The Good, The Bad and The Ugly — Mississippi State
November 23, 2009 at 10:05am by Walking on Sunshine
Filed under Arkansas Razorbacks, Football
Some random thoughts after the Razorbacks’ win in The Rock over Mississippi State.
The Good
Besides Ryan Mallett having his usual stellar day, two other performances stood out on Saturday. Texarkana’s own Kobi Hamilton was Mallett’s big-play receiver, with three catches for 131 yards and two TDs. And in a return to his hometown, defensive end Jake Bequette put on a show. In addition to recovering a fumble, Bequette totaled 5 tackles, including 3 sacks.- The LSU loss to Ole Miss and the Georgia loss to Kentucky on Saturday actually helped the Hogs’ bowl opportunities. A win this week over the Tigers may spell Cotton. But now with Georgia (vs. Georgia Tech) and South Carolina (vs. Clemson) expected to finish 6-6, the worst case puts 7-5 Arkansas in either the Chick-Fli-A, Liberty or Music City bowls.
- Good thing about being a fan is that you can look ahead. How many wins do you see on the 2010 schedule?
The Bad
- Michael Smith will always go down in our book as a warrior. The news Saturday that Smith’s college career was done was bad news and a bit a shock, as most didn’t know the severity of his injury. For a guy his size to top 2,000 career rushing yards in the SEC…that says it all. Paul Petrino said it best: “He gave us everything he ever had.”
- And speaking of Paul Petrino, we knew the Hogs’ offensive coordinator had expressed interested in being a head coach some day. We were just hoping that day wouldn’t come so soon. After the win over MSU, Petrino interviewed for the vacant Western Kentucky job. (Update: Good news for Hog fans…Petrino has “withdrawn his name” from consideration for WKU job.)
- Problems with the clock at War Memorial Stadium…who would’ve guessed that?
The Ugly
- Watching the porous Hog defense attempt to stop Bulldog running back Anthony Dixon and running quarterback Chris Relf in the third quarter was nothing short of an embarrassment. Dixon and Relf racked up 186 rushing yards in the quarter, which included an 11-play, 94-yard touchdown drive that didn’t require a third-down conversion or a forward pass to be thrown. Ouch.
TipsterHog also contributed to this post.
42 – 21, I will take that every time…. but..
The run defense was horrible. Everybody knew they were going to run it, and we couldn’t stop it.
I don’t know if it was the TV timeouts along with the clock troubles, along with the referees figuring out how to enforce a call, but the game was SLOW and BORING sometimes.
Why challenge the out of bounds catch?
Don’t get me wrong, I love these hogs, and this is a fun team. Sort of like after the Troy game – just looking at the final scoreboard, it looks great, I’ll take another win. But the defense just looks out of sync sometimes.
What does it mean if P.Petrino leaves? Anyone close to the system know if it’s Big Brother Bobby’s ideas that Paul is coaching in practice or are we going to lose some offensive ideas if Paul bolts for WKU? (who in their right mind would go to WKU?)
GO HOGS – BIG GAME this weekend. Bobby vs. Les – my money is on the Hogs!
Well, nothing to do with this game but if you had a category worse than ugly, that would be Les Miles at the end of the Miss game.
I almost felt sorry for his attempt to explain it to the interviewer after the game.
Regarding this game,
Why can’t our defense adjust a little quicker in the third quarter when the other team makes their halftime adjustments. How long did it take us to figure out they were commmitted to the run in the 3rd?
11-1 next year. 10-2 wose case. This schedule looks much better than this year.
I agree. If we win our first 4 games next year, we should be sitting in Atlanta at 12-0 unless we choke somewhere down the road.
Georgia should still be on a down turn.
Alabama will continually be very tough as long as Saban is around.
A&M should be easy
Auburn will be a test as they should be improved.
Ole Miss should be on a decline.
South Carolina will always be a question mark.
LSU should be somewhat improved but if Miles continues to call timeouts like the Ole Miss game…
I imagine that Les “The Hat” Miles has to wiggling all over himself trying to figure out how to wiggle out of his ginormous screw-ups in Oxford and how to welcome Coach Bobby to Red Stick. If Coach Bobby doesn’t blow Miles brains out (oh, sorry, not possible) Saturday night, I will be surprised and disappointed.
12-1 next year after we win the SEC Championship game, but the clock at WMS will still not work. Never has, never will. And, Carolina Hog, it will be OSU or Nebraska in the Cotton Bowl, not OU. Did you see the number that the Mad Scientist of the High Plains put on the Sooners? OU is 6-5 and the natives are restless. Not as restless as the Cajuns, but very restless!
I think a quality SEC road win against LSU is important going into next year. That’s the next step in this process. If we keep everyone around, coaches and QB, then I’ll go 10-2 and hope for better. The big boys of college football have championship caliber talent every year and still don’t win big every year so just because we finally have that kind of talent doesn’t mean we’ll win the SEC or BCS next year. We’ve got to knock on the door every year with a consistancy that we’ve not seen in many years.
As for Miss st. We’ve gotten back to a place where we can play poor and double up a conference opponent so I’ll take it. I believe we will smoke LSU on Saturday in what will serve as our national coming out party.
Cotton would be great but part of me just wants to go to a lesser bowl and destroy someone to get the bowl monkey off our backs. Ok st. or Ok. in the Cotton would be tough.
No, our defense is not championship caliber yet, that’s why we are not playing for a championship. But, considering their weaknesses, they play pretty well. They still have great stats in turnover margin and in the redzone, two key components of any successful defense and, they have made critical plays in almost every game this year. They will get better. Except for the Georgia game, the defense has not been the difference in our season.
Paul isn’t going anywhere. A few more years at Arkansas and he can have a pretty good job. He had to go talk just to get his name in the paper. He will do that somemore before he ever gets the shot he wants.
There are 8 wins there pretty easy, probably 10, if we develop a defense and a running game that schedule can take you to Atlanta and beyond.
The good thing about the defense on Saturday related to the third quarter is that they sorted it out for the fourth quarter. They got happy and aggressive and lost their fundamentals for awhile.
Mississippi State is a solid running team, so hats off to them.
Golf is right…we do not have a 10-win championship defense yet. We’re there on offense, but should not expect as much without the total package.
10-win team??? I say yes. Just think… we ran out of gas for Georgia, could have beat Florida, and should have beat Ole Miss. All of these games could have been victories. What would that make us??? A 10 win team. Could we win a SEC championship with this team??? Well, we almost be the team that would determine that point so who knows!
Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda, I agree.
Hindsight tells you we got Georgia when they where in a must win, try to save their season, and we were a bit too high. A win there and we play much better at Bama. I watched the Florida game again on Sunday. That was clearly our best game of the year on defense and we left enough points on the field in just a few plays to win comfortably. But, the tough loss left us flat for a sky high Ole Miss.
I thought before the season this team could really make a sophomore run. It was there to be had. But, truth be known, we were a bit too young and way too thin is a couple of spots.
Great, great football to watch and nowhere to go but up. We just need to get the O-line in the weight room and a deeper defense from the recruiting trail.
The Hogs are still very young on defense, which explains the inconsistansy, but they have improved since last season.
If they improve that much more next season, they should be pretty darn good.
LSU has lost their top 2 RBs for the season now, so that makes them a little easier to defense.
The Hogs might not run that good against their top-flight, run-defense either, but I’ll take Ryan Mallet over Jordan Jefferson in a passing game any day of the week and twice on Sunday.
Gonzo: LSU has lost its top running back and there hasn’t been anyone to step up. The QBs have been inconsistant but most importantly, the D line has not been able to pressure the QB. I say this because of previous LSU games and but I did not see the Ole Miss game because I was driving back from War Memorial. Based on the stats this was a game that Nutt likes to lose: Wins the stats but still the opponent manages to somehow win. Nutt likes to keep a game close even if he has the advantage over an opponent (see USC-East). Only a flub prevented his team from losing to LSU despite the edge in talent especially at QB, RB, and WRs. The LSU game should be called the hot seat bowl. If Nutt had lost this game, fans would have begun to seriously wonder if they had chosen the right coach (He’still not out of the woods). LSU losing like it did put Miles right on the hot seat (If they had kicked a field goal, there would have talk about a contract extension. The line is so fine here).
As to Arkansas and LSU: This is a game tailored for the Hogs. If LSU sells out the pass, as MSU did, Mallet will pick them apart. The fact that LSU’s pass rush is not very good should give Mallet plenty of time to throw. If LSU sells out the run, our running game will come alive. Many fans here do not seem to realize that our poor effort in the running game was because of MSU stacking its run defense. Also, the O line has been doing a very credible job of protecting Mallet. If Arkansas can put pressure on the LSU QBs it will be a long night for the Tigers. This requires selling out the running game, but Petrino’s philosphy, and this is what happened Saturday, is bend but don’t break until the opponent gets to within the 20. Arkansas was having its way with MSU’s passing but when the ‘Dogs adjusted their offfense to the triple option that’s when they began seriously pushing the ball downfield. I think the reason why it took the Hogs so long to adjust was the philosophy of bend but not break. But with power runners like Dixon and Co. that doesn’t work so well inside the red zone. I think the Arkansas coaches were waiting to see how long MSU was going to depend on the run rather than pass. After the Hog defensive adjustments were made The ‘Backs were fortunate that MSU did not have a balanced attack with which to answer.
Unlike everybody here I want the Hogs to go to the Liberty Bowl, even at 8-4 (hopefully). It’s not that I don’t like Jerry Land and I even have kids in the Dallas area, but I think that the Hogs and Mallet wil get greater national exposure in the Liberty. No I am not crazy. Here’s why. It assumes that Houston will be the Conference USA opponent. What a draw; the SEC’s leading QB against the Nation’s top QB. This matchup would probably give the Liberty more PR and national audience size than any Liberty Bowl before it. Gunfight at the Memphis Corral. The media attention will be far greater than that at the Cotton bowl. The opponent at the Cotton would, as some have said, most probably be Nebraska, or perhaps OSU. HO Hum. No glory there. Houston is ranked and I think that the Hogs would roll over the Cougers.
I’ll reserve my optimism for next years record when I find out if Mallet is returning.
If I were in Paul Petrino’s position, with one of the NCAA’s top offenses, with Ryan Mallett and most of them coming back next year, I’d wanna stick around and try to win a championship. If successful, lots of opportunities open up. If my QB dials his own number, all bets are off.
Re the helmet stickers: Are those hammers or Malletts?