Tye & Tommy on the loss to Ole Miss, Tom Murphy joins, the 2pt conversion and more!
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Not Dropping Far: How low did Hogs go in polls after Ole Miss loss?
Arkansas came up one play short against Ole Miss on Saturday, but they didn’t fall far when the rankings came out Sunday afternoon.
While Georgia moved up to No. 1 after Alabama lost to Texas A&M on Saturday night, the Razorbacks only fell from 13th to 17th in the Associated Press poll.
They essentially swapped spots with the Rebels, who moved to 13th.
The Hogs are also 17th in the ESPN Power Rankings, 18th in the ESPN FPI and 19th in the coaches poll.
“It was a heck of a football game,” Sam Pittman said after the 52-51 loss to Ole Miss. “We made way too many mistakes on defense, the ball got behind us several times. Not a very good defensive performance, obviously.”
Arkansas is one of seven teams ranked in both the AP and Coaches Poll and also one of seven ranked teams.
“The difference in the game was we put the ball on the ground once and missed a field goal and they didn’t,” Pittman said.
The Hogs face Auburn in yet another 11 a.m. start at Razorback Stadium on Saturday. The Tigers lost to Georgia on Saturday and fell out of the polls.
It is the first game back in town since Sept. 18 against Georgia Southern.
Hope Springs Eternal: Alabama’s loss to A&M opens doors for Hogs
There is hope now for Razorback fans.
And they can thank Texas A&M, who knocked off top-ranked Alabama, 41-38, and created a mess at the top of the SEC West.
Just about everybody is a half-game behind the Crimson Tide. Arkansas isn’t because of a missed 2-point conversion pass against Ole Miss that handed them a 52-51 loss on Saturday afternoon.
The Razorbacks (4-2, 1-2 in SEC) are tied with the Aggies and a sinking LSU program at the bottom of the division, a game and a half behind Alabama.
Mississippi State, the Rebels and Auburn are a half-game behind the Crimson Tide with one loss, but they only have a single win to go with that.
Let all of that sink in for a minute or two.
The Hogs still have a hand in their own destiny and could just completely throw everything into chaos in the league … if they can start winning again and stay on a roll.
All of a sudden that Nov. 20 game in Tuscaloosa could be a huge game.
Arkansas has home games with Auburn, Mississippi State and Missouri in the second half of the season. They go on the road to LSU and Alabama.
The Hogs have five wins. Okay, technically it’s four but if they lose to UAPB every coach on the staff should be fired in Little Rock and not allowed north of the tunnel.
Unless they have collapsed completely defensively they should win at least one more league game to qualify for a bowl.
But so much more is suddenly in front of them. Two losses isn’t a disqualifier from anything. The Rebels got to the Sugar Bowl after losing to the Hogs in 2015.
That would be ironic.
Sam Pittman may have already sent a congratulatory text to Jimbo Fisher, who becomes the first of Nick Saban’s ex-assistants to beat him. Somehow that figures.
Now he has a motivational tool. Every goal they had in preseason for the SEC West is suddenly back in front of them and there is a logical path to achieve those goals.
If they can figure out how to win games and tackle anybody.
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Sam Pittman’s Problem: Fixing tackling issues won’t come from film
It turns out halfway through the season offense isn’t the problem any more.
There may have been bigger questions in the summer about how KJ Jefferson would perform as Arkansas’ starting quarterback, but all of that can be put to rest now.
Moving the ball and scoring points wasn’t the problem in a 52-51 loss at Ole Miss on Saturday.
Defensive coordinator Barry Odom couldn’t devise a defense that caught Lane Kiffin and Matt Corral off guard two years in a row and the trend on defense is going downhill fast.
And it wasn’t the refs’ fault, despite the fact the Hogs have lost very few games in the last 60-something years that didn’t involve poor officiating. Go sit down. The adults are talking now.
Sam Pittman didn’t have any answers in the post-mortem when the defense was a bigger issue than his decision to go for a 2-point conversion after a 75-yard drive and Jefferson’s third touchdown pass of the day on the final play, a 9-yarder to Warren Thompson.
“I really don’t know,” he said later about the defense. “A bunch of it was early, we didn’t tackle Any open-field tackle, we couldn’t get the guy on the ground. And that includes Corral.
“That was by far our poorest day tackling. Then when we had some busts in the secondary, guys were wide-open and we couldn’t fill the gap from the safety area on a simple little stretch play.”
It really was a bad day by both defenses. The two teams combined for just under 1,300 yards and went over the oddsmakers’ over-under by nearly 40 points.
By the end of that game both defenses were worn out.
That was absolutely the reason Pittman had decided before the kickoff he was going to roll the dice, which is the correct way to do it.
Afterwards, he wasn’t second-guessing himself. The time to worry is before you place the bet, not after you roll the dice.
“I’d do it again 100% of the time the situation we were in,” Pittman said later. “Ole Miss was just scoring EASILY. We had to work for a little bit of ours. Theirs was coming in bunches and bunches of yards.
“We just didn’t convert it.”
Looking back at the first half of the season, the Hogs caught some breaks.
Texas hadn’t figured things out on offense in Week 2. Texas A&M was in complete chaos in Week 4. Those were Razorback dominations, but in context they weren’t playing the way they are now.
Arkansas couldn’t tackle anybody almost from the start.
“By far our poorest day tackling,” Pittman said. “We’ve got to figure it out.”
Part of it is depth. After the first group there are some players that try hard but aren’t as polished, which you better be playing in the SEC or you’re going to get your hat handed to you.
“We’re beat up a little bit more with bumps and bruises, broken hands and different things of that nature,” Pittman said. “That’s certainly going to play a part of it.”
That’s not an excuse, by the way. No coach can throw his backups under the bus. Not in this day and age where they will start pouting and put their name in the transfer portal.
“We can tackle better,” he said. “We tackle in indy (individual drills), we tackle — we don’t tackle live bodies — but we form tackle, we tackle on sleds.”
To tell the truth that’s probably part of the problem. Tackling live to the ground is not something many folks do more. We’ve heard a couple of places do but those are the guys with the depth to do it.
Arkansas clearly doesn’t have the players to risk injuries in practice.
“We’ll adjust it after we look at film and see what the heck is going on and why we’re not tackling well,” Pittman said.
That’s hope it’s a technical issue the coaches can figure out. We’ve heard that for years around Razorback football.
Hope ain’t a plan, but Pittman better come up with something.
HOG REACTION: Arkansas falls to Ole Miss 52-51
Tye & Tommy take your calls after the heartbreaking loss to Ole Miss
Hogs coach Sam Pittman: Complete press conference after 52-51 loss
Going for 2 in situation like Saturday against Ole Miss is something he would do every single time, he said.
Hogs QB KJ Jefferson: How final touchdown pass happened, failed conversion
Trying to let one of his big receivers go up and make a play didn’t work when Hogs tried to win without overtime.
