It’s good to be 1-0.
The Razorbacks outlasted Cincinnati 31-24 in the season opener in a game that came down to, as most season openers do, to who could make fewer mistakes. The Bearcats ended up with more turnover, two missed field goals, and more penalty yards (most Cincinnati penalties were procedural).
The short recap of the game is this: two bend-don’t-break defenses faced off. The Hogs bent, but the Bearcats broke. Cincinnati had nine drives get inside the 40, compared to just five for Arkansas. But the Bearcats had five of their nine come up empty, while the Hogs scored on all five of their chances.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Here are a few observations.
The Good
The transfers. The entire transfer class was great, on both sides of the ball. Jadon Haselwood had a touchdown, Matt Landers had three catches for 43 yards, Jordan Domineck had a strip-sack and recovery, Dwight McGlothern had a pick, Drew Sanders had a sack, and several other transfers saw the field. Arkansas’ odds of improving on last year’s 9-4 depend on the transfers, and you couldn’t ask for a better debut from that group.
The crowd. A key turning point in the game came when Cincinnati recovered a muffed snap at the Arkansas 3 and committed four penalties on a series that forced them into a field goal. The crowd of 74,000 — seventh-largest in stadium history — recognized the importance of the moment and threw the Bearcats off their game long enough to save four points.
The Bad
Cincinnati’s helmets. The game was stopped ten times for ill-fitting Bearcat helmets that kept popping off. Throw that in with several Bearcat defensive injuries and you can understand why the crowd got frustrated, even if it appeared all injuries were legitimate.
Backups in the secondary. This is now the biggest concern on the team. Several injuries forced the Hogs to have backups defensive backs play significant snaps, and things didn’t go well. The starters were mostly clamping down on the Bearcat passing attack, but most of Ben Bryant’s 320 passing yards came against reserves who had to step in. The Hogs need their starters healthy, but they also need the backups to not get torched that easily.
The Ugly
Postgame traffic flow. Look, we all hate postgame traffic, but the new plan to flow traffic south of campus did not appear to work well. Yours truly sat in the parking lot for an hour and a half after the game ended. The city and county should strongly consider completely closing Martin Luther King Boulevard to non-game traffic between I-49 and School for an hour or so after the game ends. That’s hard to do because people live there and businesses operate there, but whatever they were trying to do Saturday didn’t work.
Grading the Hogs
This space will normally include team performance grades (0-100) from our advanced stats model, but those won’t be active until a few more games are in the books for 2022. For now, here are our letter grades.
- QB: A-
- RB: B
- WR: A-
- OL: C
- Offense: B+
I was not overly impressed with the offensive line, which struggled to protect KJ Jefferson’s blind side, allowed too many run plays to be blown up at the line of scrimmage or in the backfield, and never really fully dominated a rebuilding Cincinnati front. The Bearcats used eight in the box for most of the second half, so I don’t want to be too harsh here.
Running backs have to be graded on a curve because of the line issues, but I liked what I saw for the most part. Freshman Rashod Dubinion is going to be a good one.
Quarterback and receivers win the day for me. Jefferson wasn’t perfect — he missed a few throws, including a touchdown to Warren Thompson — but he was very good. The receivers looked excellent. They have size and speed and were able to get open. It’s hard to not to be excited about that group, especially since that was a relative question mark entering the year.
- DL: B
- LB: B+
- DB: C-
- Overall: B–
It obviously has to be repeated that Arkansas’ secondary looked fantastic until Jalen Catalon and Myles Slusher left within a few minutes of each other during the third quarter. Their injury status is the single biggest storyline heading into the South Carolina game. Dwight McGlothern had a key interception, but McGlothern and Hudson Clark were each beaten once but the Bearcats couldn’t connect. An attempt to replace Clark with Ladarrius Bishop went very badly, as Bishop was beaten twice in a span of three plays, including a 35-yard touchdown pass in the third quarter, causing Clark to re-enter the game. After Catalon and Slusher left, the Bearcats attacked the Hogs over the middle with repeated crossing routes that caused a lot of issues. That’s going to have to be fixed.
Advanced Stats
Cincinnati was more efficient and more explosive than the Hogs, but finished with a worse EPA/Play. How is that possible? The answer is quite simple: not all successful plays are made equal, and Arkansas had more successful offensive plays when the stakes were higher.
The bottom two stats really sum this game up. Recall our first key to the game from the preview:
Don’t get cute. This one will probably work best as an ugly win. The Hogs want to grind this out behind their offensive line. Cincinnati’s defense will let you grind out successful plays for a while, but they don’t give you any big ones, and then they tighten up when you cross midfield (and even moreso if you reach the red zone). Playcalling has to be very crisp in the scoring zone. Settling for too many field goals or repeatedly bogging down around the 40 will cost you the game. Key Stat #1: Points per Scoring Opportunity
How’s that for a key stat? Nine of Cincinnati’s 12 drives featured at least one snap inside the Arkansas 40. The Bearcats scored three touchdowns and a field goal, but five drives ended with zero points: an interception, two missed field goals, and two punts from the edge of field goal range. Arkansas only had five drives get inside the Cincinnati 40 all game, but the Hogs cashed in all five, with four touchdowns and one field goal. That’s really all there is to it.
And that also explains why Arkansas’ EPA/Play was higher. The EPA values go way up in the scoring zone. The Bearcats left a ton of points on the table and it cost them.
Recall Key to the Game #2:
Win or draw the turnover battle. Notre Dame turned the ball over three times in the game’s first 18 minutes, fell behind 17-0, and couldn’t mount a comeback. With Cincinnati still figuring things out on both sides of the ball, the Hogs are in good shape if they don’t give any free gifts. The Bearcats sidestepped some of their issues on the defensive front by ranking 3rd in the nation in forcing turnovers last year. It’s critical that they go +1 or better in turnovers. Key Stat #2: Turnover Margin
The final margin was +1 for the Hogs, with Jordan Domineck’s strip-sack of Ben Bryant in the fourth quarter essentially closing this one out.
Now for the final Key to the Game:
Unleverage the Bearcat offense. The Bearcat offense wasn’t very comfortable in passing downs last season, and that was with a veteran quarterback. Cincinnati’s offense is predicated on staying on schedule, so the Hogs need to find a way to knock them off schedule. Run stuffs, sacks, and incomplete passes are the best ways to accomplish this. Key Stat #3: Leverage Rate
Mission: also accomplished.
Cincinnati did most of its foot-shooting on early downs. The Bearcats actually did better than I expected on passing downs, and that probably would have cost Arkansas the game had the Bearcats been able to finish their drives. Granted, much of that passing downs success game after Jalen Catalon and Myles Slusher left the game, but still.
Ultimately, though, the Bearcats just couldn’t stay on schedule, and that’s what caused their drives to bog down. They struggled to run the ball and eventually abandoned the run altogether, allowing the Hogs to tee off on the pass rush. When the Hogs played soft coverage far from the goal line, the Bearcats could move it, but when the defense tightened, the Cincinnati offense stopped moving.
The Hogs used the run game to create explosive plays and the pass game to create successful ones. The Hogs had way too many runs get stuffed (19%) and only averaged 2.35 line-yards per carry (not terrible, but not ideal), but the Hogs generated 0.73 points per successful rush, which is solid. The Bearcats, by contrast, were more efficient on the ground (41%), but those efficient runs didn’t actually get very far, as Cincinnati averaged just 0.57 points per successful rush and had a horrendous 5.3 bonus yards per opportunity run, which means their best 30% of runs averaged just 11.3 yards per rush.
- Rocket Sanders: -0.01 EPA/Rush, 25% Success, 1.07 Explosiveness
- KJ Jefferson: +0.10 EPA/Rush, 40% Success, 0.58 Explosiveness
- AJ Green: +0.51 EPA/Rush, 67% Success, 0.45 Explosiveness
It was an interesting game for Sanders, who had just four successful rushes all game, but those four rushes were worth more than four points to the Hogs. He was hit in the backfield way too often, and most of his runs gained three yards or fewer. Run stuffing wasn’t a strength for Cincinnati last year, so the Hogs really need to get that cleaned up.
Through the air, the Hogs took almost no deep shots, leading to a poor explosiveness value. But KJ Jefferson was his usual efficient self, completing 69% of his throws and posting a solid 46% passing success rate.
- Trey Knox: +8.4 EPA, 7 targets, 6 receptions, 71% Success, 0.73 Explosiveness
- Jadon Haselwood: +1.5 EPA, 5 targets, 3 receptions, 40% Success, 0.74 Explosiveness
- Matt Landers: +3.0 EPA, 4 targets, 3 receptions, 75% Success, 0.65 Explosiveness
- Warren Thompson: +1.6 EPA, 3 targets, 2 receptions, 67% Success, 0.45 Explosiveness
It was receiver by committee, and that will likely be the case all season, as no one on the roster is nearly as talented as Treylon Burks. But they don’t necessarily have to be. Knox was fantastic and will likely be first or second on the team in targets this year.
Landers was a deep threat at Toledo, but the Hogs mostly used his height as a possession receiver on Saturday. That was probably due at least in part to the fact that the Hogs were nervous to attack the Bearcat secondary down the field, as they’ve been among the nation’s best against deep throws for several years now.
Up Next
South Carolina comes to Fayetteville for an 11 am kickoff. The Gamecocks dispatched Georgia State 35-14 but weren’t overly impressive in the win. We’ll have a first look at the matchup on Tuesday with a full preview on Thursday.
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