Four key factors with Hogs winning

By Drake Priddy

FAYETTEVILLE – The Razorbacks knock off No. 4 Tennessee in primetime for a historic win in Fayetteville. It just so happens the last time Arkansas beat a top five team was in 1999 against the then ranked No. 3 Tennessee Volunteers. History sure has a funny way of repeating itself.  

Here are four key factors that led to the Arkansas win. 

Control the Trenches and protect Taylen Green  

The offensive line looked like they figured out some of their problems up front. They still allowed two sacks and eight TFLs (-22 yards) and allowed three quarterback hurries. That is some improvement from last week’s two sacks, nine tackles for loss (-40 yards), and eight quarterback hurries. There are still some tweaks to be made but the unit up front seems to be progressing in the right direction.  

Head coach Sam Pittman was proud of his protection up front.  

“Man, I was so proud of our offensive line in that aspect,” said Pittman. “We go through the first half, and we had a little empty protection once. They brought two off the edge on us and Taylen had to scramble out of there, but I just kept saying on the headsets, we’re really protecting him well. We’re really protecting him well’. Then, they had to bring some extra heat. They went zero a time, or two, too.” 

“… That is our best game protecting the quarterback,” said Pittman.  “We’ve got to get better, but that’s our best game against a really good defensive line. Maybe done some things…” 

The O-line played a crucial role in the last scoring drive that allowed Arkansas to take the lead. The Hogs advanced 59 yards only needing four plays. The big guys up front created holes for freshman running back Braylon Russel to rush for 35 of those yards. Taking the lead the following play via a 11-yard scramble from redshirt freshman quarterback Malachi Singleton.  

Stop a Top three offense and contain Nico Lamaleava 

The Tennessee offense ranks in the top five for both scoring and total offense in the nation. The Vols have beat their opponents by an average score of 54-7 through four games. The defense had their work cut out for them but once again this proved to be a dominant SEC showing.  

Pittman credits his defensive Coordinator, Travis Williams for his contributions to the big win.  

“The game plan came in Sunday night,” said Pittman. “T-Will had talked about what he thought he wanted to do. We started practicing it on Monday. We weren’t going to let them get behind us if we could help it, and we were really worried about stopping the run, but we always had the edge covered, because we were bringing corners off a read run and we were bringing the field linebacker off the read run, and we mixed it up so we had a little bit of an odd front and then a little bit of a four-man and mixed it up. We brought total zero blitz, heat. I just thought Travis did a wonderful job of calling the defensive game, and more important, getting the kids to believe in what we were going to try to do to stop this very, very, very high-powered offense.” 

The defense forced seven punts (three 3 & outs), two turnovers on downs, and two touchdowns. The real task of the day was containing Tennessee’s dual threat quarterback Nico Lamaleava. Lamaleava can run, throw, and do about anything you could ask of a star QB. But he met his match against the hogs. The redshirt freshman only gathered 17 yards on 11 rushing attempts and 156 yards passing, completing 16 for 28.   

Minimize turnovers, penalties, and mental mistakes 

The Hogs did much better this week in the turnover and penalty department. Thes Hogs did not give up a single turnover versus last week’s interception and fumble. Turnovers have proved to be costly for the Razorbacks so far this season. The Hogs committed five total turnovers in their two losses on the season. If the Hogs can have the same number of turnovers as the other team, then Pittman thinks his team can hang with anybody.  

“If we have the same amount of turnovers, we can play with anybody,” said Pittman. “The two games that we’ve lost to this point, we had more turnovers than what we got.” 

The Hogs limited their penalties to just six for minus 45 penalty yards versus last week’s ten for minus 75 penalty yards. Arkansas did a good job at cleaning up their penalties this week. Mental mistakes like false starts and jumping offsides look to be improving. It is even better when your improvement is against such a high-powered team.  

What does this win mean for the Hogs? 

The Razorbacks knocked off the No. 4 team in the country, and they are still trending in the right direction despite their close losses. Coach Pittman thinks this win can be big for both the team and the state. 

“There’s a lot to be- I’m not for sure that this win will do — it’ll do a bunch. But that locker room in there believes we’re pretty good..,” said Pittman. “Now, I think it’s going to do more for the state who was veering over here, ‘Hey, they’re going to fire their coach. They’re going to do this. When the hell are we getting this guy out of here,’ all that stuff. I think maybe it’ll unite the state a little bit in saying, Hey, this is our guys. Let’s go. Let’s go back ’em like they did tonight.., because our teams believe that we can beat anybody in the country if we just have the same amount of times we have the ball. And so I do think it’s a big deal, though, and the kids will really have a good time tonight, and then we’re off next week. It’s a wonderful time to go beat the No. 4 team in the country.” 

After the historic win, the Hogs are 4-2 (2-1 in Conf.) and will have a bye week next week. Their next matchup will be with LSU Tigers on October 19th at Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium.