SB Nation - Ramon Broadway

Previewing South Carolina at Arkansas: Topics for Discussion on the Hogs' Defense

Gamecock Man — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:25:14 -0000

More photos » by Danny Johnston - AP

3 months ago: Arkansas head football coach Bobby Petrino speaks to reporters before a luncheon at the Little Rock Touchdown Club in Little Rock, Ark., Monday, Aug. 31, 2009. (AP Photo/Danny Johnston)

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Arkansas's defensive numbers give cause for hope. The Hogs are 95th in total defense, 81st in scoring defense, 68th in rushing defense, and a staggering 109th in passing defense. In other words, Arkansas is who we thought they would be: a team with an average defensive line and not much else. If Stephen Garcia and his receivers come ready to play, we should be able to move the ball through the air fairly efficiently against these guys.
That said, we can't sleep on Arkansas's defensive line. The Hogs are 50th in sacks and 25th in tackles for loss, and the pass rush seems to be their defense's hallmark. Expect to see Arkansas throw the kitchen sink at Garcia in an attempt to make him commit turnovers. Turnovers are this defense's best hope; see the Arkansas-Florida game.
Hooper at Rocky Top Talk has fancy computer evidence that shows that Arkansas's defense is really as bad as it looks.
Arkansas may be without corner Ramon Broadway against us. Their secondary, which lost a starter during the preseason, is more or less in tatters. Again, opportunities in the passing game should be there.

SEC Speaks, Let's Put Arkansas RefGate to Bed

Year2 — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 21:24:28 -0000

The SEC has officially spoken, saying that the personal foul called on Malcom Sheppard late in Saturday's Arkansas-Florida game had "no evidence on the video to support" it. As for the disputed pass interference call on Ramon Broadway, the conference says it was a "judgment call" and that "a review of those calls have been communicated to Arkansas." This time, there's no cheeky quote about officials being upset.

So yes, everyone's in agreement that Florida got some help on its late game touchdown drive. But, there was still seven and a half minutes on the clock after that drive and it was a tie game. Arkansas missed a field goal on its next drive and then let Florida, without the aid of penalties, drive the length of the field and kick the game winner.

Both teams had opportunities after the penalty affair; one team missed its kick and one team made its kick. Let's call an end to this with that.

Saturday Lessons: October 17

Year2 — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:04:56 -0000

More photos » by Dave Martin - AP

Mark Ingram: stud.

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Forgive the brevity; I'm still catching up from having attended a game on Saturday and been driving all day on Sunday.

It was another one of those weeks.

Just like Week 3, this was one of those weeks were the top teams struggled. Florida tried to lose to Arkansas but couldn't quite pull it off, and Alabama had trouble with South Carolina. Texas, Boise State, and USC all barely won. Iowa couldn't put Wisconsin away until late. Virginia Tech, Ohio State, and Nebraska all lost varying degrees of upsets. On weekends like these, you just have to survive and advance.

Alabama is very fortunate to have Mark Ingram.

With Greg McElroy seemingly regressing by the week now, Alabama needed someone to make it up. That someone was Mark Ingram. In submitting the best individual performance of the week, Ingram rushed for 242 yards and had another 23 yards receiving. He tore up what is otherwise a pretty stout South Carolina defense, and his touchdown run with just under five minutes to go iced the game.

Alabama will need more than that to win against a good offense though. From an offensive scoring standpoint, it was a 6-6 ball game until Ingram's fourth quarter touchdown. Stephen Garcia made the Big Mistake and McElroy didn't, and that accounts for the rest of the margin in the game. Ingram's big day nicely papered over what was otherwise a bad day for the offense, as it rushed for 1.3 yards per rush without his carries and McElroy's yards per attempt drops from 4.6 to 3.8 yards per attempt without his receptions. The Alabama defense was excellent, but that goes without saying these days.

Florida is fortunate to have a win.

Thanks to YouTube and the Wiz of Odds, I've had a chance finally to see the three calls that Arkansas fans are upset about. The personal foul on Malcolm Sheppard? Horrendous. The pass interference on Ramon Broadway? It's close, but Broadway put both hands on Deonte Thompson's chest and appeared to push as he was turning around. Even if he didn't push, that's asking for a flag. The no call on Riley Cooper for offensive pass interference? It's hard to tell from the angle that the YouTube video is from, but Cooper was going for the ball and, since he was in front, couldn't have been "all over the back" of the defender as Gary Danielson said. A bad no call (see comments). The refs should have been consistent in making those last two plays either both flags or both no-calls.

All that aside, Florida's offense executed poorly. The play calling was random at best and idiotic at worst. The secondary had its worst game since last year's loss to Ole Miss. The defense was mystified by just about every pass to a running back. The team swore last week that it wouldn't let this one be a let down game after its big road win. In retrospect, it had better have been a let down game, or else they'll lose next week in Starkville if Anthony Dixon can do a decent Jerious Norwood impression.

Arkansas let one slip away.

I've attended a game where you go on the road against a better team, have the refs (and in this case, the clock operator too) screw you over late, and lose on a field goal with just seconds to go. I've been there. It sucks. Hard.

Look at everything the Razorbacks had in their favor though:

Sacked Tim Tebow six times
Recovered four fumbles, including three in the red zone, without turning it over themselves
Held a team previously averaging 285 yards rushing to just 136 on the ground
Gained 357 yards on a defense that had previously given up no more than 210 in FBS play
Connected on a 75 yard touchdown pass
Saw Brandon Spikes go out injured early in the first quarter
Saw Florida shank a punt from its own end zone
Held Florida to the same number of points that Tennessee's terrific defense did

That should have been a recipie for a relatively easy win, especially considering how badly Florida was playing. They submarined their chances quite a bit though with:

At least five dropped passes, one of which was in the end zone
Ryan Mallett missing open receivers all day, including two open ones in the end zone
Getting just seven points on three possessions that began in Florida territory
MIssing two field goals

It sucks when the refs help the other team out copiously on one of its twelve drives. But, any time you have that many advantages and then shoot yourself in the foot that many times, you have to look at yourself in the mirror. Florida may have had some help from the refs in winning the game, but the Gators got a lot more help from the Hogs. It should have been 14-3, not 10-3, at halftime and easily could have ended up roughly in the neighborhood of a 33-20 Arkansas win.

Georgia and Kentucky stopped the bleeding.

The Bulldogs were feeling really bad after last week's bludgeoning at the hands of Tennessee. Vandy turned out to be just what the doctor ordered. UGA cruised to a 34-10 win where it came out comfortably ahead in just about all statistical categories. This one wasn't really about the score or stats though, as beating up on a team that lost to Army means very little. The key thing was getting a nice, easy win to rebuild confidence going into the bye week to help preparations for a suddenly very vulnerable looking Florida team.

Kentucky, meanwhile, picked up its first SEC win in dramatic fashion. The Wildcats scored two fourth quarter touchdowns to beat a now reeling Auburn team at Jordan-Hare. It has to be a great feeling after losing a heartbreaking game - and Mike Hartline - last week against South Carolina. UK needed that one to get back on track for going to a fourth straight bowl, and they got it.

Auburn did not.

Maybe we were giving the Tigers a bit to much credit for all those early non-conference games. Just a bit.

Week Four Preview: #3 Alabama vs Arkansas Overview

outsidethesidelines — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 13:00:33 -0000

More photos » by April L. Brown - AP

Arkansas QB Ryan Mallett is the best pure passer Alabama has faced this season.

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The 49-14 thumping that Alabama put on Arkansas last year in Fayetteville was easily the most lopsided game this series has seen in a decade. Last year's game, however, was also an anomaly as this series generally sees close, hard-fought contests, and none should expect another crimson landslide for a second year in a row.

There are two majors reasons for that: One, Arkansas looks to be a much better team this year than they were a year ago, and two, last year's game was much closer than the scoreboard indicated. Lopsided score notwithstanding, last year's game was actually played pretty evenly by the two teams, and the massive disparity on the scoreboard resulted from four major players all going Alabama's way. Those four plays were Glen Coffee's long touchdown run, Casey Dick's two interceptions (while driving) that were returned for touchdowns, and Terrence Cody's goal line stand to end the first half, and all of them directly resulted in Alabama touchdowns. Don't expect all of the big plays to go the Tide's way this year, and thus a much closer game this time around.

Let's take a closer look at the match-ups.

Alabama Offense v. Arkansas Defense

On the surface, this seems like a lopsided match-up in the Tide's favor. The Alabama offense has been surprisingly effective to date -- 500+ yards of total offense in each of the first three games, and 127 total points -- and Greg McElroy has exceeded all reasonable expectations. The offensive line was a major question mark coming into the season, and while penalties have hurt them somewhat, they've still generally gotten the job done. Even with Julio Jones not even playing in more than half of the offensive snaps to date, nothing has really been able to slow down the Tide's offense. On the other hand, Arkansas' defense has been nothing short of abysmal to date. It was a very bad unit a year ago, and unfortunately for the Hog faithful it's one that has shown little or no improvement since.

So is it just a given that the Alabama offense is going to rack up points left and right against Arkansas? Perhaps, but let's not be so fast.

An objective look at Arkansas' defense yields a group that is very light on elite top-end talent and quality depth throughout the roster, but even so this unit may not be as hapless as many would make it seem. Clearly the Hogs had a disastrous performance last week against Georgia, but it is worth noting that performance came almost entirely without the presence of two of Arkansas' best defenders: middle linebacker Jerry Franklin and cornerback Rudell Crim. Franklin is the leader of the linebacker corps and he was ejected in the second quarter, and Crim is the team's best cornerback, but he went out with leg cramps early. And as if missing two of their best players wasn't a big enough issue in its own right, their replacements -- Terrell Williams and Greg Gatson -- were effectively outright disasters. Franklin will be back this week, however, and you can rest assured that the Arkansas medical staff will have Crim properly hydrated this time around, so their returns alone will go a long way towards improving this Arkansas defense.

The big concern for Alabama, most likely, comes in the running game. The offensive line is still a bit of an unknown commodity, and for all of the criticisms of the Arkansas defense, we really haven't been challenged in the way that this Hog front seven will challenge us. Given our proclivity towards using two-tight end sets, we practically lost five starters at the point of attack from a year ago (Andre Smith, Antoine Caldwell, Marlon Davis, Travis McCall, and Nick Walker), and the replacements for those five starters simply don't have the size that their predecessors did. Combined we are about 100 pounds lighter at the point of attack than we were last year -- which is to say nothing of the fact that the combination of Preston Dial and Brad Smelley isn't near the blocker that Travis McCall was, size differential notwithstanding -- and that alone probably means that we cannot dominate teams in the trenches like we did a year ago.

And that is where Arkansas really challenges us. For all of the criticisms of their defense, this is a big, strong unit in the front seven, and that is something we really haven't seen this year. Virginia Tech openly traded size for speed, and both Florida International and North Texas were clearly outmatched physically. Arkansas, however, is a very different animal altogether. They average nearly 280 pounds in the front four, the linebacker corps averages around 235 pounds, and with Malcom Sheppard manning the defensive tackle position, they will be able to match our physical style of play. In all likelihood, if the Arkansas defense is to slow down the Alabama offense, this is likely how they will have to do it.

Unfortunately, however, the rest of the match-ups for the Hogs simply do not look good.

Looking at the rest of the defensive backfield, even with a healthy Rudell Crim, the secondary is still one of the worst in the conference. Starting opposite Crim is Ramon Broadway, but Broadway has made news for three things this year, none of which are good for the Hogs: Getting arrested for not showing up to traffic court, running his mouth before the Georgia game, and ultimately getting lit up by A.J. Green. He's a below average corner in coverage, and the same thing goes for the rest of the rotation at cornerback. Highly-touted true freshman Darius Winston -- a consensus five-star prospect -- has not been able to make any impact whatsoever. Likewise, the safety play from Tramain Thomas and Matt Harris has impressed no one to date.

Largely the same thing goes for the linebacker corps as well. Jerry Franklin is a fine player at middle linebacker, but while the starters surrounding him, Wendel Davis and Freddy Burton, have a good bit of size, neither of the two look to be particularly good players right now. The aforementioned Terrell Williams struggled greatly last weekend trying to fill in for Franklin, and while Jerico Nelson is a good player against the pass, at barely 200 pounds he struggles to get on the field on running downs, thus limiting his effectiveness.

The best match-up of all may very well come against the Arkansas defensive line in the passing game, which has struggled to rush the passer. Jake Bequette and Adrian Davis start at defensive end, but neither are particularly adept pass rushers, and while Sheppard is more active than your typical interior player, there's only so much you can legitimately expect when you need your interior defensive linemen to generate the bulk of your pass rush. Despite Georgia being without its starting left tackle last week, Arkansas still couldn't muster any pressure whatsoever on Joe Cox, ultimately racking up only one sack and one hurry on approximately 30 passing attempts. Alabama may still have some issues protecting off the edge, but Greg McElroy ought to find himself with plenty of time to throw the football.

All in all, the Arkansas defense may be a bit better than it has been given credit for, and at any rate Alabama is still going to have to come out and execute successfully over the course of 60-70 plays to get the job done. Nevertheless, you still have to think that the Tide will put up more than their fair share of points this weekend. Arkansas may make running the football tough, but Arkansas' porous defensive backfield mixed with a lack of a consistent pass rush is likely a lethal combination in and of itself if Greg McElroy continues to play like he has so far this year.

Alabama Defense v. Arkansas Offense

While most expect the Alabama offense to have a big day against the struggling Arkansas defense, it's clear to everyone that it will be strength on strength when the Arkansas offense comes on the field. Both the Alabama defense and the Arkansas offense have the ability to be among the nationally elite with regard to their respective units, and making matters even more intriguing both units are led by two of the most advanced football minds in all of college football.

The Arkansas offense is a scary group, no two ways about it. Ryan Mallett has the arm strength of JaMarcus Russell, and he is easily the best pure pocket passer that Alabama has faced in years. The backfield is loaded with talented tailbacks that bring experience along with their unique mixes and matches of different physical builds. Tight end D.J. Williams is clearly the best in the conference, and back-up Ben Cleveland is a very valuable threat as a possession receiver. The wide receiver corps, too, is a good one from top to bottom. They don't have a true superstar ala Julio Jones, but they do have five or six high quality wide receivers who have good athleticism and who run good routes -- Greg Childs, Jarius Wright, and Joe Adams are good enough to begin with, and Lucas Miller is returning this week from injury. That alone makes the Hogs very difficult to defend on the perimeter, even without saying anything with regard to Mallett. Bottom line, at the very least, this is the third-best offense in the conference, and it could easily be the best.

The only real weakness of the Arkansas offense comes up front at the point of attack, where the Hogs offensive line is seemingly still a relic of the Houston Nutt era. All five starters committed to Nutt, and not surprisingly they are generally the big, physical mashers that Nutt loved so much in his run-heavy offense. The "smallest" player on the line comes in at around 6'5 and 305 pounds, and truthfully that fact is probably doing the Hogs few favors. This line is, on the whole, a fish out of water. They are more physically built to pave the way for a run-heavy offense, but with the coaching turnover they are now being asked to pass protect against highly athletic pass rushers in a pass-happy offense. On a fundamental level it's effectively a recipe for disaster, and not surprisingly it's a team that has struggled to a degree to protect the passer. Starting right tackle DeMarcus Love probably needs to be playing inside at guard, and starting left tackle Ray Dominguez was absolutely atrocious against Georgia with four penalties and one sack allowed. The left tackle of the future is Anthony Oden, the younger brother of basketball star Greg Oden. He'll be a star one day, and the Arkansas coaches have indicated he may play some this week against Alabama, but he's a true freshman and given Nick Saban's love for giving multiple fronts that confuse offensive linemen, I'm not sure exactly how eager the Arkansas coaching staff is to put him in front of 93,000 fans. Nevertheless, if Dominguez' struggles continue, the Hogs' hand may be forced.

And this is the weakness that the Alabama defense must successfully attack to limit the Arkansas offense. The performance of our defensive backfield has been solid but not spectacular to date -- the overall statistics look good, but safety play has been shaky and highly inconsistent, Kareem Jackson has been hit or miss, and Marquis Johnson had a key penalty against Virginia Tech -- but the simple truth of the matter is that if Ryan Mallett consistently has the time to throw, it's going to be a very long day for the Tide. The Arkansas wide receiver corps is too good and Ryan Mallett has too much arm strength and accuracy to expect to be able to consistently stop the Arkanas offense if we cannot get pressure on Mallett.

Fortunately for the Tide, however, you have to like how we match against the Arkansas offensive line. Marcel Dareus is having a breakout year, Lorenzo Washington is playing better than ever, and we've gotten great pressure from the linebacker corps with Rolando McClain, Dont'a Hightower, and Eryk Anders. Moreover, on obvious passing downs, we have been moving the defensive ends inside in a four man front, and then putting Hightower and Anders at end. The results have been very good, to put it mildly, and we have consistently harassed passers all year long. Given the struggles Arkansas has had at the tackle positions, all signs point towards the Tide having some success getting to Mallett.

Even with that said, though, expect the Arkansas offense to have a reasonable amount of success against the Tide regardless. The running game has the potential to be a very good one -- you mix a bunch of big, strong offensive linemen with a group of highly talented tailbacks, and that is usually what you get -- and unless the Arkansas coaching staff is blowing smoke, they plan to use the rushing attack more prominently this weekend. It could have some success, and realistically no matter how well you can pressure Mallett, all of the outstanding components of the Arkansas passing game will guarantee that the Hogs hit more than a few plays in the passing game. These guys are going to score points, period.

Putting It All Together

All in all, I don't think there is much questioning the notion that Alabama is the better team here. We have more top-end talent, more quality depth, and probably a tad bit more experience as well. As long as Greg McElroy continues to play like he has to date, you have to imagine that Alabama will score more than their fair share of points tomorrow, and we should come away with the victory. Nevertheless, this game is far from a given, and it is likely to be a closely fought contest that goes into the fourth quarter. Arkansas is at worst a solid SEC team, and the difference between the two teams is far from gaping.

While it seems like we should be able to take full advantage of the Arkansas defense, truth be told we are probably going to have to do just that in order to win this game. Bamagrad has talked about these spread passing teams before, and I think he makes a good point: You can have a good defense and play well, but at the end of the day they are still good enough offensively to put up 24-28 points on the board. That could very well happen to us on Saturday, and if our special teams breakdowns continue, we could very easily be needing to score 31-35+ points in order to be able to get the victory. Arkansas is an improved team over last year, and they pulled off some pretty big upsets even then -- another victory over LSU, and came within a hair of knocking off Ole Miss as well. Rest assured, the Hogs will collect some more scalps this year, and it won't be a shock if they head back to Fayetteville with a crimson scalp in their possession.

Hope for the best.

Post-Spring Previews: Arkansas Razorbacks

Gamecock Man — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 00:51:49 -0000

More photos » by Butch Dill - AP

4 months ago: Arkansas football coach Bobby Petrino speaks to the media during a news conference at the SEC Media Days in Hoover, Ala. on Wednesday, July 22, 2009 (AP Photo/ Butch Dill)

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After traveling to Knoxville to take on the Vols, the Gamecocks head to Fayetteville to take on the Arkansas Razorbacks. Arkansas is another team looking to rebound from a shaky 2008. Luckily, momentum is in their favor. After playing poorly early in the season--see the close wins over cupcakes and absolutely ugly blowout losses to elite opponents--the Hogs played well to close out 2008. Moreover, they should only improve with a year in Bobby Petrino's system under their belts. Petrino may be one of the game's true professional slimeballs, but he's also a fantastic coach that came close to getting Louisville to the national title game. To understand the gravity of that accomplishment, take a look at what has happened there now that Petrino is gone. Petrino's offense was undoubtedly hampered last year with Casey Dick--an average quarterback at best--under center. However, this year he has Ryan Mallett taking over quarterbacking duties. Mallett will make mistakes at times, but he'll also be brilliant at times. The tools are in place for this to be a prolific Arkansas offense. While they probably won't win more than seven or eight because of Mallett's youth and a suspect defense, this is a team that will undoubtedly make for exciting football and perhaps an upset of one of the conference's big-name teams.

Let's see how we matchup against them.

Offense

The Hogs run Bobby Petrino's power spread, a modified pro-style attack. Often mischaracterized as a coach that likes to air it out, Petrino believes being able to run the ball is just as important as being able to go long. To this end, Petrino likes to move back and forth between spread formations and power-I formations. The spread formations usually allow him to get the ball to his receivers on the outside, whereas the power-I allows him to run the ball down hill. Petrino likes to throw deep to the tight ends out of the I, as well. His offense is also notable for running similar plays out of multiple formations, which I'd imagine is confusing for defenses.

Quarterback

After sitting out for a year after transferring from Michigan, highly recruited Ryan Mallett takes over under center for the Hogs. Mallett is a prototypical pro-style quarterback: he's big, tall, and can throw the ball a mile. Mallett should thrive in Petrino's system, where his vision and arm will give him lots of advantages. Mallett is somewhat inexperienced and may show it at times. However, while this is Mallett's first year playing at Arkansas and he can thus be expected to make some mistakes, it's not like he's a freshman. He had significant experience playing at Michigan in his freshman year and has had a year to learn Petrino's offense since then. His one liability other than his relative inexperience is that he's kind of slow because of his size. That could pose problems if he doesn't get great protection, which is a distinct possiblity. Overall, though, he looks to be poised for a big season throwing the ball.

We've yet to really see what Mallett can do, whereas we've at least seen Garcia play well in spurts, so I can't give Mallett the advantage here. I'm tempted to, though. Mallett is good and he will thrive throwing to a talented group of receivers in Bobby Petrino's system. Plus, Garcia frankly has almost just as much to prove at this point as Mallett. It will be interesting to see what kind of year these two are having when this game rolls around in November.

Verdict: Push

Running Backs

The Hogs return one of the SEC's best tailbacks in senior Michael Smith. Smith, who spent his first two seasons in the shadow of Felix Jones and Darren McFadden, broke out last year for over 1000 yards. Although small, Smith is a tough runner. His size, though, makes him vulnerable to injury, as the Hogs saw late last season. They'll look to lighten his load this year. The Hogs will look at a host of players in the rotation, although some injuries that occurred during the spring may limit some of those players' effectiveness. The primary backup role may, in fact, go to highly touted freshman Ronnie Wingo, Jr., one of the Hogs' prize recruits and a guy we'll probably hear a lot more of after Smith graduates.

I call this a slight advantage for Arkansas. We have more experienced depth than the Hogs at this position, and depth has to be a concern for the Hogs right now. However, Arky does have some nice young players that stack up well against most SEC teams, and Smith pushes the balance in their favor.

Verdict: Slight advantage Arkansas

Wide Receivers and Tight Ends

Arkansas returns an experienced group of talented receivers that could be poised to put up big numbers if Mallet and offensive line step up. The big name in the group is tight end D. J. Williams, who is one of the nation's best ends. Williams has and will continue to thrive in Petrino's offense, which frequently utilizes the tight end as a long-yardage passing option from what look like power-running formations. Lucas Miller, Jarius Wright, London Crawford and others fill out what should be a very effective group.

I give Arkansas another slight advantage here. I think our receivers have the potential to be as good as this group, but they have to prove it, first.

Verdict: Slight advantage Arkansas

Offensive Line

Here's where things get a little murky for what has the potential to be a great Arkansas offense. Last year's line had lots of trouble with both pass protection and run blocking. However, pass protection was the biggest problem, with the Hogs giving up a whopping 46 sacks. If problems continue this year, they may keep the Hogs from having the kind of year offensively they're otherwise capable of having. The fact that Ryan Mallett is hardly the kind of quarterback that can evade sacks with his feet makes protecting him all the more important.

This year's more experienced unit should be better, but they'll really need to be a lot better for the Hogs to truly live up to their potential on offense. Arkansas returns three starters as well as one player that started in 2007 but redshirted last year. It's hard to say who will play where; expect a lot of shifting around on this unit throughout the year, although Ray Dominguez looks to be the guy at the important left tackle position. The reserves are mostly inexperienced. All in all, there are still a lot of question marks here.

I'm going to call this a slight advantage for Carolina. Neither team was good up front last year and both have lots to prove, but we return a bit more experience and should start playing well sooner.

Verdict: Slight advantage South Carolina

Let's look at the defenses after the jump.

Defense

To put it simply, the Hogs had a bad defense last year. Arky finished at or near the bottom of the SEC in most major categories. To put things into perspective, we managed to score 34 points against them. Experienced defensive coordinator Willy Robinson must get better play out of this group if Arkansas is to contend in the West.

Defensive Line

The Hogs' front four--which returns four starters--is led by tackle Malcolm Sheppard, who was second in the conference in tackles for loss a year ago. Adrian Davis, Zach Stadther, Lavunce Askew and Alfred Davis should round out the bulk of the rotation, although some newcomers may see time as well. This unit wasn't very good against the run last year and has focused on bulking up this offseason. I expect better production from them, but this may still be a team that good teams can run against fairly easily.

I give us a slight advantage here. There's no reason that our line can't be one of the best in the SEC this year, while Arkansas simply has lots to prove despite its experience.

Verdict: Slight advantage South Carolina

Linebackers

This is another fairly experienced group. Senior Wendel Davis is perhaps the defense's overall leader. Davis missed the first part of last season, and when he returned, the defense clearly improved. Freddy Burton and Jerry Franklin round out the group. This should be another improved unit, but depth may be an issue here.

I give us a slight advantage here. Again, Arkansas has a lot to prove, whereas we have one of the league's better units with Eric Norwood and Rodney Paulk leading the way and a talented group of underclassmen providing depth.

Verdict: Slight advantage South Carolina

Secondary

Secondary is perhaps the biggest cause for concern for this Arkansas defense. The most talented players just might be five-star freshman corner Darius Winton and highly touted JUCO transfer safety Rudell Crim. Both will push for playing time, as the returning starters all struggled last year. Corners Ramon Broadway and Isaac Madison have experience, but neither exactly instills fear in opposing quarterbacks and wide receivers. Safeties Elton Ford and Jerico Nelson also return with experience, but Ford will likely have to fight to keep Crim away from his job.

I call this a push. Both teams have some talented players but will have to rely on freshmen and must worry about depth problems. It's worth point out here that our secondary versus Bobby Petrino's offense is a cause for concern.

Verdict: Push

Special Teams

Kicker Alex Tejada struggled mightily last year after a solid 2007. The Hogs hope he can regain his old form. The Hogs had trouble with some of their return units last year, but should be better this year, especially with Petrino's mentor and former Michigan State coach John L. Smith taking over the special teams.

I'll call this a push. Arkansas doesn't have a reliable kicker at this point, while we don't even know who ours will be quite yet. Punting should be OK for both teams. Both teams look to have good kick return games but will need to figure out punt returns. Both should have decent coverage units. All in all it's hard to make a call right now on which team should have better units.

Verdict: Push

Head Coaches

As I said at the beginning of this preview, I think Bobby Petrino is one of the best coaches in the game. He almost won a national title at Louisville, for goodness's sake. The last two years haven't been nice to the guy, but let's face it: he wasn't exactly playing with a stacked deck last year or in 2007 in Atlanta. He has more pieces in place this year, and it should show with an extra couple of wins. I expect the team will continue to get better over the next few years and will regularly compete with Alabama and LSU in the West.

I'll give Arkansas a slight advantage here. Petrino may not have as many conference titles as Spurrier, but he has been relevant more recently.

Verdict: Slight advantage Arkansas

Overall

Although their strengths are somewhat different, in a lot of ways these are fairly evenly matched teams. Arkansas should have a slightly better offense and we should have a slightly better defense, but the gaps aren't that large. My general impression is that this will be one of the higher scoring games of the year for us; Arkansas's offense is capable of putting up poitns against anybody, and we're capable of putting up points against their defense. Unfotunatley, if the game does become a shootout, I'll have to give the advantage to Petrino and Arkansas. To make matters worse, the game is in Fayetteville, and the atmosphere will likely be raucous if Arky is still in the running for a Western Division crown. If we're to win, we'll have to counter these Arkansas advantages by putting lots of pressure on Mallett, getting some sacks, and hopefully forcing a couple of game-changing turnovers. That kind of performance can't be taken for granted, though, and I have a feeling we'll lose this one.

Predict: seven-point Arkansas victory

Poll

The Arkansas game will result in a...

Blowout Carolina victory

3 votes

Close Carolina victory

27 votes

Close Arkansas victory

104 votes

Blowout Arkansas victory

79 votes

213 votes | Poll has closed

SEC 2009 // Hog Holdovers

cocknfire — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:00:54 -0000

More photos » by April L. Brown - AP

Ryan Mallett might not be the starting quarterback for Arkansas in 2009. And I just might start cheering for Clemson.

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If you're looking for one reason for the expectations of a rebound in Fayetteville this year, one reason is the lack of material your humble correspondent has for this post. Arkansas has eight returning starters on offense and nine on defense by the school's measure, ten by Phil Steele's ruler. There won't be many position battles to settle this fall.

One of those potential fights could be at quarterback, where Bobby Petrino has toyed with the idea of a competition between Ryan Mallett and Tyler Wilson, but is expected to name Mallett as his starter.

Let's humor him for a moment, though.

Arkansas "QB Competition"
	Comp	Att	Pct	Yds	TD	INT	Rating
Ryan Mallett (2007, Michigan)	61	141	43.3	892	7	5	105.69
Tyler Wilson (2008, Arkansas)	11	22	50.0	69	1	2	73.16

You can see why there's so much skepticism about Petrino's notion of keeping the signal-caller position open in the fall. The rating is better -- in part because of the TD-to-INT ratio -- and the experience gap is significant. The only real strike against Mallett is the completion percentage, marred by outings like a 6-of-17 performance in relief during the Oregon game and an 11-of-36 day against Wisconsin.

There might be some controversy at WR as well, with the Hogs returning all five wideouts with double-digit catches. The downside of that? Only one of those receivers, Lucas Miller, broke 400 yards (490), none had more than two TD receptions, and only London Crawford (11) had more than seven starts.

The overall receptions leader, D.J. Williams (61 catches, 723 yards, 3 TDs), returns at TE. So does RB Michael Smith, who rushed for 1,072 yards and eight scores on 270 carries. Most of the offensive line comes back, though both guard spots could be filled by first-time starters.

Defense could be even more stable, according to the post-spring depth chart, which shows the front seven comprised entirely of returning starters. Included: DT Malcolm Sheppard, who led the team last year with 6.5 sacks. Leading tackler Jerry Franklin (87 stops) is back at LB. Then again, the Hogs allowed 170.8 rushing ypg last year, so take that as you will.

The mediocre pass defense will likely have to be overhauled, with two returning starters listed on the depth chart and only CB Isaac Madison as a starter. (The other, FS Elton Ford, is noted as being injured.) But CB Ramon Broadway, not listed as a returning starter but currently No. 1 at the other corner position, had 10 broken-up passes, six picks and 52 tackles (six for losses). Jerico Nelson, the likely starter at strong safety, is also solid.

It's never easy, is it? -- LSU 24, South Carolina 17 and the rest of Week 8

cocknfire — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 07:07:57 -0000

There was a level on which you knew, if you were a South Carolina fan, that this was going to happen. The 17-point outburst in the second quarter of the Gamcocks' match-up with LSU was going to fall short, the dream that Steve Spurrier would once again prove his relevance would fade away and the thought that 2008 could be anything more than a solid, eight-win season -- a nine-win year, or even the first 10-win season since 1984? -- would be dealt its final, cruel blow.

It happened early in the fourth quarter, when LSU took over at its own 17-yard line and launched an 11-play, 83-yard drive that ate up 6:24 of clock and ended with Charles Scott pounding the ball in from two yards out. It was, you knew, all but officially over. LSU was going to win, South Carolina would suffer its latest heartbreak under Spurrier, and it was back to playing for a bowl in Atlanta or, with luck, Tampa.

The Gamecocks' grasp on the lead was always tenuous. The mind-boggling statistic of the game was the 39 yards gained by South Carolina's rushing attack, 15 of those from QB Stephen Garcia. The Bayou Bengals, meanwhile, ground out 164 yards rushing to complement LSU's efficient quarterbacks. The running game came in handy late in the fourth, when the Tigers took over with 3:57 left on the clock after a Garcia interception. Keiland Williams ran for 37 yards on seven carries, Charles Scott also carried once for four yards, and LSU bled the clock dry.

For LSU, this was the definitive statement that they were not out of the SEC West picture after the previous Saturday's drubbing in Gainesville and that Alabama will still have to play for the division title when they roll into Baton Rouge Nov. 8. For South Carolina, it was a reminder that as far as the Gamecocks have come, they are still at best the third-best team in their division. One night, they might win a close-fought game against LSU. But it'll be awhile -- South Carolina next plays LSU in 2012.

NOT THIS TIME
Georgia 24, Vanderbilt 14

Vanderbilt is also used to losing these games, and their match with Georgia was probably over even when Dawgs K Blair Walsh missed a field goal with 2:50 left in the fourth quarter. Sure, they were only a touchdown behind, but this is not a passing team -- Mackenzi Adams or no -- and the Commodores hadn't really sustained a drive since late in the second quarter.

On paper, anyway, Vanderbilt was practically run out of Sanford Stadium. As in, 231 rushing yards racked up by Georgia en route to a 425-245 advantage in yardage. Knowshon Moreno, who ran for 172 yards on 23 carries (7.5 ypc), probably put himself in the lead spot for the SEC's Heism@n candidacy, given Tim Tebow's perception problem and Charles Scott's falling production.

All he needed was to go back to the red jerseys.

Georgia, though, seems to be one of two SEC title contenders that just can't put inferior teams away. (More on that later.) The Dawgs have yet to beat a BCS team by more than 17 points, and that was against Arizona State. When your foes are South Carolina, Tennessee and Vanderbilt, you can live with a statistical blowout and a close score. LSU and Florida won't be so kind.

THREE WEEKS IS A LONG TIME
Alabama 24, Ole Miss 20

The other SEC contender that can't put underdogs away would be Alabama. And this week's game followed a familiar formula; the Crimson Tide took a 24-3 lead into the locker room, let it become a 24-10 lead by the end of the third quarter, and ended up escaping with a four-point margin. What, exactly, does that say about the Tide, who pulverized Clemson and Georgia to key the national title buzz and haven't really impressed since?

After all, it took the Rebels about five and a half minutes to make a cakewalk a nail-biter, and the game wasn't really over until an Ole Miss incompletion on 4th-and-5 at the Bama 43 with 1:01 left. Ole Miss might be, as Year 2 likes to call them, the best 3-4 team in the country -- but it's still a team that the Next Great Alabama Champions should be able to handle with ease. They didn't.

Again, this is all well and good when the Tide plays Kentucky and the Rebels. But LSU, or even a nothing-to-lose Tennessee team, would love nothing more than a late-game opportunity to knock Alabama out of the BCS picture.

PHIL FULMER HAS A JOB -- FOR NOW
Tennessee 34, Mississippi State 3

Not since South Carolina defeated N.C. State back on the first night of the season has there been such a deceptive score. In fact, the Vols' "blowout" might be even less impressive than the Gamecocks' margin over the Wolfpack; Tennessee added 21 points in the fourth quarter, 14 of them the direct result of Bulldog turnovers, to put a once-close game out of reach.

We'll deal more with Sylvester Croom's somewhat bizarre play-calling later, in Theorems and Stratagems of the Game. Suffice it to say, Tyson Lee is not Tom Brady, and that sentence should really never need to be written.

But the Vols might have found something in Lennon Creer, who is not a former member of the Weather Underground but a running back who carried the ball 12 times for 51 yards on Tennessee's final scoring drive. The only other players to touch the ball during that drive were the center who snapped the ball and Nick Stephens as he handed it to Creer.

Fulmer keeps his job, if only for another week. So much for the magical powers of CROOM.

SOMEONE ELSE'S TURN TO RALLY
Kentucky 21, Arkansas 20

Eventually, when you have to rally late to beat Western Illinois and Louisiana-Monroe, you know the karma's going to catch up. For the Arkansas Razorbacks, who might have thought around halftime Saturday that their season was salvagable, that moment came later that night.

Kentucky looked dead after a 14-0 first half for Arkansas. Then again when UK QB Mike Hartline threw a deep pass to Ramon Broadway, who is notably not a member of the Wildcats, ending a drive that had moved near midfield with 5:45 left.

But Arkansas fumbled on the next play, Hartline completed two straight passes covering 41 yards for a touchdown to make the score 20-14, and Arkansas could manage only a three-and-out that actually lost five yards. When Kentucky took over with 2:50 left, it was only a matter of time: two more passes, and it was 21-20 Wildcats. The hero of the night was Randall Cobb, purportedly a quarterback, who caught both touchdowns on 32- and 21-yard strikes.

For Arkansas, this was a back-breaker. They might -- might -- be favored against Mississippi State on Nov. 22; even the Tulsa game, which probably looked like a good idea when it was scheduled, is a likely loss. For Kentucky, now 5-2, the dreams of a bowl are beginning to look more and more like reality: Two more likely wins remain, and the prospects for a victory over Vanderbilt have brightened considerably.

Saturday night, the Wildcats made a comeback beyond the scoreboard.