FAYETTEVILLE - You may not know it after looking at the final score, but the Arkansas offense struggled during the 38-31 loss to BYU on Saturday — thanks in part to the continued lack of success along the offensive line.
While the offense did score three touchdowns, an insufficient amount of quality protection for quarterback KJ Jefferson on passing downs led to stalled drives and costly turnovers for the Hogs.
According to StatBroadcast, BYU had one quarterback hurry and three sacks against KJ Jefferson. However, a review of the tape tells a much different story.
"I want to give them credit," Pittman said. "They played a good football game. We've got a lot of things to clean up. They exposed us a little bit with their pass rush. Not necessarily bringing extras, just with their ends."
Going into this game, the Cougars ranked 120th nationally with only half a sack to their defense's name. Arkansas had only allowed 1.5 sacks before the matchup, so the Cougars' success came as a bit of a surprise.
"There wasn't any blitzes we weren't ready for," Pittman said. "It wasn't a blitz-fest. They pounded gaps when we were trying to run the football. They just whipped us. That's what happened on the edge. We started chipping them and all those things.
"Going into the game we didn't really feel like we'd need to chip out there, but they proved that they were longer, stronger than what we anticipated on watching film-wise. They got after us."
Things aren't going to get any easier for Arkansas from here on out. The SEC West is loaded with talented defensive lines, so the Razorbacks' offensive line will have to improve their technique if they want to be able to protect Jefferson going forward.
"Yeah, I think, I mean we’ve got some hands issues and things of that nature," Pittman said. "I’m not talking about placement of hands. I’m talking about we’ve got two of our five linemen are casted up pretty good. So we’ve got some hand issues we’ve got to fix because it’s hard to grab.
"You can’t grab because it’s holding but you understand what I’m saying … It’s hard to get a feel in there. I’m not overly panicked. We’re just going to have to chip. We’re going to have to have some help. We have to have some tight ends help, especially when we play teams like BYU."
Another glaring issue for the offensive line was the amount of costly penalties. Out of 10 total offensive penalties, seven came from the offensive line. On the Razorbacks' final drive to potentially tie the game, holding and false start penalties forced the offense into difficult positions.
It didn't help that right tackle Patrick Kutas had to exit with an apparent injury, forcing Brady Latham out to left tackle and E'Marion Harris to come in at left guard.
"Well, we moved (Andrew) Chamblee over to begin with because (Patrick) Kutas had gotten hurt," Pittman said. "Then Chamblee went down. Kutas came back out there. But we just weren't moving our feet. We were getting on edge. They bulled us a lot of the game. Then when you set for the bull sometimes you're susceptible to the inside move and that's what happened. We were holding."
Another example of lackluster offensive line play came with the Hogs at their own 34-yard line in the fourth quarter. Arkansas elected to go for it on fourth and short, but a false start by Latham forced a punt.
"We were going to go for it," Pittman said. "The only problem there was if we got for it there and don't make it, the game is over. I did have the three timeouts, so that was the conversation that we had. Dan thought we could get it. We were very, very concerned about running the sneak because they were jumping into Bear."
"They had the guards and the center. It's easy to say that you've got a big quarterback and you can go get a first down, but they're in Bear and plugging A gaps, so they basically have five guys in there to your three. But yeah, we jumped offsides on that one."
Though three of the fourth quarter penalties for Arkansas came from Latham, Pittman isn't worried about his redshirt senior captain.
"I think he'll be fine," Pittman said. "We asked him to move out there. Devon Manuel just hasn't been healthy. Got a stinger and we keep thinking he's going to get back, so we made the decision on Thursday. We played Brady on Tuesday and Wednesday at left tackle because I didn't know if Dev would be able to play, but he'll be fine. He's won a lot of games here and been a great player for us. He wasn't the reason we lost the game tonight. He'll be fine."
Up next, Arkansas will take on LSU next Saturday at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The game is set to take place at 6:00 p.m. CT and it will air on ESPN.
