1. Final takeaway from the Georgia loss - Hutch
The final score may have ended up being 37-10, but Saturday’s loss to Georgia just
felt different. For about two and a half quarters, the Razorbacks hung with a team that has won three straight SEC titles and projected to compete for a fourth again this year.
Sure, Arkansas failing to finish off a game it led at halftime is something fans are all too familiar with. It was actually the third time during its current 20-game SEC losing streak that Arkansas went to the locker room with a lead.
The first two games were back-breakers, though. In 2018, Arkansas couldn’t finish off Ole Miss at War Memorial Stadium, as its 27-17 lead turned into a 37-33 loss. Chad Morris later admitted that game took the wind out of the team’s sails and - after a win over a bad Tulsa team - they lost to Vanderbilt, LSU, Mississippi State and Missouri to end the season.
Last season, the Razorbacks blew a 13-7 halftime lead in a 24-20 loss at Kentucky. It was another game they felt like they could win and Hunter Yurachek later pointed to it being the turning point of the season, eventually leading to him firing Morris.
There is no doubt Arkansas’ special teams need drastic improvement and the offense struggled to move the ball against Georgia’s elite defense, but it injected a dose of hope into the fanbase. Now it’s just a matter of finding a winnable game or two. Speaking of which…
2. Hello, Mississippi State - Hutch
When analyzing Arkansas’ schedule before the season, most people - fans and media alike - pointed to the Mississippi State game as one of a handful of possible wins. ESPN’s Football Power Index even gave the Razorbacks a 50.5 percent chance of beating the Bulldogs in the preseason, making it the only game in which they were the favorite.
The thinking was Mississippi State had a new coach and it would take some time for Mike Leach to fully implement his air raid system, especially with a crazy offseason with no spring ball.
That was not the case. K.J. Costello shattered the SEC single-game passing record with 623 yards in his first start…which ended up being a 44-34 upset of defending national champion LSU at Death Valley. Sure, the Tigers lost a ton and were most certainly overrated coming into the season at No. 6, but it was still an incredibly impressive performance by Costello and Leach.
I expected Kylin Hill to be much more involved in the passing game, but had no idea he’d go for 158 yards on eight receptions in the first game. Plus, he was one of three players with at least 120 receiving yards in the game.
After that showing, Arkansas’ odds of winning, per the FPI, were cut in half, falling to 25.1%. Mississippi State opened as a 16-point favorite. I picked the Bulldogs to win a shootout in my preseason predictions, so I’m sticking with that.
(How about this for an incredible stat: Since becoming a head coach in 2000, Leach has coached seven 600-yard passing games…with seven different quarterbacks. There have been just 20 such games in FBS history.)
3. Yikes, Texas A&M - Hutch
Only a sucker would buy in to the Texas A&M hype and
pick the Aggies second in the SEC West with Kellen Mond as a first-team All-SEC quarterback.
In typical Aggie fashion, Jimbo Fisher’s club laid an egg against the only team in the conference thought to be worse than Arkansas. Despite being 30.5-point favorites, Texas A&M needed an unsportsmanlike penalty on Derek Mason in the closing minutes to run out the clock on a 17-12 win over Vanderbilt.
(Side note: The score of this game was 7-5 at halftime. So two of the seven SEC games this weekend had halftime scores of 7-5. That’s a totally meaningless stat, but pretty crazy when you think about it.)
Does this make the Texas A&M game more winnable? I’m not so sure. I predicted this to be a close game because I feel like it always is, but until the Razorbacks prove otherwise, I will always expect them to find a heartbreaking way to lose it.
4. Latest SP+ rankings - Hutch
I am a big fan of Bill Connelly’s SP+ ratings. His nerdiness with numbers makes him the perfect national college football writer for me.
Here are the full rankings, but I wanted to present to you part of them here, without comment…
74. Arkansas State
75. Arkansas
Y’all do with that information as you wish.
5. Favorite stat from the weekend - Hutch
One of the bright spots in Arkansas’ loss to Georgia was Treylon Burks, who set career highs with seven receptions and 102 receiving yards.
It’s the fifth time in 15 all-time matchups between the schools that the Razorbacks had a 100-yard receiver against the Bulldogs. Three of the players to accomplish the feat come from a small town in southern Arkansas: Warren.
In addition to Burks, Greg Childs and Jarius Wright had 140 and 108 receiving yards, respectively, in the 2009 loss to Georgia. The other two players were Joe Adams (130 in the 2010 win) and Chuck Dicus (169 in the 1969 Sugar Bowl win).
Wright thought it was a pretty cool stat, too…
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