Arkansas took care of business in physical fashion against South Carolina. The Razorbacks’ offense was ultra-efficient, controlling the line of scrimmage and pushing the Gamecocks back, while the defense made enough disruptive plays to keep Carolina from ever really getting anything going, despite some big pass plays.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Let’s begin with a quick recap of what we saw.
The Good
The Sanders’. Drew Sanders (11 tackles, 2 sacks) and Rocket Sanders (24 carries, 156 yards, 2 TD) were the offensive and defensive MVPs for the Hogs. Drew Sanders might be Arkansas’ best pass rusher, which is crazy, because he would already be an above-average linebacker without that skill. Arkansas’ defense has some issues, but speed is not one of them.
The offensive line. The line was good but imperfect in Week 1, but it demolished an inferior opponent on Saturday, which is exactly what you want to see. Sam Pittman wanted the line to control the game, and that’s exactly what it did. The Hogs can win many this season on that alone.
The Bad
The penalties. The Hogs were flagged 10 times for 122 yards. One of the hands-to-the-face calls was bad, and both pass interference calls were iffy, but leaves at least seven penalties for 70+ yards that were legitimate, including two holding calls, another hands to the face, and a few procedural calls. One of the holding penalties killed the drive at the end of the first half. The Hogs need to get that cleaned up.
The Ugly
Landers’ drop. For a lanky receiver like Matt Landers, it’s hard to not use your hands to catch the ball. Landers tried to breadbasket a throw from KJ Jefferson on third-and-long in the third quarter and it went right through his arms. It was a 25-yard gain at least – and possibly a touchdown – if he caught it. That play was one of just three incompletions thrown by Jefferson all game.
Grading the Hogs
We assign grades based on how the team’s performance – adjusted for quality of opponent – compares to all other teams in all other games this season. The grades are 0-100 and can be thought of as percentile performances, so a grade of 65, for example, means your overall performance was better than 65% of all other performances this season.
Here are the team grades for Arkansas against South Carolina:
- Offense: 88
- Defense: 46
- Overall: 74
A 74 is solid. You’ll win almost every game with a 74. The Hogs have been remarkably consistent for two games:
Staying about 70 each game would be a very good sign.
Unit Grades
These are our subjective grades.
- QB: A-
- RB: A+
- WR: B
- OL: A-
- Offense: A–
Not much to complain about here. The receivers group gets a B because of that hideous Matt Landers drop. Jefferson was pressured a little too much, hence the A- for the line, which was excellent in the run blocking department. But overall, this was a great game.
- DL: B
- LB: A+
- DB: D+
- Defense: B-
The secondary is in the unfortunate position of having to replace Jalen Catalon, which means this unit is no longer a team strength. Myles Slusher will be back next week, which will help a ton. There were too many busts on the back end, and several of the guys who are back there just aren’t elite playmakers. Some good passers are coming up on the schedule (Will Rogers, Jaren Hall, Jaxson Dart), so winnable games may turn to losses if the Hogs can’t cover.
One other grade: I’ll give special teams an B. That grade is largely a reflection of the opponent, as Shane Beamer, like his father, already has South Carolina known for elite special teams. The Gamecocks were far from elite on Saturday: they shanked a punt, missed an extra point, and had three bad onside kicks (only a dumb play by the Arkansas hands team allowed a recovery, though the game was over at that point). The missed 50-yard field goal by Cam Little hurts this grade, but overall, the special teams did its job of not letting the Gamecocks be special.
Advanced Stats
Confused by any of the advanced stats you see here? Be sure to check out the glossary.
We profiled South Carolina’s offense in the matchup analysis. Recall this summary:
Defense is South Carolina’s specialty. There are some similarities to Cincinnati — the Gamecocks led the SEC in interceptions in 2021, for example — but they are decidedly the anti-Cincinnati in terms of philosophy. While the Bearcats were bend-don’t-break, South Carolina is extremely aggressive with the goal of preventing successful plays. They allow a low success rate (14th) and prevent long drives (12th in Plays per Drive). In order to score, you need big plays.
Or so we thought. Take a look at the overview stats:
The Hogs had their least explosive game in a long time, and instead went right after South Carolina’s defensive strengths, posting a monstrous 55% success rate and averaging an enormous 8.0 plays per drive.
The Gamecock offense was more true to form. As expected, they were only decently efficient (44%), which made it hard for them to sustain drives (5.2 plays per drive). However, Spencer Rattler and the passing game were able to create enough big plays to keep scoring.
In terms of playcalling, recall the second key to the game:
Punish the defense at the line of scrimmage. Expect the plan to be similar to Cincinnati: ground-and-pound with an efficient rushing attack and safe throws. South Carolina may struggle to consistently slow down the run with just six defenders in the box, so the Hogs can afford to be conservative until the Gamecocks start taking some risks.
Here’s how that translated:
An 81% leverage rate is insanely high. That’s easily the best under Sam Pittman. Arkansas ran the ball on 76% of standard downs and even on the majority of passing downs. I expected a high standard downs success rate to translate to a lot of big plays for the Hogs, since Carolina struggles at allowing big plays, but that didn’t happen. Instead, Arkansas’ standard downs success basically just translated into more leverage and more standard downs success, hence the long scoring drives.
The Gamecocks weren’t good on standard downs, thanks largely to a 19% havoc rate (havoc plays are pass deflections, interceptions, sacks, and run stuffs) inflicted by the Razorback defense. On pass downs, they were much better, with several long plays including a 67-yard touchdown on a 3rd-and-17 that provided the biggest boost to their offense. The Hogs clearly have a lot of work to do in the secondary.
Those havoc plays – many generated by the Razorback linebackers – are going to be key until the pass defense comes along. Carolina depended on explosive plays, but couldn’t consistently move the ball against a tough Razorback defensive front.
Both teams ran the ball well… but Carolina had 23 called runs and Arkansas had 62. The Hogs struggled to create big plays but hit the Gamecocks right where they were weak: in the defensive front. Arkansas was great in short yardage (8 of 9, with the one failure coming on fourth down in the third quarter) and created a solid 2.78 line yards per rush. About 57% of Arkansas rushing attempts gained between one and five yards. The Gamecocks were forced to keep their secondary close to the line of scrimmage, which prevented big runs for the Hogs, but allowed KJ Jefferson to put together a 59% passing success rate, which made a huge different. If Jefferson wasn’t able to consistently complete those short passes, Carolina would have eventually bottled up the run game, as they briefly did at the start of the second half.
Each quarterback averaged 7.6 adjusted net yards per attempt, though they went about it in different ways: Jefferson through efficiency, Rattler through explosiveness. Jefferson totaled +4 EPA against +2 for Rattler. Rattler is a talented quarterback and a major upgrade for Carolina, especially if he can control his turnovers (he’s up to three interceptions plus a lost fumble this season).
Here’s how the skill positions shook out:
Arkansas’ top three ball carriers (Rocket Sanders, Jefferson, and AJ Green) all posted success rates north of 50%. Sanders was awesome, with +0.25 EPA/Rush on more than 20 carries.
Antwane Wells was awesome. He did most of his damage when lined up on Hudson Clark, though his 62-yard catch-and-run wasn’t really bad defense, it was just a great throw and catch. I’m not sure what South Carolina was trying to do with Jaheim Bell, the “wide back” we discussed in the preview. He had four rushes, all from traditional sets, and had zero targets as a receiver. He’s drawn some comparisons to former Gamecock Deebo Samuel, but I don’t see it, and Carolina isn’t using him like that anyway. He’s not a better running back than their actual running backs, so his four carries (for minus-0.42 EPA/Rush) were mostly just stealing from MarShawn Lloyd and Juju McDowell.
Overall, I came away impressed with Carolina’s skill players, especially the receivers. Their offensive line was every bit as bad as expected, and that will be what holds them back this year.
Up Next
Bobby Petrino and his Missouri State Bears come to Fayetteville for a 6 pm kickoff. Missouri State is ranked 5th in the FCS poll. You won’t be surprised to hear that Petrino has a big offense, with QB Jason Shelley as one of the top quarterbacks in the FCS. The Razorbacks secondary will be tested, although the Bears’ defense leaves a lot to be desired. We’ll have more details this week.
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