Players squatted and benched racks of weight. That’s exactly what the Arkansas Razorbacks did last Saturday night in Death Valley.
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Bret Bielema and Mississippi State Coach Dan Mullen each opened his Monday news conference with remarks about the impending retirement of Missouri Coach Gary Pinkel, who is stepping down at season’s end to deal with his lymphoma. LSU’s offensive hopes were squarely on the shoulders of quarterback Brandon Harris, who threw for 271 yards, but also had a fumble that Arkansas ultimately turned into a touchdown and an interception late that sealed the Razorbacks’ win. “I thought they fought”. Nobody is panicked. Nobody is stressing out or pulling their hair out.
But what goes on between the ears for these disappointed two teams might be even more important.
Ole Miss is 5-2 against the spread in their last seven home games, 11-5 against the spread following a loss, and 1-4 against the spread in their last five SEC games.
The Tigers can still make a bowl by beating Idaho, but anything more than that will be nothing short of miraculous. They’ve punted 15 times.
LSU running back Leonard Fournette had 127 yards from scrimmage and scored his 17th touchdown this season, but that may have done little to help his Heisman Trophy candidacy on a day when Alabama’s Derrick Henry rushed for 204 yards and two scores. But even zero more wins would see the Razorbacks playing somewhere beyond Thanksgiving weekend.
For a second straight year, No. 9 LSU got whipped by their rivals for the Golden Boot – and this time Arkansas did the damage in Baton Rouge. The Hogs followed the return with a 10-play drive eating up almost six minutes of clock and ending with a field goal to put the Tigers in a 10-point hole.
It wasn’t the kind of record that screamed hot coaching, but Miles had a few big game magic a few recruiting success and a long track record as a Power 5 Conference assistant starting under legendary coach Bo Schembechler at MI. This is just the first of an onslaught of articles that will decry this year’s LSU team as fool’s gold, pointing out that this is a Tiger squad that was a beneficiary of circumstance and was never any good to begin with.
After listening to Miles on Saturday and then reading between his lines, though, Cameron better do something better with LSU’s offense quick. The Arkansas coach, it has been suggested, has sometimes gone beyond confidence. The offensive line stepped up to the challenge, only giving up two sacks and helping the Hogs to run all over the Tigers.
“They move people and we can’t get moved”, Mullen said.
It paid off with those big plays. The Razorbacks gained 239 yards of offense on 53 plays, and they gained 201 on the three scoring plays, he said. Miles criticized his sloppy special teams play in the SC game last month and went as far as to praise the special teams coach on the other side, which was Joe Robinson, a former LSU special teams coach. The junior finished with two touchdowns and 141 yards on 16 carries.
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“The series of downs at the back end of that game was embarrassing to me”, he said after that game, but did not embarrass Crowton by name. Several players said they watched the film of the Arkansas game in player-only gatherings Sunday.
