If not for an impressive four quarter defensive effort, the Arkansas Razorbacks (6-5, 3-4 SEC) would've been sweating bullets against the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs on Saturday night at Razorback Stadium.
The 35-14 victory by Arkansas — which clinched bowl eligibility for head coach Sam Pittman's team — didn't exactly start off with the bang the Hogs probably hoped for. That was evident by Arkansas' zero points, 25 total yards (negative 11 rushing yards, by the way), three penalties and one offensive turnover in the first quarter.
"When we’re put in situations like that, we’ve just got to bow our neck and keep fighting," defensive end Landon Jackson said after the game. "There have been multiple times this year where the defense is playing bad and the offense keeps going down and scoring, so I mean, it was just the opposite tonight. Got to keep playing. Finishing drives, and finally, the offense got it figured out and got the outcome we wanted."
Offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino and company picked up the pace throughout the remainder of the game, at least relatively speaking, but it was defensive coordinator Travis Williams' unit that shut the Bulldogs down and prevented an embarrassing upset in Fayetteville.
As a whole, Arkansas held Louisiana Tech to 229 total yards (190 passing, 39 rushing), 4-of-19 on third-down attempts and 3-of-6 on fourth-down attempts. That was all despite the Bulldogs leading in time of possession, 31:09 to 28:51.
Following the game, Louisiana Tech head coach Sonny Cumbie commented on his team's offensive struggles and what Arkansas did successfully on defense.
"They’re playing in a three-down front, we didn’t do a good job in the run game and really they took away a lot of the RPO stuff with they’re safeties being in the throwing lanes and rallying to it," Cumbie said. "I don’t think we won enough and created enough space up front honestly versus their three-down and being effective in the run game.
"I think we missed a few things from a hole-shot standpoint and different things we tried to do, attacking the zone, quarterback. Those are the things, you have a small margin of error to begin with, we were able to create some takeaways, had some positives with special teams. I think credit to Arkansas.
"They did a good job from their standpoint schematically of keeping everything in front of them and being able to affect the quarterback at times. Of course, Landon Jackson is a great pass-rusher, really made his presence known early in that third quarter with the sack there and tackle for loss. They did a great job."
Like Jackson mentioned above, Arkansas' offense did eventually figure things out against Louisiana Tech. The Hogs racked up 454 total yards, wide receiver Andrew Armstrong eclipsed the 1,000-yard mark through the air and quarterback Taylen Green totaled 282 yards and four touchdowns.
In the run game, junior ballcarrier Rashod Dubinion recorded his second career 100+ yard game by totaling 112 yards on the ground on 15 carries. Veteran Ja'Quinden Jackson added 55 yards and a touchdown of his own on 16 attempts.
"Basically, we found zone stretch and we found it," Pittman said after the game. "And it was in the second quarter. We were trying to run wham. A little bit of a play and they got us. I mean, to run wham, you're 'whamming' the nose, so your center is not zoning through to backside linebacker. We couldn't get to it. So, there's a three-yard loss.
"And schematically they did some internals where they were – a lot of them, they were doing them on the same side, coming internal. This one was what I call bozo, a cross-dog. And we finally decided, 'Hey, if we can just zone through that we feel like we can get a hat on a hat.
"And we had good enough athletes to do that, so that's when the running back or the running game started a little bit, but part of it was, 'Let's go to some zone read and let Taylen run the football and try to loosen them up a little bit."
Up next, Arkansas will close the regular season with a road trip to Columbia, Missouri, to face the Missouri Tigers (8-3, 4-3 SEC). That game will kick off at 2:30 p.m. CT and will be broadcast on SEC Network.
