The offense stalled in the fourth quarter against Ole Miss last week and on Monday, offensive coordinator Joe Craddock talked about that, plus dealing with multiple players injured in the game.
Chavis still working to get defense better after collapse
Razorbacks defensive coordinator John Chavis talked with the media Monday about the problems in the fourth quarter against Ole Miss and looked ahead to game with Golden Hurricane.
Bud Light Morning Rush Podcast: Monday
John, Tommy and Tyler discuss the Ole Miss loss, what to do with the QB situation, plus Tom Murphy!
When bad luck isn’t better than no luck at all for Hogs
In the post-mortem of a crushing 37-33 loss to Ole Miss in Little Rock on Saturday night, it became crystal clear midway through the third quarter, Arkansas had a problem.
When Ty Storey scrambled for 10 yards and a first down on the Hogs’ second play of the fourth quarter, he should have stepped out of bounds after a 9-yard gain when he had the chance.
Storey was decked by Rebels free safety Zedrick Woods and it was pretty clear the Razorbacks suddenly had a full-blown issue on offense.
It became clear Chad Morris’ plan of controlling the game by running the ball was working like a charm on an Ole Miss team with an offense that could light up the scoreboard in a hurry. The best way to stop them was keep them on the bench.
Looking at the big picture, it became crystal clear why the Hogs’ depth chart offensively has the running backs listed where they are.
“That’s what we’re trying to do,” Morris said later. “We had Devwah (Whaley) and Rakeem (Boyd) going. The pace they were going at was very impressive. I hate that they couldn’t finish the game.”
Boyd finished with 109 yards rushing, but left the game for good with what was reported as a back injury after his only carry after the first quarter, a 3-yarder. That was on Arkansas’ second offensive play in the second quarter.
Whaley was welcomed to the party and looked perfectly capable of picking up most of the slack behind Boyd, providing a rushing compliment to Storey and that was good enough for a 33-24 lead with 2:33 left in the third quarter.
That was it, though.
Chase Hayden, who did his best, simply isn’t the threat that Whaley is and he’s not the threat Boyd is.
Yes, the Hogs were down to their third-string running back and a backup quarterback that can’t run more than a couple of yards consistently in a game where keeping the ball on the ground was the plan to keep it out of Ole Miss quarterback Jordan Ta’amu’s hands.
Danged if it didn’t almost work out.
Ta’amu did more damange to the Hogs’ defense than Alabama’s Tua Tagovailoa did last week. Ta’amu threw for 387 yards, which the Hogs could have dealt with.
What they couldn’t handle was Ta’amu’s 154 yards on the ground, with runs of 27 and 15 yards in the fourth quarter that that were killers.
“They made some plays on that last drive,” Morris said. “They picked up some key first downs in the second half, which was critical.”
Mobile quarterbacks can beat a defense that covers everything else. No matter how hard defensive coordinators try, a quarterback who can run turns a chicken mess into chicken salad.
“His ability to see the field when the pocket collapses around him, to keep his eyes open
and down the field,” Morris said of Ta’amu. “That’s why he’s one of the top quarterbacks in our league from passing efficiency to running the football.”
Storey was doing that for the Hogs before he was knocked out of the game. He wasn’t as spectacular as Ta’amu, but he did have 73 yards rushing. That tied him with Whaley for the second-leading rusher on the night for Arkansas.
To his credit, Morris wasn’t using the injuries as an excuse.
“I’m not here to make an excuse,” he said. “We would love to have those guys out there. I think that Rakeem (Boyd) was on pace to have another career night. Devwah (Whaley) as well.”
Coaches won’t use injuries as an excuse, but losing those three guys was the reason the offense wasn’t as effective in the fourth quarter.
You wonder what Morris and offensive coordinator Joe Craddock will do this week in those three spots.
Is it time for Connor Noland to get a start if Storey can’t go?
It’s become clear Cole Kelley is good on certain packages. He can get you some hard-earned short yardage into the middle. He can even throw a pass when the defense doesn’t expect it.
But he can’t run this offense very well.
Hayden is in the same spot at running back. Nobody knows what’s up with T.J. Hammonds, who didn’t see the field again Saturday night.
With Tulsa the next opponent, there will be plenty of questions for the coaches to come up with an answer to.
But hopefully they can have some good luck, which coaches despise talking about, but it does play a role.
Because Saturday night bad luck was far worse than no luck at all.
Hogs’ Fall World Series moved to Tuesday for start
FAYETTEVILLE — The 2018 Razorback Baseball Fall World Series will get underway Tuesday at Baum Stadium as the baseball team nears the end of its fall workout season.
Originally scheduled as a best-of-five series, bad weather forecasted for Monday has forced the series to become a best-of-three starting on Tuesday.
The intrasquad games will split the roster into two teams (Cardinal, White). Games one and two will go nine innings, while game three, if necessary, will go seven innings. First pitch for game one is set for 1 p.m. on Tuesday at Baum Stadium.
Arkansas was the national runner-up from a year ago, its second national runner-up finish in school history and returns 14 letterwinners from the 2018 squad.
Coach Dave Van Horn enters his 17th season at the helm of the baseball team and is coming off his best season as the head Hog as he guided the Razorbacks to their ninth College World Series appearance and seventh of his career.
Making up the Cardinal team for this year’s fall series are eight veterans and 14 newcomers.
Redshirt junior starting pitcher Isaiah Campbell and junior closer Matt Cronin headline the pitching staff, however, both will be held out after throwing in both of Arkansas’ fall exhibitions against Wichita State and Little Rock over the last two weeks.
Sophomores Kole Ramage and Angus Denton, along with junior Jacob Kostyshock will shore up the Cardinal pitching staff for this week.
Ramage and Kostyshock both saw considerable time on the mound during the exhibition games, combining for just one run allowed over six innings and striking out 11.
Last Friday at Little Rock, Ramage struck out a team-high four batters in two innings of work while allowing only one hit and one walk.
Offensively, the Cardinal team is led by All-SEC junior outfielder Dominic Fletcher, infielder Jack Kenley, and catcher Zack Plunkett. Fletcher hit .288 with 10 home runs and 49 RBIs a year ago and was named to the SEC All-Defense Team.
In the College World Series, Fletcher was Arkansas’ hottest hitter, going 9-for-26 (.346) at the plate with two home runs and eight RBIs.
He ended the year with a second-straight double-digit home run total becoming the first Razorback since Rodney Nye (1998-99) to hit 10 or more home runs in his first two seasons.
On the White team, a strong offense litters the roster including Jordan McFarland, Casey Opitz, Heston Kjerstad and Casey Martin.
Martin and Kjerstad, who were the Razorbacks top two hitters a year ago and named Freshman All-Americans, return as, arguably, the nation’s best hitting duo as both combined for a .339 average, 27 home runs, and 107 RBIs last year and set Arkansas freshman records for hits, home runs and total bases.
Opitz is coming off a strong fall exhibition series where he went 4-for-9 (.444) at the plate with three of those hits coming on Friday at Little Rock.
Last year, Opitz only appeared in 19 games but hit .222 with two of his six hits going for extra bases and is expected to be one of Arkansas’ top utility players in 2019.
On the mound for the White team, righties Caleb Bolden, Zebulon Vermillion, Kevin Kopps, and Cody Scroggins lead the way.
Kopps, who is coming off season-ending Tommy John surgery last year, pitched one inning against the Trojans on Friday, striking out two while walking one on 13 pitches.
2018 Fall World Series Schedule
• Game 1 – Tuesday, Oct. 16 at 1 p.m.
• Game 2 – Thursday, Oct. 18 at 4 p.m.
• Game 3 – Friday, Oct. 19 at 3 p.m. (if necessary) (7 inning game)
Morris thanks fans, recaps close loss to Ole Miss
Arkansas coach Chad Morris met with the media after the 37-33 loss to the Rebels on Saturday night at War Memorial Stadium.
Pettway talking about game against Ole Miss on Saturday
Hogs wide receiver La’Michael Pettway talked with the media following the 37-33 loss to the Rebels at War Memorial Stadium.
Froholdt talking about loss to Rebels on Saturday night
Razorbacks guard Hjalte Froholdt talked with the media following the loss to Ole Miss on Saturday night in Little Rock.
Harris after loss to Ole Miss on Saturday night
Arkansas linebacker De’Jon Harris with the media after the 37-33 loss to the Rebels in War Memorial Stadium.
Hogs fall to Ole Miss in an all-too-familiar late collapse
LITTLE ROCK — It had to be a wild game when Ole Miss and Arkansas get together.
This time it was on a cold, rainy night in War Memorial Stadium that was more suited for duck hunting, but it was yet another in a series that has seen wild and crazy finishes, improbably comebacks and surprising blowouts.
This one had a little bit of it all.
At the end, Arkansas’ defense couldn’t get one more stop against a high-powered Rebels’ offense that backfired much of the night.
This time Scottie Phillips ran it in from 5 yards out with 42 seconds left and Ole Miss won for the first time since 2013 against the Hogs, 37-33.
“We didn’t help ourselves out,” Chad Morris said in the post-mortem after the game. “All year long if you asked what unit wanted on the field with 97 yards to go, I would take (our defense).”
Last year it was Ole Miss that blew a huge lead as Arkansas came back for a huge win. This time the tables turned the other way.
You could feel it starting midway through the third period after Arkansas had managed to drive twice, but couldn’t convert on third down and Connor Limpert kicked field goals of 38 and 36 yards around a 66-yard pass from Jordan Ta’amu to Octavious Cooley.
After all that, the Hogs still were leading 33-24 going into the final period.
“Our special teams unit of Limpert, (holder) Jack Lindsey and (snapper) Jordan Silver really did some good things,” Morris said later.
It just wasn’t enough, mainly because things started falling apart in the fourth quarter.
After missing a 28-yard field goal on the third play of the final quarter, Ole Miss scored touchdowns on it’s next two possessions.
Storey was knocked out of the game when he didn’t step out of bounds on a second-and-10 scramble and was nailed by Ole Miss free safety Zedrick Woods.
“That’s what’s made him the competitor that he is,” Morris said later. “He was trying to get the first down. The first thing he asked me when I got out there was, ‘did we get the first down?'”
Morris didn’t know what his status was immediately after the game.
“We’ll come back and look at it,” he said. “Tomorrow we’ll re-evaluate things.”
On the Rebels’ last two drives, they had just one third down. It was a unit that was simply unable to keep up.
“We let some guys get loose up the sideline and we didn’t tackle very well,” Morris said.
This is yet another fourth-quarter collapse by the Hogs in a scenario that is becoming far too familiar for fans … and probably coaches.
“The biggest thing we’ve gotta do is go back to work,” Morris said. “Our formula is not going to change. We’ve gotta win plays. That was our message at halftime: We’ve gotta win more plays in second half than they do. Can’t let one play affect the next play.”
And, for whatever reason, they couldn’t do that.
For a Hogs’ team that had been showing steady improvement, this one may qualify as that, especially considering the loss of quarterback Ty Storey and running backs Rakeem Boyd and Devwah Whaley that completely changed the complexion of the game.
Arkansas got a big return after the score by De’Vion Warren, but they called extended blocking by a Razorbacks, ignoring the late hit out of bounds by Ole Miss.
That put the Hogs back at the 28-yard line and Cole Kelley threw an interception down the middle on first down and that was the ballgame.
In the second half, Ole Miss scored three touchdowns. All the Hogs could muster was a pair of field goals by Connor Limpert.
Arkansas had 476 yards of offense while Ole Miss had a gaudy 613 yards, 329 yards of it coming in the second half.
Until getting knocked out of the game in the fourth quarter, Storey was 12-of-16 passing with no interceptions and a touchdown. In addition, Storey had 70 yards rushing, but it was the final run that knocked him out of the game.
Ole Miss got on the board after taking the opening kickoff and driving 56 yards in six plays, but the Razorback defense stiffened and Luke Logan came on to kick a 36-yard field goal with 12:49 left in the opening period.
Arkansas answered.
Storey completed a third-down pass to Boyd for 38 yards to Rebels’ 35. The Hogs completed a fourth-and-1 at the Ole Miss 26 with Kelley going up the middle, but the drive stalled and Limpert kicked the first of his field goals, a 43-yarder, to tie the game at 3-3 with 7:41 remaining in the first quarter.
The Hogs’ defense got a three-and-out from the defense, then the running backs took over in a drive that started at the Arkansas 22 with Boyd rushing for 31 yards, Whaley had 8 and Storey passed to Cheyenne O’Grady for a 39-yard score with 3:24 left. Limpert’s point-after gave Arkansas a 10-3 lead.
The Razorbacks got another score just before the end of the quarter when Boyd broke free for a 69-yard run to make it 17-3 heading into the second period.
Both teams traded scores, the Hogs scoring on a 39-yard pass from Kelley to Pettway from 39 yards out with 10:50 to go in the first half that made it 24-10.
Ole Miss’ Logan missed a 45-yarder, Limpert made a 38-yarder with 2:36 left in the half to push Arkansas’ lead to 27-10.
Just before the end of the half, Ole Miss drove 77 yards in 10 plays, using just 2:03 to pull within 10 on a 6-yard pass from Ta’amu to Lodge with 33 seconds left.
All of that set up the second half.
The loss dropped Arkansas to 1-6 overall on the season and 0-4 in the SEC. Ole Miss moved to 5-2 overall and 1-2 in the league.
The Razorbacks will host Tulsa next week for homecoming in Fayetteville in a game televised on the SEC Network, kicking off at 11 a.m.
Governor braving weather before kickoff of Hogs-Rebels
Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson was on the sidelines during pregame warmups in Little Rock before Arkansas and Ole Miss kicked things off.
A steady rain started before the game and picked up intensity a half hour or so before the start of the game in addition to temperatures dropping.
