FAYETTEVILLE — Dan Mullen didn’t have a hangover from last Saturday’s narrow loss to No. 1 Alabama.
His team, though, might have been suffering a little.
“I haven’t had a drink since last Saturday,” he said after the Bulldogs scored with 17 seconds left to beat Arkansas, 28-21, here Saturday. “I don’t think so. We had a great week of preparation.”
For the Razorbacks, though, it was another game of being close … again.
“I didn’t say that,” Bielema said in the postmortem of the Hogs’ locker room when asked about his comments earlier in the season about being close. “I know you like to play with that word, but I didn’t said it.”
And, this time, he didn’t mention anything about being close, although he could have referring to Arkansas’ effort against the Bulldogs. The question was about the season as a whole.
“Yeah, this was a case in point today,” Bielema said. “Put in a lot of time, a lot of effort and our guys believed in the way the game started, you saw they have every intention of not only just expecting or playing to win.”
That’s word for word how he said it.
The result of this game is there won’t be a bowl season for the first time since Bielema’s first season in 2013. His overall record at Arkansas dropped to 29-33 overall and 11-28 in the SEC.
With more offensive linemen knocked out of this game (starters Zach Rogers at center and guard Hjalte Froholdt left in the first half), Bielema had a comment about the line that could have applied to the entire season.
“We’re just piecing it together,” he said.
Yeah, it’s been that kind of year and this game maybe rolled all of the problems into a 60-minute package that turned out to be a tale of two halves.
Arkansas dominated roughly the first 25 minutes of each half.
Then fell apart.
Although Mullen refused to attribute the sluggishness of State to the loss to the 31-24 loss to the Crimson Tide last week, they weren’t as sharp.
Plus, the weather didn’t help. It was in the low 50’s at the start of the game, but felt much colder with a biting wind that was swirling in the stadium with gusts up to 40 miles an hour.
“It’s late in the season and you come out to a tough environment on a windy and cold day,” Mullen said later.
Just to be clear, he wasn’t talking about the crowd. Although it was announced at 64,153, there was never more than 40,000 in the stands. The loudest they were able to get just wasn’t much of a problem for the Bulldogs.
“The ball didn’t bounce our way all game long,” he said. “We had a great week of preparation. Our guys were ready to go.”
But they didn’t.
On the other side, the Razorbacks came out on the first possession of the game and looked like a team ready to just go through the motions after a tumultuous week where the athletics director was fired and everyone’s waiting on the axe to fall on Bielema.
The Hogs ran the ball twice and Austin Allen couldn’t connect with Jordan Jones, which was followed by a 29-yard punt from Blake Johnson.
But when it hit a State player in the head coming down, the Hogs got it at the Bulldogs’ 36 along with a big energy boost.
It took just three plays for graduate transfer David Williams to get the ballin the end zone from the 3 and Arkansas had a 7-0 lead with 12:46 to go in the first quarter.
The Hogs were due some luck and got it.
They got some more when State had to start a drive from their own 5 and Nick Gibson was hit in the backfield by McTelvin Agim and fumbled into the end zone and Briston Guidry fell on it for another score with 7:26 left in the first half and a 14-0 lead.
It held up until late in the second quarter when Bulldogs quarterback Nick Fitzgerald scored from 18 yards out with 5:17 to play, then Johnson couldn’t field a snap on a punt and State got an 8-yard run from Aeris Williams and it was tied with 2:18 left in the first half.
That’s how quick things changed.
It happened again in the second half.
Arkansas scored on it’s first possession in the third quarter on the only sustained drive the offense could muster, moving 75 yards in 10 plays with Devwah Whaley scoring from a yard out with 4:35 left for a 21-14 lead.
It looked like that might hold up until Fitzgerald found a wide open Reggie Todd, who broke free from Henre Tolliver on a nifty double move to score from 37 yards out to tie the game at 21-21 with 3:57 left.
“He ran a perfect route,” Mullen said about Todd o that play.
Still, the Hogs had one more chance.
They moved to their hown 44 before a fourth-and-2 pass from Allen to LaMichael Pettway fell incomplete. There was some bumping on the play, but it wasn’t called.
The Bulldogs then decided to either win the game or go to overtime.
Fitzgerald started making plays to keep the chains moving, including a 2-yard run on a fourth-and-1, then found Deddrick Thomas for a diving touchdown catch that was ruled good and upheld on replay with 17 seconds left.
There was nothing left to do for Arkansas but try a wild play where Allen’s pass was complete to Cheyenne O’Grady, who got it to Deone Stewart, who got it back to O’Grady, who got it to Johnny Gibson, who relayed it to Pettway, who got it to Whaley.
After all that it was a 4-yard gain and the clock was out of time.
“Unfortunately came up short,” was how Bielema described it later.
Which pretty much sums up the season.
