FAYETTEVILLE — The Arkansas Razorbacks could hardly have asked for a more uplifting, confidence-building start than the one provided by Thursday night’s 70-0 win over Arkansas-Pine Bluff at Little Rock.
One side of the ball put together a shutout, even with third-teamers pulling a solid amount of duty late in the game.
The other side scored touchdowns on all 10 of its possessions for the first time in school history and the first time in the FBS in at least the past 20 seasons. Coach Sam Pittman, who brought back former UA head coach Bobby Petrino back as offensive coordinator in the offseason, said the legend of Petrino will only continue to grow after the massive showing triggered by quarterback Taylen Green on Thursday.
Arkansas scored 70 points for the eighth time in school history and the first time since the 2014 team dominated Nicholls State 73-7. The Hogs posted their most lopsided shutout since a 73-0 win over Rhodes College in 1928.
Now the Razorbacks, who practiced Saturday morning, will be playing an Oklahoma State team that also logged an impressive opener, downing South Dakota State 44-20 on Saturday in Stillwater, Okla. The Cowboys went into the weekend ranked No. 17 in the Associated Press preseason poll and beat the two-time defending FCS champion South Dakota State, which had won 29 consecutive games.
Pittman said he was largely pleased, but he also said he understood the challenges will immediately get tougher after opening against an FCS opponent.
“After y’all get done talking to us we’ll move on to Oklahoma State,” Pittman said to cap his opening postgame statement Thursday and to let his players understand they can’t rest on a record-breaking rout.
If there’s one position group that needed a dominating showing it was the Razorbacks’ offensive front, which paved the way for 687 total yards, 279 rushing yards and did not allow a sack.
In fact, Green, who completed 16 of 23 passes for 229 yards and racked up 317 total yards and 4 scores, did not have to escape the pocket very much. When he did, he turned it into a 36-yard touchdown run with 9 seconds remaining in the second quarter to give Arkansas a 49-0 halftime lead.
“Our offensive line, they didn’t pressure us much, but I don’t know that Taylen got hit,” Pittman said. “I think he got flushed out of the pocket when he ran the long one. But I think our offensive line, we needed a game like this for some confidence to jell together.”
Pittman praised offensive line coach Eric Mateos for “getting them ready and our backs ran extremely hard.”
He also praised the tailback group, which accounted for 182 rushing yards and five scores.
“I think we’ve got about 4-5 backs right now that. (Running backs coach) Kolby Smith’s done a nice job of getting them where they’re running with a lot of power and doing a good job,” Pittman said.
The Razorbacks will almost certainly be the SEC’s top scoring team after the opening weekend, with only Saturday’s late games and Sunday’s LSU versus Southern Cal game left on the slate.
Arkansas outscored Tennessee by one point after the Volunteers crushed Tennessee-Chattanooga 69-3 on Saturday.
Oklahoma State Coach Mike Gundy and his players, one of the most veteran teams in the country, got a much stiffer challenge in their opener from the Jackrabbits.
“There’s going to be some really good video that we can improve on to get ready because this next opponent is going to be bigger, stronger and more physical,” Gundy said on the Oklahoma State postgame show.
“And they’re going to do some good things offensively. I think (Bobby) Petrino is a really good offensive coach. … So we’ll have to have a really good week of practice and good game plans and preparation.”
Pittman said he thought the helmet communication system the Razorbacks had in place worked effectively in the opener and the iPads, now allowed in the team bench area, helped Petrino and defensive coordinator Travis Williams operate well from the sideline.
“I think it did,” Pittman said Thursday. “I didn’t talk to the guys about the iPads and see how that went after the game. I haven’t spoken to them yet. Obviously we’ll cover that tomorrow in the meeting.
“But we had both coordinators down. So that’s probably somewhat different. … You can talk to the kids and see the play on the iPad. But … the communication went well.
“The quarterbacks didn’t seem to have a problem. Now it wasn’t loud like it’s going to be next week. But we’ve already worked crowd noise on six days during the 25 practices we’ve had getting ready for crowd noise for the season, especially obviously for Oklahoma State.”
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Publish date : 2024-08-31 20:04:00
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