Neither team has a game between now and this one, so both get 2 weeks to prepare. That matters most for Missouri, which has to work out why its offense disappears away from Columbia. The Ole Miss loss was the Tigers' 8th straight against ranked SEC teams on the road. Arkansas isn't ranked, but Missouri's 2 road games this season ended in a 31-24 loss at Mississippi State and the beating in Oxford.
Look at who Arkansas has lost to. Georgia beat the Razorbacks 45-17 in Fayetteville and Texas A&M won 34-7, both lopsided. The Tennessee game, a 24-17 loss at home, was close. Missouri beat that same Texas A&M team 27-6. So on paper the Tigers are clearly the better team. The question is whether they play like it in a road SEC game, which they haven't done yet this year.
Missouri's receivers are part of the story. Donovan Olugbode had a career-best 9 catches for 127 yards at Ole Miss, and he may need to do it again. Wide receiver J. Brady and tight end G. Hoffman have both been out since September, and guard C. Green has no timetable to return. That leaves the Tigers shorthanded on the line and in the passing game. Running back A. Hardy is also out with a leg injury, so the backfield is mostly Roberts, and Ole Miss just showed what happens when he gets bottled up.
Arkansas has a shorter injury list. The main loss is tight end M. Lassiter, who is out for the season with an upper-body injury. Silverfield's offense has adjusted around that. Missouri needs to get Roberts back on track and get a road game to look like its home games. Arkansas needs to prove the Vanderbilt win wasn't a one-off and that a ground game that worked against the SEC's last-place team also works against a ranked one.