ESPN’s “Team Efficiency” rankings after week one are out. “Good edge rushers. We’re going to have to go in there and communicate and do the things that winning football teams have to do on the road to come away with a victory because this is a good TCU team”. They maintained a swift pace for the game’s first three quarters at more than three plays a minute (about 17.4 seconds per play), and Hill had no trouble with that.
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Patterson is known as a defensive mastermind, orchestrating a system of exotic blitzes that brings pressure from many points on the field.
Yet, at least for one week, there were Kenny Hill and the Frogs putting up 59 points and 662 total yards, albeit against a program they expected to roll.
The Razorbacks rallied for a 21-20 victory over Louisiana Tech in their opener with quarterback Austin Allen engineering a 77-yard touchdown drive in the fourth quarter to overcome a 20-14 deficit.
The Hogs are inexperienced at running back as well.
Receivers must run their routes properly, too. The Razorbacks gave up 212 yards in the opener against Louisiana Tech and allowed the Bulldogs to complete 61.3 percent of their passes.
Those mistakes nearly proved costly, in the Hogs’ tenuous 21-20 victory. The team struggled against the run and the pass as they let the Jackrabbits easily move the ball for over 460 yards of total offense.
“We only saw about 10 percent of what we worked on”, Patterson said Tuesday, giving them credit for what they did. He is more risk adverse. On the night, the Frogs racked up 662 yards of offense, including 223 on the ground. “A defense that was pushed around in both the run and the pass could benefit from Summers’ 6′ 2”, 235 pound frame as they looked overmatched and undersized up front against South Dakota State. It’s the same formula when he (Arkansas coach Bret Bielema) was at Wisconsin. It’s had mixed results to say the least.
It was a little more than two years ago that Kenny Hill took the SEC by storm, passing for 511 yards and three touchdowns in his first career start for Texas A&M in a 2014 season-opening victory over SC. Bielema said these types of games are meaningful to veteran Arkansas fans, as well as anyone with a strong appreciation for history.
When asked about how his defense did on Saturday against South Dakota State, Patterson didn’t hold back.
A similar equation this Saturday won’t end well for the Razorbacks. However, my guess is Louisiana Tech is a much better team than SDSU.
Saturday night’s matchup will be the biggest test of Allen’s career.
Take your pick on which one you want to believe.
It just has that big-game sound. “We were physical, but we could have been a lot more physical”. Certainly, TCU will brag about beating an SEC team if it wins, but even after more than two decades in the SEC, Arkansas isn’t afforded the same measure of respect as its other SEC brethren. This would be the flawless game (on the road against a Top-25 team) to knock down that barrier and approach conference play clicking on all cylinders.
“I told him to cut it a long time ago just for an image thing”, Arkansas Receivers Coach Michael Smith said Wednesday.
“For a first ballgame coming back after not playing for a year – really a year-and-a-half – I thought he did a great job”.
I can see this game being a close one, but if the Hogs repeat the mistakes from last week, it could get ugly.
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We’ve been in these kind of ballgames before, and I expect our team to get ready to play and get ready to go.
