Arkansas is preparing for Georgia to come to Fayetteville, and they’re hoping the color coordination is going to do something to create a home field advantage for them against the Dawgs. Methinks they’re intentionally making the red stripes the visitors sections to hide a possible Georgia takeover (note: that won’t work).
It seems to me I’ve seen this somewhere before.
Yeah, getting everyone color coordinated isn’t going to make a team suddenly play better than Arkansas did in their lackluster season opener against North Alabama.
Now, maybe I was expecting too much from the first game of the Ryan Silverfield regime, but I did not anticipate the Razorbacks struggling so much offensively.
Three turnovers, too many dropped passes, little to no backside or downfield blocking, and indecisive play from quarterback K.J. Jackson led to a sloppy and frankly scary performance by the offense.
Defensively, the Hogs handled their business fairly well. They smothered North Alabama in the first half, like one would expect.
The second half was a bit more problematic. A slip by a cornerback led to a chunk play and a North Alabama touchdown that was unfortunate, but that can happen anytime a defensive back gets his feet tangled. However, that kind of mistake can prove critical in a closer game.
North Alabama’s other TD was set up by a Sutton Smith fumble. Hog fans haven’t seen Smith fumble like that before, but it was hauntingly familiar to the antics the Razorbacks suffered from during the past two or three seasons.
Arkansas’ defense failed to slam the door on North Alabama in that tough spot or even force a field goal.
In light of those circumstances, I’d give the Hogs a D- grade offensively and a C grade defensively.
The good thing is that while the Razorbacks overall played poorly, they still won.
They likely will not be as lucky the rest of the season.
The bad thing is that if the Hogs had been playing any other team on their schedule last Saturday, their performance would have yielded not only a loss but probably a blowout loss.
Something tells me that Utah is going to expose Arkansas this weekend, and if they don’t, Kirby and Company are going to lay belt to butt and teach the new guy in the SEC a lesson. Lest we forget:
At least we’re not walking into this one with D’wan Mathis as our starting QB. We all remember how that went, right?