A couple thoughts for the day after Arkansas’ 52-35 win over BYU.
It sounds like KJ is fine. Sam Pittman said Jefferson suffered “a stinger” and could have returned to the game. That’s good to hear because his head hitting the turf looked like it could have been bad. He’s got to stop supermanning near the goal line.
Hogs have to treat every game as a shootout. Pittman talked in the postgame about the need to “open up” the offense. He said the same thing after the Alabama game, so it’s clear that’s something the staff is thinking about. The Hogs have been extremely run-heavy this year, with the fifth-highest run rate on standard downs in the FBS (about 72%). The ground-and-pound attack works in lower-scoring games, but have you seen the Hog defense? Against BYU, the Hogs came out throwing, repeatedly taking advantage of the Cougars crashing in to stop the run with play action and wheel routes to the backs. I would expect the Razorbacks to be more balanced on early downs moving forwards, especially if the Hog receivers continue to look as good as they did Saturday.
That’s where the threat of the run might be more valuable than actually running the ball. This was a major concept in global diplomacy in the early 20th century: known as fleet-in-being, or the Mahanian Doctrine, it claimed that having a sufficiently large naval fleet would discourage the enemy from ever leaving port, allowing your own huge fleet to control the seas without fighting. The British used this to perfection around the time of the two world wars. Arkansas’ run game might be better off as a “run game in being”, where the threat of it is more valuable than actually using it. The Hogs can throw more and create more big plays, while still having “established” the run.
Around the SEC
Tennessee 52, Alabama 49. Good times on Rocky Top, as Tennessee turned the hype into reality with a 52-49 win over Alabama that ended on a 40-yard field goal as time expired. Alabama completely butchered the final two minutes and then missed a field goal with 20 seconds left. It’s the first Vol win in this series since 2006 (also the last time Arkansas beat Alabama). Tennessee can really cause some SEC chaos if they can upset Georgia in Athens in two weeks.
Ole Miss 48, Auburn 34. The Tigers played hard and hung around, but Ole Miss’s offense was too much. Robby Ashford is starting to figure out this Auburn offense. If the Tigers keep Bryan Harsin around, his next game will be against the Hogs on the Plains in two weeks.
Georgia 55, Vanderbilt 0. Whatever.
LSU 45, Florida 35. These two teams are very inconsistent, but man, if Utah’s Cameron Rising hadn’t thrown a pick in the end zone in Week 1, what would Florida fans think of Billy Napier? As it stands, the Gators are 4-3 and still have to play Georgia, South Carolina, Texas A&M, and Florida State.
Kentucky 27, Mississippi State 17. I was a little surprised by all the piling-on against Barry Odom during the Mississippi State game for not abandoning the 3-man rush even when it was clearly not working. But here’s the thing: nothing else would have worked either. The Air Raid is a unique but well-studied system. The only proven way to beat it is with a rush-3, drop-8 approach like what Arkansas won with in 2020. Mike Leach’s career success has been almost entirely against teams that don’t have the personnel to stop his schemes. Switching defenses won’t help you if you don’t have the horses. At Washington State, the Cougars’ rival Washington always had the horses and had no issue shutting the Air Raid down. Kentucky had the horses on Saturday, and Will Rogers was held to 25 completions for just 203 yards. Spoiler alert: if Arkansas’ secondary is better next year, the Hogs will win that game.
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