Arkansas offense led by unlikely heroes against FIU
The Arkansas Razorbacks football team (4-7, 1-6 SEC) took care of business with a 44-20 win Saturday night against the FIU Panthers (4-7, 1-6 CUSA) at Reynolds Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville.
After closing out the first quarter down trailing 13-7, Arkansas scored 24 unanswered in the second quarter to take a 31-13 lead into halftime.
Arkansas' pace slowed in the second half, as it scored just 13 points and totaled 246 yards in the final two quarters. As a whole, the Razorbacks had 187 passing yards and 323 rushing yards throughout the course of the game.
"Whether it's game one or 11 or whatever, I'm happy to get 300 yards," head coach Sam Pittman said after the game. "I think we averaged six yards per carry or something like that."
Following the 48-10 blowout loss to Auburn last week, the win over the Panthers serves as a "righting-the-ship" moment for the Hogs. Now officially unable to qualify for a bowl game, the Razorbacks are playing for pride to close out the season.
Quarterback KJ Jefferson had a quality outing against the Panthers, as he completed 15-28 passes (54%) for 187 yards and three touchdowns while adding 90 yards on the ground. He was relieved in the fourth quarter by backup signal caller Jacolby Criswell, who completed one pass for no gain.
"I think he's (Jefferson) handled the season well," Pittman said. "He competed tonight for us and for the team, and I'm really happy -- we recognized him after the game, you know, being the all-time passing yard leader and passing touchdowns. I hope, I know it meant a lot to him. It meant a lot to us that we've been able to have him for four years now.
"Feleipe Franks was here tonight, so that was cool for him to come back to witness all that kind of stuff, too. I know it wasn't his record, but it was really neat that he was able to come back. But KJ's meant a lot to our program. He's going to mean a lot to us next Friday, too. Just really, really happy for him."
Once starting running back Raheim Sanders left the game with a shoulder injury in the first quarter after recording 15 yards, Arkansas' rushing attack was left to the three-headed trio of Isaiah Augustave, Dominique Johnson and Jefferson.
"Our plan going in was we were going to play (Rashod Dubinion) and Isaiah," Pittman said. "We were going to play them more than what we had, let's say that. R-Dub got hurt, and (Raheim Sanders) got hurt as well. The great thing about it is we had the opportunity to practice Isaiah with the ones and things like that. It worked out well for us."
Augustave ran the ball 14 times for 101 yards, both of which are career-highs for the freshman. Johnson looked more like his 2021-self — the season in which he led the Hogs with 575 rushing yards — as he carried the ball for 62 yards and a touchdown against FIU.
"I was proud of Isaiah," Pittman said. "He ran unbelievable. We handed it off one time to what really should have been a dead play and he got 12 yards.
"It was good to see Domo (Johnson) come in and split that up with a big hole there on 4th-and-2 to go down there and score it from 31 yards. It was good to see him back."
Coming into the game, Augustave had recorded six carries for 21 yards in games against Western Carolina and Texas A&M. His youth is a major culprit for his lack of playing time this season according to Pittman.
"Understanding all the plays and calls and all that like most freshmen," Pittman said. "But, going into this week I wanted to see what he could do in a live game. We needed a shot at running back.
"We needed someone to make people miss, run over people, hit holes or whatever it may be with some urgency. We thought it might put some urgency into that whole group as well by seeing that he was going to get the opportunity to play."
The offensive onslaught marks the fourth game this season that the Razorbacks have recorded at least 400 total yards and first that they've notched over 500 (510). The others were against BYU (424), LSU (426) and Florida (481).
"Well, it was good to have a game where you thought you were going to win with 2 or 3 minutes left in the game," Pittman said. "That was fun. But our kids needed that for some confidence builder, too, after last week. After coming off the high of Florida and the low of Auburn, then for this season, those are the two — the highest we’ve been and the lowest we’ve been.
"To be able to come back… We’ve got a lot of things to work on from today, but we can… There are some things that we did that you can teach on for some positive stuff and I think that’ll help us for — and I hope it does — for next Friday."
Up next, Arkansas will close out the season against No. 11 Missouri in Fayetteville next Friday. The game is set to kick off at 3:00 p.m. CT and will broadcast on CBS.