Arkansas Sports 360 - ArkansasSports360.com

10/15/2010 at 2:10pm

Arkansas is headed for a showdown against Auburn, the first time in which both have been nationally ranked, and the first time that the Razorbacks could lead with their defense.

That’s right. Remember that team that gave up five to six big plays per game for Bobby Petrino’s first two seasons at Fayetteville? The big play bleeding has been stemmed, less than half what it used to be.

The Hogs just played three diverse offensive teams: Georgia, Alabama and Texas A&M. Those opponents had 37 meaningful possessions and scored 11 times, or a ratio of three times out of 10. Only eight of the 11 were touchdowns. Only three of the eight TDs were the fruit of long drives (65 yards or more).

Conventional statistics tell you how many yards a team gets credit for, as a sum of running plays and passing plays. Those do not tell you 1) how many yards did they get to keep, and 2) how many yards did they have in front of them.

Georgia, 'Bama and A&M had a lot of yards in front of them. On average, they started drives at their own 26. Their possible yards (total starting distance from the goal line) equal 2,744. They gained 1,058, or 39 percent of the available yards.

Over the years, a good offense tends to gain more than 50 percent of the possible yards; conversely, a good defense holds opponents below 50 percent. For Arkansas’ defense to average 39 percent against three major opponents, well, it’s simply the most exciting development of the 2010 football Razorbacks. The Hogs wouldn’t have gone 2-1 and come so close to 3-0 in those games without it.

On the other hand, Arkansas has needed the good defense far more than expected.

The Razorbacks outgained and outscored their three good opponents only a little, 13 scores in 37 possessions, nine touchdowns and four field goals.

The Hogs have been more potent, averaging 6.2 yards per play compared with opponents’ 5.1. Official stats would put Arkansas at 6.9 yards per play – but it lost 0.7 to penalties. Arkansas’ offense accumulated almost 5 times as many 5-yard penalties as Auburn’s did, on a comparable basis.

Nobody expected this team, with a veteran-laden offense and suspect defense, to have so much difficulty moving the football. Penalties help to explain why Arkansas gained only 45 percent of its possible yards in the three important games. Erratic performance in the ground game is another reason why the Hogs cannot sustain more drives. About a half of Arkansas’ rushing attempts gained little to nothing, or went backwards.

The available running backs, diminished by the injury to Dennis Johnson, must not be versatile enough to escape limited roles. Broderick Green has twice as many carries, and half the yardage, of the team’s leading rusher, Knile Davis. Green plays for better pass protection, and Arkansas calls passes 60 percent of the time. Ronnie Wingo comes in chiefly as a receiving threat, and he’s great at it, but his handoffs have been few. With these limitations, Petrino might as well signal his plays in Semaphore.

Perhaps inevitably, Petrino has to rely on quarterback Ryan Mallett to change plays or blocking calls right before the snap. This is the only way the offense can regain some of the flexibility that is lost when substitutions bring unavoidable limitations. But if a good blocker isn’t in the game, it’s hard to switch into something that requires pass protection. Green isn’t the guy to run a draw play to take advantage of a blitz. Mallett can only do so much with this, which might explain why his changes take so long – and often result in false-start or delay penalties.

Thus far, the Arkansas formula for success has been:

* Run a carefully scripted first possession and take an early lead.

* Pull off a brilliant two-minute drill at the end of the first half.

* Try to run the last 30 minutes off the clock.

Arkansas punted 12 times in the second halves of the Georgia, 'Bama and A&M games. Only one of those was against the Tide, but two other possessions ended with turnovers. First half punts? Six. And several more turnovers.

Even with Mallett completing almost 70 percent of his passes, it has been too easy for defenses to manage the Hogs into third and long. Arkansas lately has been running more than a quarter of its offensive plays on third down. A team like Auburn has to carefully plot to create play-action openings for its run-first passer Cam Newton, but the Tigers have a lot easier time sustaining drives. The Newton-led ground threat is diverse with an excellent risk/reward balance, enabling Auburn to face a third down in just one of every six plays.

Third down has been where the Hogs defensively have feasted. The defense forced 38 third-down passes the past three games and stopped almost two-thirds of them. Against the run, not so good - stopped about one-third. Running backs and running QBs gained robust yards against the Razorbacks. This wasn’t a bigger deal, because Arkansas was ahead on the scoreboard most of the time.

The opponent that can afford to keep running against the Razorbacks, probably will.

At that point, Arkansas will need its still-fearsome offensive Death Star to reappear, fully operational (though that might have to wait till the Ole Miss Rebels come to town).

Randy Reece is a former sportswriter from Northwest Arkansas who crunches the key numbers for a living.

Tagged: Auburn Tigers, Randy Reece, Bobby Petrino, Ryan Mallett