(Image Credit: Braeden Botts)
ARLINGTON — Another year, another one-score loss for Arkansas (3-2, 1-1 SEC) at the hands of Texas A&M (4-1, 2-0 SEC) inside AT&T Stadium. This time, the Aggies earned a 21-17 win over the Razorbacks in the last Southwest Classic matchup held in Arlington, Texas.
After a hot start that featured a 75-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Taylen Green to receiver Isaac TeSlaa on the opening drive, the Arkansas offense found little success for a majority of the rest of the game. The Aggies totaled nine tackles for loss, two sacks, eight quarterback hurries and they force two turnovers.
The Razorbacks averaged 5.5 yards per play and 3.7 yards per rush, and they threw the ball 41 times compared to 29 run plays. Running back Ja'Quinden Jackson was held to just 37 yards and one touchdown on 10 carries, while TeSlaa had five catches for a game-high 120 receiving yards.
Arkansas' defense forced the Aggies to punt on eight of their first 10 drives, but the Aggies were able to take their first lead of the game with an eight-play, 75-yard touchdown drive in the fourth quarter.
The Hogs' offense couldn't counter, as Green was strip sacked and the Aggies recovered with 1:39 to play. A first down later, Texas A&M was able to kneel out the game.
Here are the highlights from what fifth-year head coach Sam Pittman said after the Razorbacks' 15th one-score loss in the Pittman era (5-15 overall in one-score games under Pittman).
On the fake field goal try
With around nine minutes to play in the third quarter, Arkansas faced 4th and 6 from the Texas A&M 37-yard line. After not getting the proper personnel on the field in time for a 50-yard field goal, the Hogs were forced to burn a timeout.
After the timeout, Pittman elected to trot the field goal unit back out and they ran a fake with holder/punter Devin Bale, who successfully converted a fake punt earlier in the game. This time, Bale was tackled for a five-yard loss and the Aggies took over.
Although Texas A&M did not turn that miscue into points, it did result in the Razorbacks missing out on potentially three points if kicker Kyle Ramsey hit the field goal, plus they were without a crucial third timeout for the rest of the second half.
"The fake field goal, we had exactly the same look that they had shown over there," Pittman said. "The problem was, they normally drop the two outside guys. We were trying to run Landon (Jackson) on a fake pass and we knew the guy would go with him if we could run him into the middle linebacker, and then kick out the outside guy because he always just came up and stopped.
"It was the exact same look, except they rushed off the edge, which they hadn’t shown this year. On a tackle-over situation to the boundary, they rushed and they got us on it. Think the field goal was maybe 49 or 50 yards on the right hash, obviously I felt like we’d make it or I wouldn’t have called it. But, we didn’t. So, wish we would’ve."
On the offensive line
As mentioned above, the Razorbacks gave up nine tackles for loss, two sacks, eight quarterback hurries in the game. Texas A&M defensive end Nick Scourton had three tackles for loss himself, plus he was the player who made the strip sack on Green to virtually end the game.
The Aggies were forcing Green to run for his life on what felt like every play. On most of his dropbacks, the Hogs' quarterback was forced out of the pocket almost instantly more often than not.
"In the protection game, it's got to be one-on-one, two-on-two, then five-on-five and six-on-six, you know," Pittman said. "You kinda progress that way in teaching your protections. Early in the game, we were getting -- well, a bunch of the game -- we were getting beat one-on-one.
"And then what happens, you start getting that way -- they really didn't do anything different. They did bring a boundary smoke four to a side, which they didn't cross face in an empty protection, but outside of that, not a lot of things that were different.
"So it wasn't like we were turning them loose, it was just we were having a difficult time blocking them. Then what happens, especially when you start the game like that, your quarterback gets happy feet and sometimes validated and sometimes probably not, tries to get the ball out faster.
"They were really good and I thought tonight they were probably as good as I thought they were coming in. I was hoping they might not be that way and that we'd play a little bit better."
Taylen Green needs help
Green was 23 of 41 passing with 279 yards, one touchdown and one interception through the air. He added 12 rushing yards on the ground, but that number was deflated due to the amount of times he was hit in the backfield.
Due to being forced out of the pocket and having pressure in his face so often, Green struggled to make accurate passes down the field.
"I think he’s in a tough situation, I do," Pittman said. "But, it’s our job to try to find out how we can score points and make yards with him. But it’s frustrating because I didn’t feel like it was any better than it was a week ago. Difference is we had 10 more last week, four less this week.
"So, it certainly feels different. But, as far as the result on the field, didn’t really look a whole lot different I didn’t think. Again, if it’s something new, now you can correct it. But, there wasn’t a whole lot of new out there that we hadn’t seen."
As for the amount of passes thrown by Green — his 41 attempts were the second most of the season — Pittman said the Hogs just got away from the run game.
"I think it just got away from us because we weren’t having great success on third down running the football," Pittman said. "It got away with us and of course you have — within the game, you’re throwing it so that would skew it a little bit with two-minute and all that. But, no, we just weren’t having a lot of success on the ground.
"So, certainly the point of that is Taylen being able to run the football out of the pocket and some of those undesigned runs. But no, we came in, I thought Bobby (Petrino) had a really good plan and Eric (Mateos) and those guys, of running the football. We weren’t having very much success."
Run defense did well overall, but penalties hurt
Texas A&M running back LeVeon Moss was held to just 19 rushing yards through the first three quarters of the game, but he finally began to find open space in the final quarter. Moss gained 90 rushing yards on six carries in the fourth quarter to end his afternoon with 117 rushing yards on 13 carries.
Still, the Razorbacks held the Aggies to just 3.5 yards per carry in the game. Quarterback Marcel Reed, a true dual threat, had 13 yards on 10 carries and he was sacked three times.
"Honestly I don’t know that they made a lot of adjustments besides their kids blocked a little bit better and the running backs ran a little bit harder maybe," Pittman said. "They went at us late in the game where they were running a little bit on the outside, more stretch plays early in the half. And early in the fourth quarter they started going at us late in the game and had more success with it.
"We did run a couple of cross-dogs inside and we got mis-fitted a time or two when they broke a decent gain. But I mean it’d be hard for me to be disappointed in the defense besides we missed a tackle to give up a big one, and then the 75-yard one once we went up three. That drive they did a good job, A&M, and we helped them with some penalties as well."
Arkansas did have 10 penalties for 75 yards in the game, including three for 25 yards in the fourth quarter alone.
The rest
Any worries about snapping issues with center Addison Nichols?
"I just think that he took something off the snap," Pittman said. "Most of the time it’s when he goes to his left. Yeah, he had one down there on the far end zone, our end zone that I can remember. I don’t know about the other one. One was definitely wide and I talked to him and Eric (Mateos) talked to him. That’s one too many and we’ve got to get it fixed. He’s trying awful hard. He’s a good kid. We’ve got to have consistency there."
Tight end Luke Hasz banged up?
"He did (get hurt)," Pittman said. "He came into the game with a back. We felt like he could get through the game. He obviously could not."
Backup defensive line in game on crucial A&M fourth quarter touchdown drive?
"Well, we felt like the fresh guys were going to play better," Pittman said. "I’ll have to look at the tape to see exactly how those guys played or if we fit at linebacker or the safeties didn’t fit. But in hindsight, I wish we’d have stopped them, you know. And we obviously felt like the guys we had in the game were capable of doing it."
