At the end of two quarters against Auburn, the Hogs trailed in time of possession by six and a half minutes. Auburn had ran 38 plays to the Hogs 23.
The Razorbacks managed to trim the time of possession disadvantage to 5:52 by the end of the third quarter. The Auburn offense had been on the field for 51 plays while the Arkansas offense had managed to hold the ball for only 31 plays.
In spite of these obvious issues, the Hogs were ahead at the end of the third by a score of 24-10.
Huh? How did that happen?
The defense set the tone by stopping Auburn on the first possession. Auburn, somewhat out of character, ran twice and passed three times. The key play was Jamaal Anderson’s tackle in the backfield for an 11 yard loss.
The Gus Bus had different tires. On the Razorbacks’ first possession, Darren McFadden had seven yards on four carries. A successful screen and reverse to Felix Jones and a slant pass off of motion to Peyton Hillis (that I haven’t seen since the early practices) moved the Hogs down for a field goal (nicely made by Jeremy Davis). The Auburn defense, obviously keying on McFadden, was given plenty of things to keep on their mind the rest of the game.
On Auburn’s second possession, the Arkansas defense got a three and out. That allowed the Razorback offense to quickly get back in business with decent field position. Huge.
The ‘new tires’ stayed on the bus. The Hogs passed on first down, hitting Washington on a crossing route for eight yards. 10 plays, 4-4 passing for 32 yards, 6 running plays for 36 yards, with the reverse accounting for 28 of the 36 yards.
McFadden ran twice for a total of 6 yards, bringing him to a total of 13 yards on six carries. Mitch threw the ball away to a very covered Wes Murphy before throwing up the prayer to Monk on the safety blitz for the touchdown.
Eight running plays, 42 yards, 28 coming from a reverse. Six passing plays for 82 yards.
Time of possession? Hogs 6:58, Auburn 4:19. Score 10 zip, Hogs up.
No…I’m not going to go through the whole game like this.
My point? The defensive stops plus the Gus Bus stuff carried us to the lead. The Auburn focus on McFadden had not worked out very well for them.
So then what? McFadden’s next four touches totaled 84 yards and a touchdown. The Hogs only threw the ball four more times the entire game.
About these ‘new tires’ on the Gus Bus. We ran several running plays that we have seldom seen this year. I spotted at least four that were new. We broke our tendency to run to the side of our motion. On McFadden’s long run the look of the formation was our usual stretch play look, but we ran down the middle instead as the Auburn defenders crashed out to stop the stretch.
I’ve been wanting to see the one back look all year, and we saw a lot of it today. The variety of running plays we threw at the Auburn defense as the game went along was pretty impressive. I liked it. It definitely blew Auburn’s defensive mind. That wasn’t the old Razorbacks running offense out there. It was a new one.
Our defense came to play, and finally got to play with a lead. It helps to get a couple of breaks and that Auburn’s offense lacked imagination (as it has all year). I thought the Auburn line would dominate us, but our defensive line and linebackers pretty well took it to them. Secondary was great (for the most part).
The defense set the tone with the early stops, and played tough the whole game. Holding Auburn to 60 net yards rushing is pretty impressive. Total rushing on non-loss plays totaled just 122 yards. That’s quite a performance by the defense.
Auburn got down early, found the Hogs much more complicated and tougher than they imagined, and got both their ‘looking forward to Florida’ and ‘BCS better not screw us again’ hats handed to them. I don’t think they quit, but they definitely lost heart. Their defense didn’t have a clue what to do about our running game by the fourth quarter. I’m sure most of what we were doing hadn’t been a part of their game planning.
By the way, the Hogs won time of possession in the 4th quarter by 9:32, keeping the ball for over 12 minutes while scoring three points.
I noticed the Hogs were very conscious of running out of bounds during the game. Peyton Hillis actually stopped once and turned back to get tackled. We ran the play clock down on almost every snap. Obviously the coaches have been reading my posts. 
We completed 70% of our passes using a controlled passing game. Those things make a difference in clock usage.
Even with only 10 passes I loved the offense today. Three touchdowns and two field goals - five scores in 10 possessions.
Beating the number two team in the nation – WAY TO GO, HOGS!
Go Hogs! Hats off to the defense and Reggie Herring. Our guys were in position to stop everything they threw at us including the touchdown pass where Kelly could've made a play. I was amazed out how our D-line dominated their experienced offensive front.
Gus called an outstanding game as well and O-line proved to be as tough and physical as any in the country. We won it in the trenches!
Does HDN get any credit for the victory or is he forever designated as the whipping boy? I think he deserves credit for pulling off the biggest win in his era and setting the table for what could be a HUGE year!
I'm with you all the way on this one HogBlogger. We might have stayed on the ground most of the day, but we had Auburn off balance. We were NOT predictable in our attack and that was evident all day long. You don't have two running backs go for over 100 yds each with a "predicitable" offense. Their defense could figure out where the ball was going to go. Jump on the Gus Bus boys. It is going to be a HOG WILD ride!
What was most amazing to me was the fact that we ran it on 32 of the last 34 plays we executed. You knew it was coming. They knew is was coming. But yet they couldn't stop it. That's impressive.