Hogs lose to Auburn, but special teams made it worse

No one expected Arkansas to have much of a shot on the road against Auburn on Saturday night, but horrendous special teams play made the 34-3 final score worse than it should have been.

The Razorbacks weren’t nearly as bad against the Tigers as they were at home against North Texas last week, but the problems were glaring.

Especially in the special teams which consistently gift-wrapped field position for Auburn all night long.

Take a look at where the Tigers’ scoring drives started:

• Arkansas 27 after a punt return, resulting in a touchdown
• Arkansas 2 after a fumble recovery, resulting in a field goal
• Arkansas 9 after a punt return, resulting in a touchdown
• Kickoff return for a touchdown
• Auburn 28 after stopping the Hogs on downs, resulting in a touchdown
• Arkansas 15 after a punt return, resulting in a field goal

You’re reading that right. The Razorbacks gave up one sustained drive for a score and that came late when the defense was flat give-out.

The Hogs’ offense put up bigger numbers than the Tigers, but gave up 191 yards in punt and kickoff returns.

There will be some pointing out that’s what happens when you don’t have a special teams coach. Arkansas more or less does special teams by committee with several assistants handling different areas.

It all fell apart down on The Plains.

In addition to the returns, Arkansas punter Reid Bauer nearly had rushers beat the snap back to him and there really is no explanation how a guy can run past three blockers standing just in front of the punter.

When Bauer did get off a decent punt, nobody seemed to have a particular interest in tackling the guy who caught the ball.

The result was a track meet on special teams most of the night and Auburn won that with little competition.

There’s an old saying that statistics are for losers, but for the Hogs — a team looking for any kind of positives after six quarters of having an offense that resembled recess at kindergarten — winning the offensive game against the Tigers is a step in the right direction.

Yes, the offense did struggle. You will hear some talking heads mention that Ty Storey missed open receivers. In case you didn’t notice, his jersey turned from white to green sometime before halftime.

No quarterback has a great night completing passes from a horizontal position.

To be fair, Storey didn’t play that poorly. Yes, he threw an interception, but as you can see from the drive starts for the Tigers above, that wasn’t the issue in this game.

No, the offensive line was facing a defensive front as good as anything they’ve seen or likely will see.

The Tigers only had two sacks, but seven tackles for loss and nine quarterback hurries.

Don’t blame Storey for this one.

Or the defense for that matter.

The Hogs had four sacks, two quarterback hurries and nine tackles for loss. The only thing they didn’t do as well as they’ve done in the first two games was get a turnover. Credit that to a fourth-year junior quarterback in Jarrett Stidham with a full season under his belt in the SEC.

No, the defense played well enough to at least make this game competitive into the fourth quarter when the Tigers scaled their usual offense back, just trying to close out the game. Malzahn clearly had no interest in running up the score on his good friend, Chad Morris.

In the end, this was a building block for the Hogs.

Which is good because the road doesn’t get easier, going to Arlington, Texas, next week to face a Texas A&M team that was hammered by Alabama on Saturday, 45-23, in a game that wasn’t really that close.