John Chavis walked into Monday’s press conference and it was pretty clear right at the start he’s still a little ticked off over Alabama hanging 65 on his defense Saturday.
In a long and storied career at three SEC schools, it was the worst start to a game he’s ever had. It was clear he was still upset.
“I don’t know where I’m going to start at, but I’m going to start with the way I feel,” he said. “I want to make this perfectly clear: I’m very disappointed in how we performed.”
For the coach they all call Chief, that’s about as direct as it gets with the media. The players probably got a much more direct assessment.
“I’m not disappointed in our players … by no stretch of the imagination,” he said. “We’ve got to coach them better.”
It’s part of a new era of accountability and Chavis was taking his share of the blame.
“I’m going to own my work, there’s no question about that,” he said.
Alabama’s 65 points and 639 yards of total offense were gaudy enough, but it wasn’t even the best offensive output in the league last Saturday.
The bad news is they play the team that topped those eye-popping numbers in Little Rock this week.
For those that missed it, the Rebels hung a light-running 70 points and 826 yards on Louisiana-Monroe.
Yeah, just ponder those numbers a minute.
That’s more points in one game than the Razorbacks have put up in their last four games COMBINED. That’s more than the Hogs put up in their last two games COMBINED.
Wait, there’s the interesting part.
Arkansas’ last two games were against Alabama and Texas A&M,
The Crimson Tide also kicked the Rebels sideways, 62-7. Ole Miss only had 248 yards of offense. The team the Razorbacks just put up 405 yards on, the Rebels had 248 for the game. And one touchdown, on their first offensive play of the game.
In their only other game against a ranked opponent, Ole Miss put up 328 yards against LSU, but not a lot of points in a 45-16 loss.
At times, the Rebels put up big numbers against so-so opponents, but their only two tests — both losses — were rather ho-hum offensively.
Still, Chavis knows what he’s facing.
The highlight of that offense is a group of receivers including A.J. Brown, D.K. Metcalf and DeMarkus Lodge that have combined for 94 receptions for 1,492 yards and 10 touchdowns through six games. As a team the Hogs have just 105 receptions.
“Hopefully we can get enough guys around them to tackle them,” Chavis said.
He also knows it’s going to have to be man-to-man coverage, regardless of what you call it.
“You’re forced — and absolutely forced — to be in man coverage,” Chavis said. “Even if you’re calling zone because of what’s happening your’e going to be in one-on-one coverage. You can call it zone all you want to.”
On top of that, Ole Miss has one of those Hawaiian quarterbacks in Jordan Ta’amu, who is 120-of-187 for 1,911 yards, 13 touchdowns and just four interceptions. Arkansas is nowhere near that number.
“They’re not afraid of running in their read zone scheme,” Chavis said Monday. “He’ll pull it and tuck it. Not exacly the same, but similar to what we’ve seen.”
Running quarterbacks create problems for teams as it basically makes defenses scheme 11-on-11 because you have to account for him running.
“We’ve felt like we’ve had some good situations that help us,” Chavis said. “We’ve got to do a good job of scheming.”
That scheming is a big part of what the Hogs will have to do well against Ole Miss. There is a talent edge there … on paper.
“We’ve got to coach them better,” Chavis said.
And he didn’t sound too disappointed to be going into War Memorial Stadium on the home team side. He won twice there when he was at Tennessee, but a 31-23 win in 2010 when Chavis was coordinating LSU’s defense is still in his mind.
“Got beat over there a couple of times,” he said Monday. “So we’ve got to go over there and get a win.”
He was smiling when he said it.
