear, is 1-1 as the Gamecocks’ head coach. Spurrier won his first trip to Fayettevile in 2005, keeping his DWRRS record perfect counting back to his Florida days, but took a 48-36 loss to Hogs in Fayetteville.

Ah yes, Darren McFadden went for a near SEC record 321 yards rushing that evening. Last time out for Arkansas, the Razorbacks saw only the seventh 99-yard touchdown run in SEC history by Broderick Green. The running game once again looks to be important Saturday.

The early start for SEC Network means gates will open at 9:20 a.m. Perhaps is a post-tailgate this week.

Back to the forecast — which tonight has a steady 10-15 mph wind with gusts to 25 expected; this ramps up for tomorrow to gusts of 30. It will be an unseasonally warm day — forecast high around 75 — and no rain, but an extremely blustery day.

That may put even more emphasis on who controls the ground, and swirling winds may make special teams more of an adventure than usual.

Get up early, have your eggs — skip the bacon. We only want you eating one mascot.

WEEKEND BLOG NOTES: Remember, the intense — fair warning, as many as 75 in an hour — Tweet feed for home games is @RazorbackRoad. Score and quarter updates are on the main feed at @ArkRazorbacks.

FIRST ALERT BY TWEET: One reason to follow the @RazorbackRoad is to receive public safety alerts when we have them. Last game, @RazorbackRoad alerted fans to a one-car accident on Razorback Road which closed one lane of traffic during the second quarter, and then an alert in the second half when a man hole cover came loose and required city of Fayetteville works crew to repair. This closed a lane of Razorback Road again, and could have seriously impacted post-game traffic.

STREAMING FOR FOOTBALL: Tomorrow’s USC game is on SEC Network, which puts it on ESPN360. Same for next week when the Troy game is handled by CSS and CST — stream goes to ESPN360.

LONG TALKS NEW MEDIA: Athletic Director Jeff Long’s letter to the fans this week in the football game program was about the various ways the Razorbacks are reaching out to fans through the website, Twitter, Facebook and iPhone apps. You can read this week’s letter by jumping here.

MULTI-CAMERA STREAM AT SWIMMING: As this blog goes up, another milestone for the RazorVision team as the first-ever live swimming meet of two weeks ago takes a step up with a multi-camera switched production this week for the Vanderbilt meet. The three-camera shoot allows for closer shots of the race, starts and finishes.

GEARING UP FOR BASKETBALL: Changes in the SEC television package should allow more women’s basketball to stream through RazorVision live. In the past, all SEC games were embargoed and had to be shown on delay. If a Razorback game is not on TV, it can go live.

For men’s basketball, all the SEC games will be on TV, which in turn means they should be available for streaming via ESPN360.