Arkansas Sports 360 - ArkansasSports360.com

10/23/2010 at 10:00pm

Image by Mark Wagner

Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt (right) and Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino shake hands following the Razorbacks' 38-24 victory on Saturday.

FAYETTEVILLE - If Houston Nutt needed any reminder that a lot of Arkansas fans still are unhappy with him, he heard it on the way to the locker room after Ole Miss' 38-24 loss to the Razorbacks on Saturday.

Maybe it's what the New York Yankees hear on the road, like maybe they experienced Friday night. Lose the deciding series game against the Texas Rangers and STILL get booed as they leave the field. Some teams, and some men, wear a bull's-eye they don't see.

There they were in the light drizzle, the fans who had hung around through two weather delays (SEC-mandated halting of the game because of lightning in the area) and who had made their way to the southwest corner of Reynolds Razorback Stadium to get in one last boo at the man who coached Arkansas for 10 seasons. Probably less than half of the announced 73,619 fans were still around when the final seconds ran out, and the ones who weren't worried about the Rebels coach were wondering just what to make of the Razorback performance they'd just seen.

The anti-Nutt crowd no doubt fretted throughout the fourth quarter, though, when Arkansas' seeming control of the contest was gone. After leading at one point 21-0 and still up 18 points by halftime, the Razorbacks let Ole Miss climb back to within seven points twice in the second half. They may have been thinking those two weather delays were a gift from the heavens, designed to disrupt Arkansas' early momentum and give Nutt just the opening he needed to steal one.

The Little Rock native and one-time wunderkind high school quarterback always been like that, a lot of good fortune on his side, it seems. Nutt admitted later he thought the delays helped his team more.

The Rebels were about to answer another Knile Davis scoring run when the the Arkansas defense stiffened on two plays at the goal line, and Brandon Bolden fumbled the ball away on a third-down run try out of the "Wild Rebel."

We tried to stay away from second-guessing the Ole Miss play-calling at the goal line after the game, but it still was odd that a secondary so exposed as Arkansas' would not get one pass thrown against it with the ball that close to the end zone. It happened twice. The Rebels also let a golden opportunity slip away late in the first half after D.J. Shackelford's fumble runback to the Hogs 3. Three straight runs netted a loss of 2 yards and led to Bryson Rose's 22-yard field goal, Ole Miss' only points of the first half.

Even worse, Arkansas quarterback Ryan Mallett handed the Rebels a gift on his first snap of the game, throwing a pass directly into the hands of Ole Miss linebacker Allen Walker, who set his offense up at the UA 28. Even there, Ole Miss went backward on first down for a loss of 2, and on third down quarterback Jeremiah Masoli was hit by defensive end Jake Bequette and fumbled it away to the Hogs back at the UA 35.

This sounds a whole lot like the opportunities the Razorbacks squandered two weeks ago in Arlington, Texas, against Texas A&M. But Arkansas still managed to win that game; and, on Saturday, Arkansas had just enough offense - surprisingly nearly as much from the running game as from its passing attack thanks to Davis' 176 yards on 22 carries and three TDs - to put up 38 points and leave Nutt and the Rebels lamenting missed chances.

Afterward, for the third year in a row, Petrino barely acknowledged Nutt at midfield in the traditional coaches' handshake, leaving the Rebels coach more time to visit with Mallett and offer good wishes. Whatever is between the two head coaches will remain there; neither discusses what might lie in Petrino's apparent dislike for his predecessor. Nutt seems to approach Petrino every year like he's expecting more than a gruff handslap and a quick turn to the locker room.

"We won the first two games, and we came in today expecting to win a third time," Nutt told the media a few minutes later. The difference, particularly as Arkansas built its 21-point edge in the first half, was the inexperience in Ole Miss' offensive line, which had to suit Arkansas' defenders better than Auburn's strong, veteran unit did last week. The Hogs' front blew Ole Miss blockers backward at times. Bequette, with no tackles last week, was all over Masoli in run attempts up the middle.

Those carries that Cam Newton took last week for huge chunks of yardage weren't there for the former Oregon starting quarterback, Masoli, on Saturday. Most of his success came scrambling in the passing game to the outside.

But safely in front after one half, Arkansas allowed Ole Miss to rally, and quickly, because of its technically unsound corner coverage and a sudden rash of bad tackling. Sending a safety into run coverage left a lot of man-to-man situations in the secondary that the Hogs' veterans simply blew on numerous times. Arkansas did its best to make the previously unheralded Markeith Summers look like an All-American, allowing him 3 receptions for 104 yards. Media went rushing to their rosters or press guides Saturday to also to check the correct spelling of Rebels receiver Ja-Mes Logan, who had five catches for 84 yards. Masoli actually threw for more yards (327) than Arkansas' Mallett and Wilson, who combined for 267.

Ole Miss was supposed to be the team without a competent secondary. High school secondaries cover better than Arkansas' did in the second half, and the Rebels exposed it. Did they just start too late?

"We wanted to do it in the first half, but we had too many three-and-outs and didn't get enough opportunities," Nutt said. "The game plan in the first half was the same as it was in the second half. We did better in our execution at times in the second half."

Masoli, who said he watched in admiration Thursday night as his former team, the No. 2-ranked Oregon Ducks, laid a 60-13 whipping on UCLA, said that the Rebels tried to establish a little more of a running game early on. "We saw we had some opportunities to go deep on them in the second half."

So, Arkansas won but still left everyone wondering if the defense is good enough to handle the likes of South Carolina, Mississippi State and LSU, not to mention Vanderbilt here next week. Houston Nutt and the Rebels headed home, back to the drawing board, to find out how to stop missing opportunities that have plagued them through a 1-3 SEC start and 3-4 overall.

At least the next time Nutt has to talk about coaching against his former team, it will be a more accurate assessment saying some of the animosity has worn off - not all of it, to be sure, but a lot of it. Arkansas' supporters should feel better finally enjoying a win over Nutt's program. Any more wins aren't going to come easy, just as Saturday's game showed.

Tagged: Houston Nutt, Bobby Petrino, Ole Miss Rebels