Offense:
1. Still overthinking. A few huge plays in the game:
2. Things we did well.
Defense:
1. Sigh. The game was lost on the last drive of the 1st half. We all know that. No excuse. Our safety play continues to be awful under this regime. But here is the problem: just like the D-line personnel issues we have talked about, doesnt there come a time when you say... we cant get any worse so lets try something different. And maybe putting Hughes in tonight was an attempt at that, but I was thinking about running a hell of a lot less zone coverage than we do. I mean, run a Cover 2 Man if you want, but have Banks and Slay locked up 90% of the time. That puts a little more pressure on our LBs when they motion us out of a zone in the run game, but aGAIN, it couldnt get much worse. Also, let see some more of Dee Arrington.
2. As 8dog said last night, when Quay was in, he was disruptive.
3. Great to finally see Autry do something special. He played well all night really. As I said a couple weeks ago, I thought he had a few big games left in him and he could really turn it up next year. He is playing much better than any other starters on the DL. Kaleb Eulls is a great kid and a good story, but he brings next to nothing to the football field at DE. Cherrington is completely non-impact and Boyd is really just league average.
4. I try not to overreact with this unit, especially after seeing what A&M did with Bama yesterday, but the bottom line is that there are still huge problems that have been apparent all year. DL is soft, middle of our defense is soft (thanks for covering #80 fellas), and we consistently have huge breakdowns in zone coverage.
5. Crazy play nobody is talking about: When Landry fumbled that ball it lands between his legs and I swear the moment the scrum went down I turned to my friend and said "Nickoe has it." The scrum is broken up and Nickoe comes out with the ball....so.......WTF?
While our offense still has the potential to put a lot of points on the board vs. these last 2 teams, we dont want to be in shootouts with them, because we are still too prone to the bonehead drive killing mistakes to rely on our offense. I feel good about Arkansas, but right now I am seriously concerned about Ole Miss.
Hoping for 9-3 and Chikfila.
1. Still overthinking. A few huge plays in the game:
- The Milton Fumble: Griffin should have been the horse last night. Sure, there were a few plays where he was blown up in the backfield, but when he had a seam, he got at least 4. One of the craziest things last night was that we were running a bunch of stretch plays to try to get outside the tackles with Griffin. It is like the staff is confused on Perkins and Griffin's strength.
- Griffin runs for 7 yards on first down and we get a delay of game. I saw Mullen say to Russell "you have to get it going" - well, ok, but you need to be on top of it too coach. In that situation, you burn a timeout.
- Tyler apparently audibles to a QB sneak on a critical 3rd and 3. At least that was the chatter, that it wasnt a called sneak. Maybe he thought it worked effectively early in the game and he wanted to give it another shot, but this time they were expecting run and we needed 3 yards! This happens in a game where Tyler is basically perfect on short passes all game.
- 4th and 11 in the red zone and we run play action. That is all.
2. Things we did well.
- Shortened the passing game. Down the field is not where we excel (because of our WR, not Russell), but Russell can make 15yds and under throws all day.
- Russell was outstanding. As others have said, best thrower I have ever seen at State. Got the ball out on time, did everything we could ask of him. He was failed by our OC. Even on the last 2 sacks. We ran plays that gave him no chance to complete a pass, because every receiver still had their backs turned to him when he was hit. Not enough run mix, getting cute and predictable in the red zone, personnel decisions like running a toss sweep with Milton in his first ever night game at LSU.
- O-line was adequate tonight.
- Receivers caught the ball.
- Griffin might be a beast before he leaves. If we get LDP back healthy this week, we would be smart to finally use them like we did with Ballard and Perk. I have a feeling the staff will build a gameplan entirely around Perkins for Ole Miss, just because he has torched them so badly, but that would be a mistake. Griffin's role needs to continue to increase and Perk needs to be a 3rd down, draw play, passing downs back. Milton and Robinson also have potential, but this is not their year.
Defense:
1. Sigh. The game was lost on the last drive of the 1st half. We all know that. No excuse. Our safety play continues to be awful under this regime. But here is the problem: just like the D-line personnel issues we have talked about, doesnt there come a time when you say... we cant get any worse so lets try something different. And maybe putting Hughes in tonight was an attempt at that, but I was thinking about running a hell of a lot less zone coverage than we do. I mean, run a Cover 2 Man if you want, but have Banks and Slay locked up 90% of the time. That puts a little more pressure on our LBs when they motion us out of a zone in the run game, but aGAIN, it couldnt get much worse. Also, let see some more of Dee Arrington.
2. As 8dog said last night, when Quay was in, he was disruptive.
3. Great to finally see Autry do something special. He played well all night really. As I said a couple weeks ago, I thought he had a few big games left in him and he could really turn it up next year. He is playing much better than any other starters on the DL. Kaleb Eulls is a great kid and a good story, but he brings next to nothing to the football field at DE. Cherrington is completely non-impact and Boyd is really just league average.
4. I try not to overreact with this unit, especially after seeing what A&M did with Bama yesterday, but the bottom line is that there are still huge problems that have been apparent all year. DL is soft, middle of our defense is soft (thanks for covering #80 fellas), and we consistently have huge breakdowns in zone coverage.
5. Crazy play nobody is talking about: When Landry fumbled that ball it lands between his legs and I swear the moment the scrum went down I turned to my friend and said "Nickoe has it." The scrum is broken up and Nickoe comes out with the ball....so.......WTF?
While our offense still has the potential to put a lot of points on the board vs. these last 2 teams, we dont want to be in shootouts with them, because we are still too prone to the bonehead drive killing mistakes to rely on our offense. I feel good about Arkansas, but right now I am seriously concerned about Ole Miss.
Hoping for 9-3 and Chikfila.
Last edited:
