A 44-3 opening-season win might be acceptable to fans, but it was little surprise Arkansas coaches found plenty to be displeased with after watching film of the Hogs’ game with Tennessee Tech.
Arkansas offensive coordinator Garrick McGee said the Razorbacks spent a rainy Tuesday practice cleaning up fine details.
“I told them to the outside eye and to someone sitting in the stands it may have looked like we got it going and did pretty good, but when you really dig into the video and study the details of it, there’s a lot we’ve got to get cleaned up,” McGee said. “Our technique grades as an offense were not even close to where we want them to be. We went through the film and there’s a lot of things out there that we’ve got to get cleaned up in the next few days.”
Among the most troubling aspects to the Razorback offense Saturday night was the run game. Despite losing only one, Arkansas running backs fumbled the ball three times and looked sluggish at times, especially in the first half.
“We got after them pretty good at halftime and I think they responded with more effort and more passion,” McGee said. “There was a lot of technique breakdown, guys not having their eyes open and seeing what the front was, and seeing what cuts to make. Our quarterbacks missed a couple of checks in the run game. It was little things that won’t let us accomplish the goals we want to accomplish.”
McGee said the offense had a long, productive meeting Monday and it showed when they hit the practice field again.
“We talked first about how we need to take care of the football a lot better and have more pride, respect and passion with the ball,” McGee said. “Second, we knew we had kids that were talented but it was really their first time this season going out there. They were excited and there were some things they did out on the field that I wasn’t comfortable with. We had a long offensive meeting yesterday about the way we’re going to go about our business. They were settled today at practice and I could see them making a conscience effort to secure the football, and I bet they’ll be under control and ready to play the game this weekend.”
Senior offensive tackle DeMarcus Love said some of the blame in the running game has to be shared with the play of the offensive line.
“We want to work on coming off the football,” Love said. “Some guys were hesitant coming off the ball. We just want to move forward and learn from our mistakes.”
In addition to the struggles in the run game, McGee said he was “really disappointed” in the play of back-up quarterbacks Tyler Wilson and Brandon Mitchell. The pair combined to go 2-for-6 for 22 yards and an interception in the win.
“I always like to be positive but if they were standing here right now they would tell you that I’d be disappointed in their performance,” McGee said. “The mistakes they made, they understand what to do, it’s just that when it happened…they didn’t make the proper plays. I was not happy at all with their performance. They know it and they aren’t happy either; they expect a lot out of themselves. They’re both really good quarterbacks and hopefully we’ll get them out there this weekend and they’ll do better. We spent a lot of time evaluating the plays they were in and they’re better players than they showed last weekend.”
For more be sure to check out WholeHogSports.com. You can follow Matt Jones on Twitter @NWAMatt and @WholeHogSports.
Matt – looking forward to following you this season. I was at FBC Waldron for 5 years and now live in Montana (Booby Petrino’s home town). It is nice to follow the Hogs through the eyes of someone I am acquainted with.
Welcome aboard Matt!
Good to see you onboard, Matt.
This article was good and interesting and straight forward – nice to see you stick with the solid facts and not try to play up yourself and any experiences that you ever had in your life or other non-essential folderol (LIKE IT IS).
I’ll be the first to praise the defensive improvement, but let’s face it, TT should not have scored in this game. They shouldn’t have even crossed into Arkansas territory. If you look at the drive charts, they did not manage to cross the 50 yard line in the 2nd half, which speaks volumes about the depth of our defense, when the backups certainly outnumbered the starters on the field. The same cannot be said about the offense, which sputtered in the first quarter before coming on strong, then completely died when taken over by the backups. The score should have been 44-0 at the half, with the final reading 70-0. I mean, this IS an FCS school we are talking about here. Hopefully we will see utter domination next week against ULM. I certainly would feel a lot better heading into Georgia if we can show that we can play with fewer hiccups.
Matt, your picture has a very strange resemblance to Brandon’s. Is this actually Brandon just trying to draw two paychecks with an alias??
Mystifying!! But you can’t get one past me!
matt welcome looking forward to some good reporting from you
I’m not an alarmist but another thing that needs “cleaned up” and improved is time of possession. TT had the ball longer than we did. Now that was not a big deal against them but against UGA, Bama, Auburn and others it could play a major factor in the stamina of our defense in the 4th quarter in these games.
I’ve honestly never seen a group of people that find something to complain about the way you people do. They had the ball longer because we scored so quickly. And they scored 3 points because of a fluke play that could happen to anyone. The coaches have to point on the negative. But for any fan to be “worried” based on what they saw Saturday is ridiculous.
hognaustin, TT had a longer possession time because they knew they had to keep the clock going to make sure that Arkansas didn’t score 100 points on them. they were basically making a conscience effort to run, etc, even when the plays were not there, just to maintain a shred of dignity in the final score.
the time of possession did not matter diddly squat in that game, so yeah, you are being an unnecessary alarmist.
Scott,
That play worried me because it seems to happen to our defense a lot: two missed tackles behind the LOS that turn into a bomb for the opposing offense. Sure, it DOES happen to the best defenses sometimes, but it happens too often to us for my taste. However, the defense tightened it up after that.
I do agree with you on the TOP, though. Hogging the ball was their best strategy and they tried to make it happen by milking the play clock each possession. WIU tried the same thing two years and it almost worked with our lack of experience on both sides of the ball. Honnaustin, I can see Auburn having similar problems with TOP.
Really, we can all try to read the tea leaves by looking at these first two games, but we will not KNOW about whether the Hogs have improved on the major weak points until Sept. 18 in Athens. We’ll know if we can stop a dangerous air attack, we’ll know if we can win on the road, and we’ll know if we can sustain a running attack. We do already know that Tejada can consistently boot it to the end zone sort of, but we’ll also know if we have somebody who can make a 40 yarder from the left hash.
Interesting take on time of possession. The fourth quarter was the difference. The two teams were tied 15-15 at halftime and Tennessee Tech had a four-second lead after three quarters. The two Arkansas turnovers hurt its time of possession in the fourth quarter. Otherwise it was a close game in that regard.
A 44-3 opening-season win might be acceptable to fans, but it was little surprise Arkansas coaches found plenty to be displeased with after watching film of the Hogs’ game with Tennessee Tech.
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This is one fan that DID NOT find it acceptable! If you can’t convert a 3rd and 1 against an FCS opponent then you have little chance against the big boys of the SEC. The running game was atrocious! Where can we get Broderick Green some balls?? Seriously, its time for that young man to run with authority. He should be breaking more tackles than Dennis Johnson…but he doesn’t even come close.
I’d like to point out something that has not been mentioned with regards to Tejada and his kickoffs this past weekend. I know that he can get the ball close to the goal line when there is no wind. I also know that every kick off he had came in the 2nd and 3rd quarters….my question is, did we have the wind at our backs in those two quarters? Not a single person has mentioned this and for the life of me I can’t figure out if you take the wind in the 1st quarter, does that mean you have it again in the 3rd or 4th quarter?
Scott, you obviously don’t frequent the blog of “insert name of SEC school here”.
matt,
I heard the PPV commentators mention that Tejada’s kickoffs were not wind-aided. I didn’t go to the game, so I don’t know if they were overselling it or not. Regardless, it was a step in the right direction.
Scott and PHFTW, you didn’t read my post very well. I said I’m not sounding an alarm but it is something that will need work when we play more substantial teams like Bama, UA, UGA, etc. Time of possession DID hurt our defensive efforts in the 4th quarter last year – our defense was tired and could not make the stops that were needed against UF and LSU – those two games come to mind. And it was one thing that CBP wanted to work on this year in order to “rest” the defense more. Nothing more than that. So ease off and quit being an a**. I was not complaining just following the thought line of the article about improvements.
it will be intresting to see how much improvement,from first to second game.