Heupel stresses No. 4 Tennessee just wasn’t good enough to avoid Arkansas upset

BY DUDLEY E. DAWSON

FAYETTEVILLE – For the first time in history, two top five SEC teams experienced the agony of road defeat to unranked foes while watching the fans storm the field.

It was not something Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel and his previously unbeaten and No. 4 Volunteers wanted part of, but Arkansas pulled off an 19-14 stunner before 75,573 fans.

It was the first win for the Razorbacks (4-2, 1-1) over a top 5 foe since taking down defending national champion Tennessee 25 years ago in Fayetteville.

“Disappointing night for us as a football team, I didn’t think we handled, or started fast,” Heupel said.
“Didn’t do the ordinary things at a high level. Offensively, hurt ourselves consistently there in the first half.

“They were able to extend some drives, some third-down conversions.

“End of the day, starting with me, it wasn’t good enough tonight. And between all three phases, we’ve got to find a way to be on the right side of the scoreboard. And we got to get better.

“So at this point you got an opportunity to come together, pull harder, fight stronger, play for each other and continue to grow. Still a lot out there, obviously, as everybody sees. But the main thing is we got to continue to get better.”

Unranked Vanderbilt upset visiting No. 1 Alabama 40-35 in Nashville on Saturday in a game that finished up right before the Arkansas-Tennessee one began.

No. 9 Missouri also lost on the road, falling 41-10 at No. 25 Texas A&M in another SEC clash.

“Says what I’m pretty sure I said on Monday,” Heupel said. “Man, in this league, you better come to play really good football, play smart football every single Saturday. “Separation in this league is really tight and you know, we gotta get better.”

Tennessee (4-1, 1-1) host rivals Florida and Alabama the next two weekends.

“We come back in, we gotta get better and get ready to roll next week,” Heupel said. “And we haven’t been at home in a while. Look forward to seeing our fans. We gotta go play really good football to give ourselves a chance to go win.”

Heupel was asked what his postgame message was to the Vols, who had won their only previous true road game at Oklahoma (25-15) two weeks ago.

“Man, pretty simple,” Heupel said. “When moments like this happen, the outside world’s gonna have a narrative for you. We talk about it when it’s going good, and tonight it didn’t go good.

“You gotta look at your teammates in the eye. Those are the opinions that matter. You gotta continue to pull the rope harder. We gotta continue to grow. Good teams get better throughout the course of the year. Still have a chance to be a really good football team.”

Arkansas back up redshirt freshman quarterback Malichi Singleton led his team on what turned into a game-winning 4 play, 59-yard drive.

He capped on a 11-yard scoring dash with 1:11 left as the home team scored 16 unanswered points to grab the victory before the sixth largest crowd in stadium history.

Singleton relieved injured Razorback starting quarterback Taylen Green, who was 19 of 26 passing for 266 yards with no turnovers.

He had help on that drive from Arkansas freshman tailback Braylon Russell, who led the Razorbacks in rushing with 8 carries for 62 yards while Jackson had 20 carries for 57 yards.

Green’s favorite target Andrew Armstong had another big night with 9 catches for 132 yards in a game that Arkansas had a 336-332 total offense advantage.

Heupel said he made the decision to let Arkansas score in hopes of having enough time to drive the field and score again itself.

“Yeah, at the very end of it, just with the clock timeout situations that we had trying to give ourselves a chance to go answer,” Heupel said.

That dreamed ended when Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava was forced out of bounds at the Arkansas 16 after gaining four yards on 4th and 5.

Iamaleava was 16 of 28 for 160 yards on the night.

Tennessee had not trailed the entire season, but found itself behind after Kyle Ramsey’s 20-yard field goal capped Arkansas’ 16-play, 74-yard drive on its initial possession of the game.

The Vols amassed only 76 yards total offense in the opening half.

“I mean, just early we find a way to get ourselves behind the chains early,” Heupel said. “You look at the first three drives, there was something that really hurt us. Man downfield, false start, holding, whatever it might’ve been.

“So you do that, you put their time of possession together and all of a sudden you’re looking at the scoreboard the way it was at the end of the first half.

“We got to play smarter, we got to play better up front. We got to play better with our skill players on the perimeter and we got to play better at quarterback. But again, it starts with me. We got all get better.”

Tennessee did show some life to start the second half and almost matched its first half offensive output on much on its first possession of the third quarter with a 7-play, 75-yard jaunt.

The big play of the drive was a 53-yard dash by Vols’ tailback Dylan Sampson, a sprint that set up his 4-yard touchdown run less than three minutes after intermission.

Sampson, who rushed 22 times for 140 yards, would add another 4-yard scoring dash with 8:19 left in the third quarter as Tennessee took a 14-3 lead.

Arkansas finally found the end zone on Ja’Quiden Jackson’s two-yard run with 4:38 remaining in the third quarter.

Matthew Shipley added the PAT and then drilled a 23-yard field goal on his first attempt of the season to cut the Razorbacks’ deficit to 14-13 with 12:08 left.

Arkansas ran 44 plays to Tennessee’s 23 in the first two quarters while having a whopping possession time advantage of 23:27 to 6:17.

“Yeah, you know, structure was a little bit different than what they had shown on tape,” Heupel said. “I thought we adjusted after the first drive. As much as anything, again, shooting ourselves in the foot early and playing from behind the sticks and you know, then not being efficient on third down.

“So you put those two things together, that’s, you know, how you have a half like we did.”

Photo by John D. James