It was a homecoming of sorts for Arkansas defensive coordinator Travis Williams on Saturday, and he made the most of it by calling a near-perfect game for the Razorback defense.
The Arkansas Razorbacks (3-1, 1-0 SEC) forced five turnovers on the Auburn Tigers (2-2, 0-1 SEC) in a 24-14 win — four interceptions and a fumble — which stifled the Tigers' offense for most of the night.
Altogether, Auburn gained 431 throughout the game, 285 of which came through the air and 146 of them coming on the ground, but the turnovers the Razorbacks forced kept the Auburn offense out of the endzone for much the game.
"We needed every one of them," Arkansas head coach Sam Pittman said after the game. "Sometimes they come in bunches ... If you go back and you look at it, not every interception, but a lot of them, it's about the pressure, the hit. It's something. Guys standing back there for a while, you don't really get them. So we were covering them well, but I felt like we got more pressure on the quarterback than what we had our first three games."
It's hard to talk about the Arkansas defense on Saturday without mentioning who engineered that unit for four quarters. Williams likely had some extra juice coming into the matchup, when you consider he spent 12 years at Auburn, whether that be as a player, graduate assistant or a coach.
"I know he's got a love for Auburn but I know that win was big for him," Pittman said. "It had to be. The game plan, I went back and forth in there several times this week and went 'Hey now, we're going to make that quarterback beat us, we're going to make that quarterback beat us, we're going to make that quarterback beat us.' It wasn't exactly how I thought he was going to make the quarterback beat us. I thought they did a wonderful job."
In a video posted to social media after the game, Pittman delivered the game ball to Williams, something he said he's never done before.
"I have never given a game ball (to a coach), but I gave one to coach T-Will tonight," Pittman said on the radio after the game. "You know, he’s an Auburn grad, and as well as they played — five turnovers, TJ Metcalf was incredible. Two interceptions and a forced fumble. They played extremely hard, extremely disciplined."
Metcalf, a Birmingham, Alabama, native who intercepted two passes and forced a critical fumble that kept Auburn from scoring a touchdown in the second quarter, said the defense played extra hard for Williams, who just welcomed his fourth child into the world last week.
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"We love our coach, so we had to come in here and make a statement," Metcalf said. "We just wanted to go in there and get the win for him. So I know it means a lot to him, him just having a baby girl and him coming back to his alma mater where he played at, I know he wanted to come in here and get this win. So we all just came together like, ‘We gotta do this for him,’ and that’s what we did."
Saturday's win is a stark contrast to last season's matchup, when the Tigers walked into Razorback Stadium and delivered a 48-10 blowout to the Hogs that removed them from bowl contention.
It's also the first time since 2006-08 that Arkansas has won twice in a row at Jordan-Hare Stadium, as Arkansas knocked off the Tigers in 2022 and again Saturday.
"We just talked about it, and we weren’t going to have that feeling in our mouth anymore," Metcalf said. "We came in with a chip on our shoulder. We all had the right mindset, after the game, we were going to go in the locker room and celebrate, and that’s what we did."
With their first SEC win of the season under their belt, all eyes will turn to Arlington, Texas, where the Razorbacks will play Texas A&M on Saturday. Pittman said the win over Auburn gives them confidence moving forward for the rest of the season.
"It gives you a shot in the arm, it makes you feel good," Pittman said. "It makes practicing a little bit easier. But just because I believe that we’ve got a really good team and can win on the road, you have to go do it."
Kickoff against the Aggies is set for 2:30 p.m. CT inside AT&T Stadium and will air on ESPN.
