Hogs hope to jump start run game at Auburn
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FAYETTEVILLE — Two games into the season, Arkansas’ run game is stuck in neutral.
The Razorbacks haven’t even sniffed 100 rushing yards in either of their games, averaging just 70. That ranks 71st among the 74 FBS teams that have played so far this year.
On top of that, their 2.2 yards per carry is dead last in the county and they are one of two teams - Vanderbilt being the other - who have yet to find the end zone on the ground.
Part of that can be attributed to playing what’s shaping up to be an all-time great Georgia defense in the opener and then losing star running back Rakeem Boyd to an injury early in the second quarter against Mississippi State last week.
Those are excuses, though, and head coach Sam Pittman said he expects more out of the running game moving forward.
“Obviously injuries have a little bit to do with productivity on Saturday, but Trelon Smith came in and ran extremely hard,” Pittman said. “Our timing is still a little off on offense. We were better Saturday than we we were the week before, so that’s encouraging, but we have to run the football and we’re just not doing it at our standard yet.”
Arkansas’ numbers improve slightly - 84.5 yards/game and 2.8 yards/carry - if you factor out the three kneel downs at the end of last week’s win and the failed trick play that resulted in a safety against Georgia, but they’re still far from impressive.
Running the ball will be an even greater focus for the Razorbacks when they travel to No. 13 Auburn on Saturday, as Hurricane Delta is expected to bring heavy rain to the area.
Although Pittman said his team will get plenty of work with wet ball drills at practice this week, those conditions could make passing difficult.
“If it’s raining, I think the run game is going to amp up in importance,” Pittman said. “Obviously we’re trying to run the ball every week as well as we possibly can. Whether it’s going to rain or whether it’s not, we certainly have to get better in our rushing attack. We’ve worked awful hard at it this week and in the weeks prior.”
Auburn - which has also faced Georgia’s talented defense, as well as Kentucky - is struggling in the run game, as well. The Tigers actually rank just behind Arkansas at 72nd nationally with 65 rushing yards per game, while they’re 71st in yards per carry with 2.5.
Shaun Shivers started Auburn’s opener against Kentucky, but was limited in practice last week and missed the Georgia game. His status for Saturday, as of Wednesday’s SEC coaches teleconference, is “questionable,” head coach Gus Malzahn said.
In his absence, the Tigers leaned on true freshman Tank Bigsby, who had 99 yards of offense - 31 on the ground and 68 through the air - against the Bulldogs last week.
Through two weeks, Auburn has 410 passing yards and only 130 rushing yards, so like Arkansas, it will be focusing on improving those numbers even if the weather isn’t a factor.
“For us, we really are striving to be balanced and working extremely hard to do that,” Malzahn said. “Especially in this league, to be effective long term, you have to be able to do both, so we’re working extremely hard to do that and hopefully we’ll be more balanced this week.”
Diagnosing the specific issues plaguing Arkansas’ run game - which has an FBS-worst 55.2 Pro Football Focus grade - could be as simple as ironing out the typical problems that come with implementing a new offense.
“We’re just shooting ourselves in the foot sometimes,” left tackle Myron Cunningham said. “We just have to clean up the mental errors and when we do that, I think everything will start clicking and we’ll be a good run offense.”
Having a good run offense, whether it’s with Boyd, Smith or another running back, will likely be a key to Arkansas’ offense becoming more consistent.
Wide receiver De’Vion Warren said he is confident the Razorbacks will be “perfectly fine” in that phase as the season progresses.
“We just have to limit our mistakes,” Warren said. “We kill ourselves sometimes. We just have to work on our fundamentals, work on our mindset and remember that we don’t do anything out of our job.”
Kickoff is scheduled for 3 p.m. CT Saturday and the game will be televised on the SEC Network.