All we heard Wednesday from Arkansas’ defensive players and coaches was about stopping Texas A&M’s running game.
That’s mainly because Trayveon Williams, Keith Ford and Kendall Bussey have shown they can, at times, be among the best backfield groups in the SEC.
The Razorbacks are certainly preparing for that.
“Our philosophy is to stop the run, so we’ll start there,” linebackers coach Vernon Hargreaves said Wednesday.
The players have all bought in, too.
“Each of them have their great abilities and each of them have their different spots in the way they run the zone,” sophomore linebacker Scoota Harris said of the three running backs.
And if the Hogs have a special plan they weren’t disclosing it.
When asked what the key is to stopping A&M’s running attack, Sosa Agim had a fairly well rehearsed answer.
“Again, penetration in the backfield, being quick off the ball, making the tackles, gap responsibility also,” he said. “Making the tackle is one of the biggest things, I think, because these backs can go up under you, go around you, go through you also, so you have to be ready for all three styles.”
Which is pretty much the case every week.
Texas A&M has had a good three quarters of one game — their opener against UCLA.
The fallout from the collapse of that game has dominated all conversations in Aggieland.
The one things we haven’t heard a lot about is wide receiver Christian Kirk, who got a couple of mentions earlier in the week, but hasn’t been heard from since.
Everyone is saying all the correct and proper things.
But the guess here is the Hogs’ coaching staff really doesn’t know what to expect. Texas A&M didn’t show much in their last two games against Nicholls and Louisiana.
They didn’t have to. They won the games and did just enough to accomplish that.
Oh, the fact that Nicholls tied them at 14 heading into the fourth quarter was good for some to read more into it than what it was. The Aggies turned it on and put the game away rather quickly.
Against Louisiana, they stumbled and bumbled through a first half, turned it on in the second half and ran away with a fairly comfortable margin.
The mistake many people make is thinking a college football team is focused for 12 weeks and for every minute of every game.
Never has happened in the history of college football.
Every team has a game or two where the focus isn’t there and every game has moments where the focus isn’t there. It’s not a lack of effort, but just one of those things.
And, yes, it happens at Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State and every school in every game, regardless of opponent.
If teams are lucky they pull it together in time to win. If they aren’t, then, well, you have what happened to LSU against Mississippi State last Saturday night.
All of that is a rambling way to say don’t read a whole lot into the Aggies’ last two games. Considering the magnitude of a total faceplant on national television in a prime time spot, the guess here is took a week and a half to get over it.
That means what the Hogs are likely to see Saturday is more of what UCLA saw in the first half of that game and less of what Nicholls and Louisiana saw in the next two games.
Which is why Arkansas better be ready for a passing game they have zero film on. It wouldn’t be out of character for Kevin Sumlin to work on a passing attack for Kellen Mond that he hasn’t shown in the last two games that really meant absolutely nothing.
That is why all this talk from the Hogs about the Aggies’ running attack may not be the key to the game.
Is there a plan if Sumlin resorts to his old Houston Cougars offense where he’s using a form of Bobby Petrino’s shallow cross passing attack?
Mond can make those throws.
And Kirk can be a problem for the Hogs on those routes.
But, hey, we’re just guessing here. We don’t have a clue what A&M has planned for the Razorbacks.
The hope is the Hogs do.
