Arkansas head coach Sam Pittman said on Wednesday's SEC Teleconference that games like the one his team will play against BYU this Saturday are what guys come to Arkansas for.
A prime-time 6:30 p.m. matchup on ESPN2 with a program that has as rich of a history as the Cougars have is great for the Razorback brand. What would be greater is a second win over BYU in as many years for Pittman and the Hogs.
"Make no mistake this is a huge game for us," Pittman said. "I’m sure it is for BYU. But being on national TV and a night game at home you have a different vibe."
BYU will bring the nation's No. 10-ranked scoring defense to Reynolds Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville, and that group is led by three veteran linebackers. Junior Ben Bywater, senior AJ Vongphachanh and senior Max Tooley have all stood out on film to Pittman.
"I love Max Tooley," Pittman said. "I think he’s a hard-playing son of a gun and seems like a leader on his team. Bywater, No. 2, he’s certainly played well. Their whole defense has (played well) in the first two games.
"Having guys that’s played a lot of ball there and 10 (Vongphachanh) is a transfer from Utah State that played a lot of football. They’re an older group of guys anyways, so they’re mature and smart. They’re always in the right gaps."
Bywater — 6-foot-3, 235 pounds — leads the team with 16 tackles through two games. He's been the Cougars' leading tackler in four-consecutive games and his tackle grade of 83.7 on Pro Football Focus is the best of any BYU defender.
A transfer from Utah State, Vongphachanh has seven tackles and 0.5 tackles for loss through the first two games of the season. The 6-foot-3, 235 pound native of Pasco, Washington, led Utah State with 101 tackles in 2022. His coverage grade of 62.1 is the best of any BYU linebacker through the first two weeks.
Tooley is a guy who Pittman has said he really likes on multiple occasions now. At 6-foot-2, 225 pounds, Tooley has 14 tackles and 0.5 TFLs this year. His six defensive stops — tackles that constitute as a failure for the offense — are tied with Bywater for the most of any BYU defender, according to PFF.
With so much talent on all three levels of the defense, specifically at linebacker, BYU has the ability to throw plenty of looks at the Arkansas offense, which has struggled to move the ball in the run game through two games.
"Because of our not having success running the ball, I’m sure we’re going to see a tremendous amount of looks," Pittman said Monday. "They move pre-snap, some things we’ve got to get ready for. But they ran odd pressure. They’re a fire zone team, which we have not seen this year either, where it’s true three under, three deep."
The Cougars play hard defensively, and that's why they rank top-15 in the country in scoring defense, rushing defense and turnovers forced. A high level of effort on defense has helped propel BYU to a 2-0 record.
"Their tape, they play extremely hard," Pittman said. "I mean, they do. They did last year. I think they’re a better football team than they were last year. Big, physical team. They’ve got a guy at each level on defense that I think is really good."
Arkansas and BYU will kick things off at 6:30 p.m. CT Saturday at Reynolds Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville. The game will be nationally televised on ESPN2.
