Defense Keeps it Interesting, Arkansas Falls at Auburn 34-3
Just barely covering the spread, no. 9-ranked Auburn took the win at home over the Arkansas Razorbacks 34-3. The Hogs fall to 1-3 despite a valiant effort by John Chavis's defense to hold the Auburn Tigers to just 225 yards of offense.
Coming into the Saturday night match-up, Gus Malzahn's squad averaged 438 yards per game but Jarrett Stidham and the Tigers failed to establish a consistent run game and were forced to instead capitalizing on Arkansas's mistakes and inadequacies on offense and special teams to power them to the win.
The Razorbacks had bad field position all game long, started from their own 23 yard line compared to Auburn averaging from inside Arkansas territory. Chad Morris stuck with starter Ty Storey all game long, the only quarterback to throw a pass, but brought in Cole Kelley on several short yardage situations, eventually becoming too transparent.
Storey threw a pick in the second quarter to end the first half that was nearly returned for a score but the Arkansas defense managed to hold Auburn to a field goal, making the score 17-0 at the half. He finished the night 13 of 31 with 141 yards passing and 44 yards on the ground.
Connor Limpert missed a 40-yard field goal attempt late in the first quarter but the Razorbacks' offense struggled mightily all game long. Joe Craddock finally started calling screens and slants which helped the Hogs finish with 290 yards of offense but it was the run game, and Rakeem Boyd, that really gave the offense the limited juice that they had. Boyd finished with eight carries for 66 yards. No Arkansas receivers had more than two catches on the night.
Arkansas walk-on punter Reid Bauer averaged 37 yards per punt on eight punts but two bad coverage breakdowns led to batted punts giving the Tigers great field position. A 96-yard kick return iced the Hogs to start the second half and penalties cost Arkansas almost as much as poor special teams performances, the Hogs racked up eight penalties for a loss of 57 yards. The Hogs had multiple substitution and formation penalties, which need to be eliminated.
The Arkansas offensive line only gave up two sacks but allowed nine quarterback hurries that put Storey in some very uncomfortable positions. Meanwhile, the Razorbacks defense dropped Stidham four times with nine tackles for loss. Dre Greenlaw had a big night back for the Razorbacks with eight tackles and three tackles for loss. Kamren Curl led the squad with nine tackles. The defense forced four three-and-outs and two field goals.
You don't need to see the stats to know the Hogs need a lot of work on offense and special teams but the defense made vast improvements from the past two weeks and played with more effort, keeping Arkansas in the game until the fourth quarter.
