May 23, 2013

Kentucky 21, Arkansas 20

October 18, 2008 by

Michael Smith / De'Anthony Curtis / Trevard Lindley (AP Photo/Ed Reinke)

ArkansasRazorbacks.com: Smith rolls through Blue Grass but Razorbacks fall

Mike Hartline’s two touchdown passes in the final five minutes rallied Kentucky to a 21-20 victory over Arkansas in Southeastern Conference action on Saturday.

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Michael Smith / De'Anthony Curtis / Trevard Lindley (AP Photo/Ed Reinke) Freddy Burton / Randall Cobb / Moncell Allen (AP Photo/Ed Reinke)

Updated 10/19/08 11:30 a.m.

Filed Under: Arkansas Razorbacks, Football, Recap Tagged With: , ,
  • OwassoHog

    Talk about a poorly play game in many ways… we just flat out gave away this game on stupidity alone! Laps for them all! Again and again. No excuses here for this type of play. :-(

  • Hawgfan100

    There are no words which can convey how disappointed and underwhelmed I am with this team right now. Next year cannot get here fast enough.

  • Hog Fan 4 Life

    This is deja-vu….another rarely used back fumbles the ball to change the entire momentum of the game…last year it was smith, this year curtis. Unreal…it’s a shame cause it was clear which team was the best one on the field. Hopefully the Hogs can pull together a few more complete games. The 2-3 minute meltdowns are killing us.

  • ReasonRules

    I think every member of the offensive line including the tight ends were penalized.

    I think we should trade London Crawford.

    DJ was pitiful tonight, where is Ben Cleveland?

    Why do we keep playing See Dick.

    I feel for Michael, what a Warrior, everyone else should feel embarrased for the level of effort they play at compared to him.

    The end of the game was like watching Eddie Sutton Basketball. Petrino was a little arrogant to think with this team he could just sit on it.

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  • GonzoHog

    I can’t exactly explain how I feel right now.

    I was over at a friend’s house with the radio on outside.

    Somewhere in the beginning of the 4th qr., I went into the house to get another beer.

    I was felling really good about the Hogs being up 20 – 7, but after I got my beer, I started visiting with my buddie and his girlfriend in the garage.

    We could still here the game, but got side-tracked talking for a few minutes.

    The next thing I knew, as we started listening again, the Wildcats scored a TD and I heard one of the radio announcers say “…and it’s a tie ballgame”.

    I couldn’t believe we were about to be behind with a conversion kick, with just a couple of minutes to go.

    I was stunned!

    I am still stunned!

  • ward_hog

    Chalk this loss up to another lesson learned by these young guys. This loss was/is inexuseable, but they’ll learn and move on. THAT is the most important thing about this season folks; that they learn from their mistakes (and there were quite a few last night). The future is still looking good for these Hogs. We just have to weather the storm first. Go Hogs Go!!!!

  • Okie Hog

    Run Left, Run up the Middle, Run Right. Cant pass when we need to. Hmmmm sounds very familiar. Thought this is what we were trying to get away from. Where was the passing game we have had. 300 yards passing would have had this one 49 to 21. Could the coaches have really thought in their minds we can pass on Florida and Auburn but not Kentucky!!! Coaching lost this one. This game was exactly like all the games last 8 years where we ran ran ran and no passing game. If Nutt had still been coach you guys would be crucifing him on here. No excuses coaches didnt get it done. Woulda Coulda Shoulda but didnt.

  • GonzoHog

    OK, back down to reality again.

    In a wierd kind of way, even with all the disappointment, this loss may be a blessing in disguise.

    These kids are still on the learning curve bigtime, so it really shouldn’t suprise us that this could happen.

    Exsperience is sometime’s the best teacher, so maybe we learned a hard lesson about how important it is to finish.

    When guys like Michael Smith go down, it’s important for the young players to understand that someone has to step up.

    It wasn’t just Curtis fumbling the ball, but several defensive players getting confused at a critical time.

    The ‘ol dreaded “inexsperience on the road bug” caught up with us, and now were back to the doctor’s office (Petrino’s practice field) to get some medicine.

    The main thing right now is that our players don’t get down, cause there’s still a lot of football to be played, and you know who is going to be back in Fayetteville with his new team on Saturday.

    If you can’t get up for that, you won’t get up for anything.

    I just hope Micheal Smith’s concussion isn’t too bad, cause were gonna need him.

    I’m going to dread this game if the trainers say he isn’t ready to go.

    GO HOGS GO!!!!!

  • GonzoHog

    Okie Hog,

    As usual, your comments referring to Nutt are nothing short of absolutely redicules.

    Petrino is still trying to figure out some players, mostly Freshmen, and tying to figure out ways to not have breakdowns from these kids at the same time when finishing games.

    Your buddie down in Rebel land had 10 long, long years to get the bugs worked out.

    If your not willing to at least give Petrino 2 or 3 years to do a little building of his own, then you have absolutely no right calling yourself a Hog fan.

    Your buddie is bringing his team to town on Saturday

    Are you rooting for his team, or do you just want to see Petrino fail?

    .

  • GonzoHog

    Maybe I should just let it go.

    I’m sure my comments aren’t going to change anyone’s mind.

  • Okie Hog

    Gonzo I agree with you Nutt had ten years and I agree we couldnt pass. But why did we abandon our passing game this week? Seems like we must have worked more on running in practice last week and less on passing because the game plane was to run Smith till he couldnt run anymore. Is that what you meant by figuring out players? We now know how much we can run Smith till he cant! I am a HOG FAN and I want to win always!!! I dont want to give games away and I believe in mixing up the play calling pass/run evenly. Surely your not saying we should run the ball just because Smith can get it done. Because you sure werent saying that last year. D-Mac and Jones could run and we couldnt pass and you along with many others wanted the coach gone because we couldnt pass. But now you dont want to call this coach on his mistakes because he is new and we need to coddle him for a few years. Hell no!!! If I make a mistake I answer for it and so should anyone else. We have needed and still need to be able to pass the ball in crucial moments. We have already proved we can pass so why didnt we this week? Thats what I am calling Petrino on the mat for!! Thats it !!!He abandoned his passing game this week and I want to know why. The Nutt reference was meant to be taken as ‘we could have gotten this game play from last years coach’. Results meet expectations and I for one have and always will have the highest expectations and I refuse to make excuses for a coach just because I think it will be all good in a few years. I might be dead in a few years I wanna win now when its possible and yesterday was DAMN WELL POSSIBLE!!!!!

  • Okie Hog

    Oh Gonzo dont back down on me now!!! I was finally having fun this weekend!!!

  • GonzoHog

    Okie,

    I guess the only answer I can give you is this;

    If you demand to know what was going on with Petrino’s decision making, then I suggest you call him and ask him, because i’m

    quite sure knowone else on this blog is going to be able to help you.

    Peace out.

  • Okie Hog

    Gonzo you removed your comments and makes my little rant seem out place. I guess I am just a little unreasonable in my expectations. I am (make no mistake)a Hog Fan but I dont want to waller in the slop of sloppy losses

  • Okie Hog

    Sorry Gonzo guess I went blind for a minute I thought you removed your comments

  • T-towner

    This is called snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Any number of chances were missed to make it 28-0 or so before the incredible dramatics. As for the shift to the running game, it was obvious that it was there—-Kentucky has great db’s and you could see that by their excellent man coverage—-and I doubt they thought we could run on them as no one else had. So, Petrino ran on them. Curtis was close to a first down when he fumbled. The next two weeks should be highly entertaining regardless of the outcome. Ole Miss stood toe-to-toe with ‘Bama in Tuscaloosa and Tulsa had 791 yards offense in a 77-35 win last night.

  • T-towner

    Hey, I just want to state that my prior comment was in no way an effort to channel Joe Biden, one of our country’s most famous plagiarizers. I made my post before reading the same words at Razorback Expats. Don’t believe me? Vote for me anyway!

  • HogBloggerJr

    The more I think about it the less I blame D. Curtis for his butter fingers.

    Exhibit A: Matt Harris is an awful safety and needs to be banished to the bench

    Exhibit B: London Crawford plays in fear with alligator arms and needs to be banished to the bench

    Exhibit C: We need a power back to punch it in from the one… Smith trying to superman his 5 foot 6 body over the O and D lines was a horrible idea and lead to a loss of the deciding points

    Exhibit D: How in the world does a team get that many illegal shifts and illegal formations… not to mention holding

    Exhibit E: Casey you hold the ball way to long… make a decision and act, not made a decision, think about decision, then act

    I’m sure there are more, but I am tired of rehashing the memories

  • HOGFAN23

    Get down off the ledge! This is the same team that lost big to AL, TX, and FL. Nothing changed with a win against a bad Auburn team. This team is still young and was playing with a little bit of false confidence. Take a deep breath and relax. We aren’t making a bowl game this year. Just enjoy the wins we get and watch this team and coaching staff get better and better.

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  • reasonrules

    You are right HOGFAN, but Kentucky was even worse than Auburn and we were actually ahead. Our bad. Which wins are we supposed to enjoy the rest of the way if not against a bad Kentucky Team?

  • GonzoHog

    Don’t count Kentucky shy of being a decent team reason.

    Kentucky may not glare out at you as a name team like Auburn, but thier still at least that good anyway.

    Remember, Kentucky was #1 in scoring defense at 10.5 points per game, while thier passing defense alone was one of the best in the conference.

    They also just held ‘Bama to a 17 -14 ballgame in Tuscaloosa the week before.

    Thier offense was struggling a bit, but probably still wasn’t as bad in the passing game as Auburn was.

    I think the Hogs are still too much of a work in progress to count on winning these types of games right now, and I also don’t exspect them to beat (God forbid) Ole Miss on Saturday either.

    The Rebels have an outstanding D-line. Even better than KU’s or Auburns, so if M. Smith doesn’t make it back this week, I think our chances are very slim without our best offensive player.

    Hopefully, with Ole Miss being a little suspect in the secondary, we can exploit that in the passing game. Here’s the flip side of that though. With the line play the Rebels have at putting pressure on the QB, Casey Dick could be toast.

    Remember the ‘Bama game? Were definately playing better now than we were then, but this team is way too inconsistant to exspect anything just yet.

    The Rebels have looked very much like a Houston Nutt coached team this year. Even more overall talent than what the Hogs had last year, while at the same time shooting itself in the foot at critical times of the ballgame with very undisiplined penalties from some of the team leaders, and terrible playcalling.

    The bottom line is reality says the Rebels beat the Hogs, but if it come’s down to coaching, and our players don’t forget to stay focused in the 4th qr., then the Hogs might just have a shot.

  • BlindHog

    It is a good week to take a little shot at Hootie. A kid like Michael Smith never saw the field while Dale was beating DMac to a pulp? If you are going to run the ball 60 times a game there should have been enough touches for everyone.

    How do you get to this point in the season and not have a red zone offense, a goal line offense? Smith is a great kid but he is no short yardage back. We need to rethink that somehow. We should not still be making this many mistakes or having this much trouble scoring. But, I suppose we are about where we thought we would be. And, it is only mid season.

    I had a feeling it was time for Casey to have another day off. Michael almost won it anyway and, he would have if he wasn’t exhausted. I know this coaching staff is doing everything it can to win games but, I do have to wonder a little if it is not time to see Tyler Wilson and the other running backs.

  • Carolina Hog

    I don’t remember a meltdown this bad, ever! Okie, you are limited by the players you have. I don’t care how good Petrino is, he is limited by the leftovers from a run oriented team.

  • Okie Hog

    Carolina,

    I know we are limited in Talent. I have no problem losing to better teams because our players are not up to the talent level. But I really do think we were as good or better than Kentucky. My problem this week is we have been passing all year. We havent really been winning much but we have had alot of passing yards. That is until this game. This game we scraped the pass and went run. I admit it worked until the last 5 minutes of the game too. So maybe its not a bad game plan but I think ,and I could be wrong (wouldnt be the first time) if we had our passing game going like we had been doing all year this would have been a win by 14 points. But the running game was the plan and I question that judgment. Thats all I am saying. Defense is looking better so there is a praise for Petrino things are getting better defensively. I just hate to lose the winnable ones.

  • GonzoHog

    Turnovers on offense, and missed assingments late in the game on defense was the difference in this game.

    If those two things don’t happen at critical times in the ballgame, we win, plain and simple.

    I think the the answer your looking for Okie, about our passing game, evolve’s around the KU passing defense.

    They have very good cover corners this year, and Casey Dick was out of sink the whole game.

    Petrino is smart enough to know that certain coverages might spell trouble for certain passing plays.

    What was Dick’s passing stats for the game? 11 – 29 I think?

    That probably didn’t give Petrino a lot of confidence in sticking with the pass.

    The philosify may have been that if we keep passing, we may get burned by an interception in the end.

    As it turned out, we got burned anyway

    by another Freshman mistake when Curtis fumbled the football.

    After that was when we had another defensive collapse, winding up with a LB covering thier best reciever, which was attributed, once again, to a first year player being out of position on the play.

    I also didn’t like the so-called illegal shift penalties that only one of the refs, on one side of the field, was so inclined to keep calling over and over, but that’s life on the road in the SEC.

  • GonzoHog

    When your SR. QB goes 11 – 29 in passing, against one of the better pass defenses in the conference, the coach may not feel inclined to keep chunking the ball, especially when there’s a good chance it won’t be completed or could be picked off at a critical time in the game.

    Playcalling is not the issue here.

    You don’t just make a decision to pass.

    As a coach, Petrino will read the defense and take what it give’s him.

    Unfortunately, youth, once again, wound up being our Achillis heal.

    Petrino is playing with the hand that was dealt to him his first year. Like it or not, that’s just the way it is.

    If a Freshman doesn’t fumble the ball with a little over 4 minutes left, and we don’t have miscommunication with our young players on defense in KU’s final drive, we win, plain and simple.

  • http://www.razorbloggers.net/ TipsterHog

    Sorry Gonzo…for some reason your comment (#27) got automatically marked as spam by my blog software! Weird…it rarely makes that mistake. Anyway…just wanted to let you know.

  • http://hogger.wordpress.com/ Hogger

    What a disappointing loss! I’m still trying to get a handle on this team. Great play by Michael Smith though! Read more analysis about the Razorbacks at http://hogger.wordpress.com.