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Hogs' Defensive Coordinator Earns Recognition From ESPN Analyst

Defense turns heads around the country after Tennessee game, including one of top college football analysts

Jacob Davis

Arkansas Razorbacks defensive coordinator Travis Williams instructs unit during practice.
Arkansas Razorbacks defensive coordinator Travis Williams instructs unit during practice. / Andy Hodges-Hogs on SI Images
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FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. -- Razorbacks' defensive coordinator Travis Williams was already accelerating his way to becoming one of the top assistants in the sport. His star is quickly rising, especially after grounding Tennessee's dominant offense.

The Volunteers went into the night among the nation's best in nearly all offensive statistical categories including No. 1 in scoring (54 points per game), No. 4 rushing offense (290 yards per game) and No. 3 in total offense (586 yards per game). However, they were limited to just 14 points, 332 yards of total offense, slowed to only 176 rushing yards and 156 through the air from redshirt freshman quarterback Nico Iamaleava.

That was enough for ESPN's Kirk Herbstreit to praise Williams' defensive game plan. Herbstreit saw it firsthand as the color commentator in the Razorbacks' 19-14 victory over the No. 4 Volunteers.

Any other time, Arkansas' goalpost lowering victory over a Top 5 team at home would've been upset of the week. However, Vanderbilt's once-in-a-generation victory over No. 1 Alabama helped Clark Lea earn the top spot.

The plan was to slow down the Volunteers' offense with inside and outside activity along the defensive line. Arkansas' movement before the snap caught Tennessee's linemen off guard which was a contributing factor to four false starts.

One area Arkansas shored up was its perimeter defense, preventing Tennessee's skill players from stretching the ball outside. The Razorbacks ran a lot more 3-2-6 defensive sets, which made the Volunteers' work for every yard.

"The game plan came in Sunday night," Pittman said. "[Travis Williams] had talked about what he thought he wanted to do. We started practicing it on Monday. There were some tweaks and all that, but I think it was, we ran something that they had not seen us run, first of all. Second of all, we ran it real well. We weren’t going to let them get behind us if we could help it, and we were really worried about stopping the run, but we always had the edge covered, because we were bringing corners off a read run and we were bringing the field linebacker off the read run, and we mixed it up so we had a little bit of an odd front and then a little bit of a four-man and mixed it up.

"We brought total zero blitz, heat. I just thought Travis [Williams] did a wonderful job of calling the defensive game, and more important, getting the kids to believe in what we were going to try to do to stop this very, very, very high-powered offense."

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Jacob Davis
JACOB DAVIS

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