It was a wet and weird Saturday in Fayetteville. Just chalk it up as another day in the wild, wild SEC West.
Arkansas jumped to a 21-point lead, endured two rain delays and held off a pesky Ole Miss team for a 38-24 win in front of what was left of a sold-out crowd. What was billed as breakfast with the Razorbacks nearly turned into lunch, dinner and fourth meal, too, as the game took 4 hours, 53 minutes from kickoff to finish.
“It took five hours but we got the win,” a drenched Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino said following the game. “I’m proud of our football team. We competed extremely hard.”
Some fair-weather or improperly-dressed fans headed for the exits, but those that stayed didn’t let the downpours spoil their parade. The win was the Razorbacks’ first over former coach Houston Nutt, snapping a two-game losing streak to the coach who spent a decade in the Ozarks.
“It means a lot to the team, the older players and the staff,” Arkansas linebacker Jerico Nelson said. “I never had a chance to play for Coach Nutt but I was recruited by him, and I decided to come here instead of Ole Miss. I love it here, I love the players and we came through with the win we needed.”
Arkansas (5-2, 2-2 SEC) played a complete first half. The Razorbacks out-gained Ole Miss 328-177 in total yards and looked sound in all three phases – offense, defense and special teams.
The Razorbacks led 21-3 at halftime and extended the lead to 24-3 on a Zach Hocker 46-yard field goal on the first drive of the second half.
At that point the defense was playing lights out. Arkansas forced a fumble which the offense converted into a touchdown drive. Later the defense held Ole Miss to a 2-yard loss on a third-and-1 midway through the second quarter. That led to a punt, which Joe Adams returned 97 yards for a touchdown.
It was a stark contrast to the Razorbacks’ last game, a 65-43 loss to Auburn last Saturday.
“Coming off the game last week, looking back we didn’t produce on defense and we felt that was one of the keys to the reason we lost,” Nelson said. “Today we needed to come out and get going early.
“Any time a team puts 60-plus points on you, it’s embarrassing.”
Ole Miss (3-4, 1-3) and quarterback Jeremiah Masoli began to solve the Arkansas defense shortly before the first rain delay. Ja-Mes Logan’s 18-yard touchdown reception early in the third quarter pulled the Rebels within 24-10.
That lead grew even slimmer when Masoli hit Markeith Summers for the first of two touchdowns, a 43-yard scoring strike to pull within 24-17 with 11:39 to play.
But seemingly every time the Rebels made a run, Arkansas countered with a big one of Knile Davis’ own. His 71-yard touchdown run just 28 seconds after Masoli’s touchdown strike gave the Razorbacks a 14-point cushion.
Masoli’s 22-yard pass to Summers just more than two minutes later pulled the Rebels within 31-24, but a second weather delay followed.
Once again, a fresh Davis countered with a 22-yard touchdown run to put the Razorbacks up by two scores again less than two minutes after play resumed.
“It was a huge delay and I had to get my body right,” Davis said. “As soon as I came out I grabbed my keys, hit the hole and went full speed.”
Davis finished the game with career-highs in carries (22), rushing yards (176) and touchdowns (3). His running offset the Razorbacks being without Ryan Mallett (shoulder), Greg Childs (ankle) and Joe Adams (ankle) for much of the second half.
“We were thinking going in Knile and Ronnie Wingo would get a lot of carries, and I liked the way Ronnie ran the ball early,” Petrino said. “But Knile was hot, and we didn’t have many plays. In the first quarter, we scored it quick. It seemed like they had the ball the entire game. It was not a situation where we had a lot of plays to divvy out.
“Knile ran pretty good. He ran it hard, hit the holes, hit his tracks. Our offensive front did a really nice job of controlling the line of scrimmage.”
Arkansas needed one final stop from its defense, and it delivered. Brandon Bolden fumbled a snap out of the Wildcat formation at the Razorbacks 1 and Tenarius Wright recovered with 4:32 remaining.
“Coach (Willy) Robinson put us in a great call,” Nelson said. “The biggest thing was getting off the field on third down and don’t let the team keep drives going. On third down we had to go out and make our assignments.
“I’ve never been a part of anything like that game. It felt like it took forever.”
In the end, it was the perfect ending to the game highlighted by imperfect storms. For Arkansas, it was well worth the wait.
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Willy called a very good game this week and the defense really played hard in a great win. There were a couple of lapses by the corners, but overall a very nice job Hogs. So Mallett’s shoulder is bothering him after all. I hope he takes the week off next week and let’s it heal as we definitely need him down the road. Great game and one to be proud of guys.
The Ole Miss Monkey (Bear?) is off Petrino’s back! We will start dominating this series now.
fantastic first half,spooky second half,if the Hogs could put it all together for four qt,they are the best team in the Nation.
One thing that this game proved is that we should not continue to rotate running backs. Stick with one “Hawg” and let him get into a rhythm and then he will produce. Right now, KD is the man but I think if we left BD or RW in the game, they both would get a rhythm and would produce also. You don’t rotate QB’s and you shouldn’t rotate RB’s. ‘Bama has a unique situation, we do not.
I’m happy for the win, but the defense seems to be on the decline and its not the players in my opinion. It does bring some comfort that Cam Newton and his RB’s torched LSU and their previously 3rd ranked defense for 440 rushing yards. I don’t know how they didn’t score more points, but I guess when you give a team 45 yards a kickoff, they are going to score more on you than if they start from the 20 or 25 everytime.
Well…we learned a bunch of things this weekend. Mallett looks like he’s been hurt a lot longer than we thought. Also, you may need to get ready to see him next season too. He’s not ready or healthy enough for the NFL this year. He’s got a lot to work on…
I would recruit nothing but defense from here on out. We need more depth. Hogs could play and beat all of them. But, our lack of depth on defense gets us gassed. We still could go to a great bowl game, but a BCS game is probably out of the question unless we win out and get some help.
Back to recruting…we need to get better. We got a couple of good players coming in, BUT WERE STILL RANKED 8TH IN THE LEAGUE! Thats not gonna get it done….
Looking at the schedule, the Hawgs should win out, play in and win a major bowl. This would make for a successful season and legitimize the BP era. Beating Houston Nutt and the Rebel Black Bears doesn’t make a season. BP has got to pile up wins in SEC and improve on a SEC 7-13 record. A major bowl win is must too. Barely beating an ECU in the Liberty Bowl is no longer enough. With the talent on the Hill now, more must be expected and demanded.
since last year,the Hogs have won 12 games,and with the few wins his first year that should put him well over13.
recruiting alot of Defensive players,excellent idea UK Hog Fan.
hogjim NOT 12 SEC wins. 18 and 14 overall.
7-13 in the SEC or a winning percentage of 35%.
I’m not pleased with the defensive effort in the 2nd half, and I’m not pleased with the job Willie Robinson is doing. I don’t give a rat’s-rosie-red-rear-end how many yards we give up, but we should be giving up less than 20 points per game with our offense. That much we can withstand. We should be able to attract a top-notch DC with the offense we have in place. But speaking of our offense, we need to stop stalling out around the 24-point mark. Congratulations to Knile Davis & the O-line for finding a solid running game; we need to keep that going. It was a good win, and it needs to be the first of 7 straight wins to end the season.
I agree Wyhog, I think big things are on the horizon with a new DC.Sure the defense looked better this week, but Ole Miss is way down this year and we played at home for the first time in 2 weeks, I expected more.
ok MC,math never was one of my long suits Bro.
i hope houston nutt enjoyed all the time he got to spend in the visitors’ locker room of donald w reynolds razorback stadium saturday. surely he felt as uncomfortable as i did the day he unsuccessfully ran peyton hillis up the middle 4 consecutive plays from the goal line against vandy.
the only thing better than hanging 70 on that chump is taking almost 5 hours to eke out a 14-point victory while forcing him and his rebel black bears to endure an hour and a half of lightning delays before scampering back to mississippi like a bunch of wet rats late for supper.