Just a Whippin': Razorbacks Had Plan Until Hit in Mouth

Pittman could draw up schemes on paper, but couldn't do a single thing about Ole Miss' talent advantage

Arkansas Razorbacks coach Sam Pittman during the fourth quarter against the Ole Miss Rebels at Razorback Stadium. Mississippi won 63-31. Nelson Chenault-Imagn Images / Nelson Chenault-Imagn Images

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — When the Razorbacks got hit in the mouth by Ole Miss, Arkansas coach Sam Pittman found out Saturday morning that great plan went into the trash. The Hogs were in trouble.

Years ago when Tyson was in his prime as the top professional boxer, he simply said everybody had a plan until they get hit. The implication that's pretty accurate is you better have muscle to back it up.

"I felt like we had them ready to play," Pittman said after being kicked sideways out of Razorback Stadium by Ole Miss, 63-31. "Obviously that wasn't the case."

Nobody was questioning the effort. It was clear before halftime the Razorbacks simply didn't have horses as fast as the Rebels. Short of lining up everybody in the end zone every play, Pittman and his staff were out of options because what they had didn't come close.

Arkansas Razorbacks' defensive back Jayden Johnson struggles to get a handle on Ole Miss wide receiver Jordan Watkins at Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville, Ark. / Nilsen Roman-Hogs on SI Images

After Jordan Watkins scorched the Hogs' secondary for an SEC-record five touchdowns< pittman was probably just shaking his head. It was apparent they couldn't do a thing to stop quarterback Jaxson Dart from doing just about anything he wanted.

"We were in 3-deep and they ran by us," Pittman said. "We were in man, but we were in 3-deep and they ran by us, too. Couldn't get pressure on the quarterback, couldn't get there, either. When we were in man-to-man with some of their receivers they had, Watkins specifically, we were having a hard time guarding him."

The Razorback coaches thought they had some way to stop them or at least slowed them down. The only effective way they found to slow them down was get the game over as soon as possible. The only folks in Razorback Stadium moving faster than the Ole Miss offense were fans trying to get out of the stadium at halftime. It looked like a mass evacuation.

Arkansas' last two struggles have come against experienced quarterbacks that were primarily drop-back passers. LSU's Garrett Nussmeier and Dart were pretty similar there. Both did about what they wanted to do against the Hogs.

"One of them is we didn’t get pressure on either one of them, so they just sat back there," Pittman said. Then he went into a Pittmanese special. "Even when we tried to pressure, we didn’t get pressure on either one. So that’s going to build their confidence as well. Both of them have really good wide receivers and put us in a little bit of a jam at times matchup wise. I told T-Will (defensive coordinator Travis Williams) I said, ‘I don’t care if they rush for 500 yards, we gotta quit getting them behind, we can’t let them get behind us and make him run the football.’ That’s when he went back into soft coverage and unfortunately they ran by us in that today, too."

No, the Razorbacks had great practices during the week. Coaches will usually come with all sorts of reasons they saw a blowout loss coming due to how they practiced. When Nick Saban was on the sidelines for Alabama, he said that after almost every loss. Pittman's heard it before, too.

"We had a really good week of practice," he said. "As good as we've had. So, no, I felt like we had some matchup problems, but I thought we had some answers with it."

Unless you accept the fact the Razorback coaches suddenly became idiots in preparing for this game, about the only thing left is the Rebels simply had better players. When both teams starting throwing their best shots, the Hogs got knocked down in the second quarter and were staggering around too long.

Ole Miss Rebels coach Lane Kiffin points at the offense during their game with the Arkansas Razorbacks at Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville, Ark. / Nilsen Roman-Hogs on SI Images

By the time they had figured out what was going on, it was simply too late to do anything about just having to take a good ol' country whipping. It's now happened to the Hogs twice in their last two home games. That last little nugget probably makes it sting more.

"We probably have to go back and look at that in the off week took and go ‘OK, are we showing our hand?’ What are we doing here?" Pittman said. "Obviously Lane [Kiffin' and them had something today. I don’t know if it was the alignment of the D-linemen, but he didn’t play a whole lot of fastball. It was see what we’re giving, check. He and T-Will were having a check to check. Obviously they won. We do have to go back to look at that because if you look at even last week, we didn’t play … minus the turnovers we gave up about 500 yard last week too."

Pittman has two weeks to get ready for what will be a highly-anticipated game against those hated Texas Longhorns. That may not be the greatest news you've heard this year, either. Teams have played horribly coming off those breaks.

Just remember the Razorbacks had a bye week before they played LSU. They had just gotten a win over a No. 4 Tennessee that was coming off that bye week. This year, teams stumble around a lot coming off those breaks and everybody has a reason why that happens.

The Longhorns will roll into town ranked in the Top 5 unless they fall apart against Florida next Saturday. That probably wouldn't help, either. Arkansas doesn't need a focused Texas team looking for revenge because they simply have too much talent.

Don't argue about that because the Hogs saw up close and personal what can happen against a team with better players that's focused and not taking them lightly.

Especially the secondary. Arkansas and Ole Miss could play until Thursday and not have an answer for what Watkins and Dart did to them. In this case, the numbers aren't lying.

Watkins had eight catches on nine targets for 254 yards from Dart. Five of them ended up being touchdowns. The Razorbacks' defense wasn't forcing him to miss many of the people the quarterback was aiming to hit.

Dart may have ended up at least getting back into the talk about the best quarterback. He was 25-of-31 throwing for 515 yards and zero interceptions. That's like he was doing to the likes of Furman back at the start of the season.

Hog fans want to ignore that. A lot of talk was made this week that Arkansas had a shot because Ole Miss wasn't able to put up numbers like that against SEC teams.

We know now they can do against at least one league team. They also still have Mississippi State on the schedule and even the Razorbacks put up huge numbers against them.

The Razorbacks have their own problem, though. Considering Pittman's last two game plans against really good quarterbacks fell apart like a cheap lawn chair in a yard sale.

Quinn Ewers for the Longhorns falls into that category. Knocking him out of the game may not help, either. Arch Manning might be ready to show he's better.

It's scary to ask if Sam has a game plan for that happening.

HOGS FEED:

• Arkansas' Last Line of Defense Had Its Most Difficult Day

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• Ole Miss Quarterback Throws Darts All Over Arkansas Defense

• Razorbacks Drop TCU Scrimmage, Season Opener Wednesday

• Live Blog: Arkansas Razorbacks vs. TCU Horned Frogs

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