Hogs struggle against experienced QBs, face Quinn Ewers next

FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas’ secondary has struggled against experienced quarterbacks this season with three of the four losses coming against the older signal callers.

In the last outing, Arkansas’ secondary was blasted for 25 of 31 passing by Jaxson Dart for 515 yards and 6 touchdowns in a 63-31 loss in Razorback Stadium. Sam Pittman was asked Monday what has happened to the secondary?

“Yeah, we certainly have made it very competitive back there,” Pittman said. “If you ask me who’s going to start at safety, I would say, ‘Let’s wait a couple more days.’ We’ve made it that much of a battle. Same thing at the corner spot. I think you have to do that. You’ll lose your room if you don’t. If you don’t challenge with guys that are 2s, they’re going to be going, ‘Well, I just watched the tape and maybe I should have an opportunity.’ So we certainly are doing that. Not just with, ‘Well, we may get you in the game,’ (but) with going out there first, with starting. We’ve done that with at least three of the five positions, possibly four.”

Oklahoma State’s Alan Bowman completed 27 of 48 passes for 326 yards, 1 touchdown and an interception in a 39-31 overtime win over the Hogs on Sept. 7. LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier completed 23 of 34 passes for 233 yards in LSU’s 34-10 win on Oct. 19 also in Razorback Stadium.

To the contrary, No. 4 Tennessee’s only loss was 19-14 to the Hogs on Oct. 5 in Razorback Stadium. Nico Iamaleava is a talented, but young quarterback. The Hogs only allowed him 158 yards passing completing 17 of 29. Did anything change after the Tennessee game?

“I didn’t think we played as hard against Ole Miss,” Pittman said. “I did not feel that way against LSU. I thought that we played hard. I thought our matchup that night wasn’t great. Nussmeier was really on and so were the wide receivers. But we were 16-10 with 5 minutes left in the third with the ball. Ole Miss was certainly a different story. It was almost like they knew exactly what we were going to do defensively, and could combat it because Dart was certainly on. We couldn’t get to him, and you know, we had a hard time covering them.

“I think, to answer your question, our concern was more about a trend that went last year and to this point. Last year, we didn’t challenge, in other words, we didn’t say let’s put somebody… let’s give another opportunity here, and this year we have. Like I said before, we tried so many different things against Ole Miss and none of them seemed to work, but it all goes down to I just feel like we didn’t play as hard as what we normally do, and we certainly have to get back to that to have a chance.”

Ewers has completed 149 of 215 passes for 1,722 yards, 19 touchdowns and 6 interceptions. Pittman was asked how Ewers compares to Dart and Nussmeier?

“You look at them, they’re scary,” Pittman said. “They’re dangerous at wide out and running back out of the backfield, and Ewers throwing the football. He has one of the fastest releases of guys I’ve seen. I mean, he can throw a bubble screen, it’s halfway there and you haven’t even seen him throw it. He’s really, really talented. Has an extremely strong arm, so there are some similarities there, so what are you going to do? You’re going to try and cover? Obviously. You’re going to try to get to him. You’re going to try and move the point. They’re good enough offensive line-wise, you’re going to have to send some guys to get to him because he has such a quick release. Therefore, when you do, you’re going to have to be in some type of zone 3 or man-to-man. So, we’ll have to pick and choose our times there, but we have to mix it up on him and we have to disguise better than we have. I think that goes back to your question, a little bit, I think part of it is we’ve got to disguise our coverages better than we have.”

Pittman then had more praise for Ewers and also praised his backup quarterback Arch Manning. The talented Manning filled in for Ewers when he was injured. He has completed 61 of 90 passes for 939 yards, 9 touchdowns and 2 interceptions.

“I think he’s got the confidence of Jaxson Dart, you know, that type of confidence,” Pittman said of Ewers. “I think he has great belief in his o-line. You can just feel it. You can feel it on the film. His wideouts are incredible. Running backs used as wideouts, bubble screens. So I think he has a lot of talent around him, but I think he has a lot, a lot of confidence. He probably has since he was a young man. He’s very accurate and has got an incredibly strong arm. 

“With Manning, I saw him make a play running to his left that they would’ve showed on SportsCenter if it was (Patrick) Mahomes (who) did it, but he just did it the other day in the game. The touch on that pass and the accuracy running to his left was incredible. Him staying there, I’m sure it says something about his family. He’s got a family that’s certainly had a lot of success, and so I’m sure they’re helping him with some of his decisions. To stay nowadays and do that is a notable achievement, or a notable accomplishment for a guy to do that now, especially a guy with his type of talent.”

Arkansas and Texas will kickoff at 11 a.m. on Saturday in Razorback Stadium and televised on ABC.