Congratulations! You made it to Friday. To help you get through the rest of your workday and to tomorrow’s season opener(!!), we made sure to fill Hutch’s Friday Stat Pack full of interesting statistical nuggets from the past seven days. Enjoy!

Sack Prevention?

Arkansas’ offensive line is in rough shape. Thanks to several injuries, the unit was down to only nine scholarship players at various points during fall camp. On top of that, the Razorbacks are starting a redshirt freshman at left guard and left tackle.

One reason for optimism about the offensive line, though, is the decreased importance of the position in Chad Morris’ offense. The idea is that the quarterback is getting the ball out of his hands so quick that defenses have a hard time getting to him in time to notch a sack. That is much different than Bret Bielema’s style, which put a huge emphasis on the offensive line and featured plays that required a lot of time to develop. What do the numbers say?

Well, in Morris’ first season at SMU, the Mustangs allowed an incredible 42 sacks in 12 games. On the surface, that doesn’t look very good. If you dig deeper, though, it is an improvement from the year before, when they allowed 48 sacks. SMU’s total decreased each year, to 26 sacks in 12 games in 2016 and then to 23 sacks in 13 games last season.