Getting There

Some key stats from the past two games…excluding the fourth quarter meltdown against Florida.

Team	Score	First Downs	Rushing	Passing	Total Yds	Penalties
Arkansas	32	43	325	376	701	112
Opponents	39	26	190	271	461	90
+/-	-7	+17	+135	+105	+240	+22

Even if you include the Florida fourth quarter, the Hogs gained 58 more total yards than Florida and Auburn.

With the exception of special teams — whose issues have been too numerous to detail here — and key penalties that killed the first two drives against Florida, the Hogs have been pretty competitive over the last two games.

Against Florida, I thought the defense began to look much better.  They played with more confidence and aggressiveness.  Seeing multiple red shirts gang tackling reminded me of how good Razorback defenses have looked in the past.

The defense continued to improve against Auburn.  It’s obvious that Auburn’s offensive line is lost right now, so maybe holding Auburn down wasn’t anything special.  Still…you have to like what you’re seeing.

The offense, while still suffering from mistakes, is really beginning to cruise.  The offensive line is coming together in spite of the injuries and increased playing time by some backups.

Michael Smith is definitely the leader in the ‘feed the studs‘ category.  The improvement in offense has been directly related to focusing more on Smith in both the running and passing game.  Early in the year, I felt the Hogs weren’t running the ball enough early in the game (or really at any other point).  The ‘power’ in the ‘power spread’ is a pretty important part of the Petrino offense.

As for Casey Dick, all in all, he’s played pretty well the past two games.  Neither interception against Auburn was really his fault, as mistakes by receivers strongly contributed to both.

Special teams continues to need a lot of work.  How many times this year has someone run onto the field late to fill a position?  Once or twice a game it seems.  The kickoff team has struggled to fill their lanes and contain on the edges.  Overall…the most disappointing part of the team by far this season.

Oh…and one more thing.  I’ve noticed we have about as many wardrobe combinations as a cheerleading squad.  All of the uniform combinations do look ‘tight.’  But my observation over the years has been that teams that fool around a lot with their clothes tend to struggle with focus and consistency.

The Razorbacks have never really had a great season with black trim around their uniform numbers.  In both basketball and football, black trim has usually equaled disappointment.  I know I’m a bit weird about this, but we won the National Championship in 1994 with pure Razorback cardinal and white.  We added the black trim in 1995 and fell short.

But since we like to play with our clothes, I think the cardinal jerseys should say ‘Razorbacks’ in small letters and the white should continue to say ‘Arkansas.’

Wait…see how this uniform thing can cause you to lose focus on what’s important?

Okay…back on track…to me, the best part of what the Hogs have going on is this: we are not getting outcoached.   While the entire offense is far from totally installed, it is obviously more like an NFL offense than a college offense.  Once this thing gets really going, the Razorbacks are going to be tough to deal with.