Emptying the Notebook: Notes, tidbits, stats on Arkansas-Mississippi State

FAYETTEVILLE — Against an explosive offense like it will face at Mississippi State this weekend, Arkansas is bound to give up a big play here or there.

The key, head coach Sam Pittman said, is not letting things spiral out of control when they happen. Although that is particularly important this week, that is something he has been stressing to his team all offseason.

“One negative can’t turn out to be two,” Pittman said. “We have to flush it and let it go. This is the SEC. People are going to make plays on you - on offense, defense, special teams.”

Instead of dwelling on what just happened, the first-year coach said he’s asked the players to trust their coaches so they can focus on adjustments to prevent it from happening again.

“We’ll try to adjust to what we see,” Pittman said. “Be truthful with us when you come off (the field). If you got beat, if you got physically whipped, let us know. It’s not going to be any yell fest. We’re not trying to chase ghosts.

“We talk more about as fast as we can get this thing adjusted, the better off we can be and and the better off we can stop them. Let’s not wait until the end of the game or halftime to make an adjustment.”

Here are a few other notes, tidbits and stats from the week leading up to Saturday’s 6:30 p.m. CT kickoff in Starkville, Miss., that will be televised on SEC Network Alternate…

Boyd Watch

Arkansas struggled to get anything going on the ground against Georgia’s stout defense last week. Pittman admitted he didn’t expect the Razorbacks to gash the Bulldogs, but he did expect more than 77 yards on 28 carries.

That total included just 21 yards on 11 carries for Rakeem Boyd. His 1.9-yard average was the second worst of his career, head of only the 1.0 average (5 yards on 5 carries) he had against Missouri in 2018.

Multiple times throughout the week, Pittman stressed the important of getting Boyd going this week at Mississippi State.

“Certainly he wants to do better for the football team and himself than 20 yards, but it was what it was and you have to move on and keep working,” Pittman said. “The O-line’s got to get better. A lot of things go into that. Certainly if he’ll stay the same as he has been, he’ll end up having a good year.”

Boyd needs just 112 rushing yards to become the 18th player in UA history to reach the 2,000-yard mark in his career. In doing so, he’d surpass Jerry Eckwood (1,895 yards), Ike Forte (1,957), Barry Foster (1,977) and Gary Anderson (1,999) on the school’s all-time rushing list.

More Secondary Rotation

In the Bulldogs’ season-opening upset win over LSU, head coach Mike Leach’s air raid offense took the SEC by storm with quarterback K.J. Costello shattering the conference record with 623 passing yards.

They did it with a whopping 60 pass attempts and cornerback Montaric Brown said they also like to take deep shots. Safety Simeon Blair seconded that assessment.

“They’re more of a team that loves explosive plays,” Blair said. “They’re probably not going to want to take the dink and dunk, the short throws. They’re a team that wants to get big chunk plays.”

According to Pro Football Focus, Costello threw 18 passes that went at least 10 yards downfield, with half of them being at least 20 yards downfield. He completed 10 of the 18 and 5 of the 9.

After playing all 95 defensive snaps against Georgia, Brown and fellow cornerback Jerry Jacobs will likely need to rotate some to stay fresh against Mississippi State.

“Vertical routes are going to have guys tired,” Brown said. “You've got to rotate. We’ve got depth, so we can rotate guys in.”

The Razorbacks expected to get Jarques McClellion - viewed as the No. 3 corner - back this week and Pittman even told reporters Thursday that he had looked good in practice. A couple of hours later, though, the redshirt junior announced he was opting out of the 2020 season.

On the bright side, redshirt freshman Devin Bush - a former four-star recruit - has returned to practice and should be available this weekend. Pittman also implied that defensive backs Myles Mason, Micahh Smith and Malik Chavis would be back this week.

Although they usually travel about 13 secondary players, Pittman said the Razorbacks will likely take one or two spots from the linebackers and include 14 or 15 defensive backs in the 70-man travel roster.

“We need as many as we can take,” Pittman said. “I mean, we're going to roll in there three deep, and we need to. That's a big deal getting those guys back.”