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9.10.2022 BEST OF THE WEB according to PFF, and Jackson had the best run defense mark (74.9). "We've got to be the more technically sound team if we want to win," Domineck said. "That's just us, and I know we can do that. We have the potential to do that, and that's what we're striving for every day." DON'T PRESS During Pittman's appearance at the Hawgs Illustrated Sports Club on Aug. 24, he mentioned a number of times the valuable lesson learned from the Razorbacks' 38-23 home loss to Auburn last season. Time and time again he referenced pressing when he didn't need to. Since then, Pittman appears to have grown as an in-game manager. The opener against Cincinnati was a great example. Arkansas on more than one occasion was faced with a fourth-down decision near midfield. Some coaches may have opted to keep their offense on the field. Likely to the dismay of some in Reynolds Razorback Stadium, Pittman chose to punt. The decisions to keep the game moving, trust his players to do their jobs and not give the Bearcats momentum were sound then and in hindsight. That is not to say Pittman will never give the keys to KJ Jefferson and the offense on fourth down, but he recognized in those moments that the time was not right to go for broke. So long as Arkansas' defense does what it is supposed to, the offense — possibly with advantageous field position — will get another crack at finding the end zone. "Just stay in the game," Pittman said. "Let them mess it up, because we're not going to." Expect the same mindset from Pittman on Saturday and throughout the season. Cincinnati's mistakes cost itself a win. South Carolina was not without error last week, and Pittman is certainly aware. 3RD DOWNS Glancing at the third-down efficiency numbers from Arkansas' first win, Pittman was fairly pleased to see that the Razorbacks converted on half of their 16 opportunities. Passing the ball, Jefferson was 8 of 10 for 84 yards on third down, and Arkansas carried 6 times for 64 yards and 4 first downs in those scenarios. The 50% figure was a vast improvement over last season when the Razorbacks' conversion rate sat under 37%. Pittman, though, is shooting for additional progress in Week 2. He would like Arkansas to finish in the 60% range each week. "(That) is not that bad depending on the distance," he said of the Week 1 numbers. "We certainly made some key third downs and a lot of them were catches. Trey (Knox) had a nice one, Warren Thompson had a really nice one and of course KJ had some nice runs in there. "I thought the offensive staff did a good job with their short- yardage game plan." On the flip side, the Bearcats converted 8 of 16 third-down attempts, too. Pittman noted Wednesday that getting off the field on third down was an emphasis in practices this week. Bryant hit 8 of 13 throws for 109 yards on third down alone. Cincinnati was also 3 of 4 on third-and-short. "We're working on it. We'd like to be, certainly, much lower than that," Pittman said. "That's really what we've been doing this entire week. We do have good players. We just have to clean the details up to be more successful." Georgia State finished 5 of 17 on third down at South Carolina last week. The Gamecocks were 3 of 14. CONTAINMENT Which defense will do a better job when the quarterback gets outside the pocket? Pittman called South Carolina's Rattler one of the best he has seen throwing on the move. "We have to keep him inside the pocket because when he gets outside the pocket, he's as accurate of a quarterback as I've seen in a long, long time," Pittman said. "He'll hurt you. "I can see why Coach Beamer went to get him. He's an excellent player and he's got a strong arm and can run. The same thing I saw at Oklahoma on his tape is the same thing we're seeing here after one game at South Carolina." It would not surprise if Arkansas defensive coordinator Barry Odom consulted his brother during South Carolina game preparation. Brian Odom, now the inside linebackers coach at Southern Cal, was a defensive assistant at Oklahoma the previous three seasons and schemed against Rattler in practices. Rattler completed 23 of 37 passes for 226 yards and 1 touchdown, and was intercepted twice during his first game with the Gamecocks. Aside from sacks he only had one rushing attempt for six yards. Jefferson is difficult to defend, Beamer said, for a number of reasons: the ability to break tackles, but also the ability to keep his eyes downfield when it appears he might run the ball. Jefferson completed 18 of 26 passes for 223 yards and, when adjusted for sacks, rushed for 81 yards on 16 attempts against Cincinnati. Beamer said there is no way to prepare for Jefferson's size and skillset in practice. "We'd have to take a defensive end and make him a quarterback," Beamer said. WR BLOCKING Two of Arkansas' touchdowns against Cincinnati were aided by great blocks from wide receivers. Jefferson's 15-yard touchdown run in the first quarter included a pancake block by Matt Landers that helped create an angle to the end zone. In the fourth quarter, Trey Knox caught a pass near the line of scrimmage, got a block from Ketron Jackson to seal to the sideline and ran 32 yards for the score. "We really have emphasized that big time at practice and we even have perimeter drills and just things about blocking and strain," Pittman said. "If we're going to tell the defense to they've got to run to the ball, we've got to continue to play hard on offense and all those type things, and both of (those blocks) were really big." Landers' block on Jefferson's touchdown run caught the eye of Beamer, who was on the Georgia staff when Landers played for the Bulldogs. "Landers is over there on the sideline and kicks the DB's butt to allow Jefferson to get into the end zone," Beamer said. "They do a great job on the perimeter." RB ADDITIONS Both teams might add running backs for this week's game. Dominique Johnson, who rushed for 575 yards and led the Razorbacks with seven rushing touchdowns last season, appears to be a game- time decision. Johnson has been working his way back from an off-season knee injury and did not play in last week's opener, but has increased his workload in practice this week. Pittman said Johnson has improved over the past 10 or so days. "I think we still have two pretty good days that he can build some confidence and see if he's ready to play or not," Pittman said Wednesday. "To be honest with you, right now, it's kind of up to him." South Carolina is expected to add Christian Beal-Smith back to the lineup. Beal-Smith suffered what Beamer referred to as a foot or ankle injury during preseason practice. Beal-Smith transferred to South Carolina from Wake Forest during the offseason. He led the Demon Deacons with 604 rushing yards and seven touchdowns last season while splitting carries with two other backs. Beamer said Beal-Smith's size and experience will benefit the Gamecocks. "He produced at Wake Forest and had a lot of really big games," Beamer said. "We could certainly use his maturity and his experience." Keys n Continued from Page 2 Here are some selected comments from the message boards at wholehogsports.com. WHY COULDN'T THE CINCINNATI PLAYERS KEEP THEIR HELMETS ON? Jimbeau77: Cincy won the flying helmets stat by a long shot. Maybe a new all- time record. But I don't think the flying helmet should count when a player is just celebrating and shaking his helmet off. Have to dock that one. Irunalot: The new flopping, just enough to get us out of our tempo. SwineFusion: Flying helmets cost them their quarterback for the first play of the fourth quarter. Guys just don't keep their helmets very tight any more. Maybe it's a safety thing, I dunno, but when I played, my helmet barely went on my head and pulling the sides apart to get the helmet off took some effort. There was no way I could have shaken my head and gotten my helmet to fly off. Docestes: Well way back when, the equipment room at DeWitt High School didn't offer a lot of options. I had to stack a second ear pad on the existing one and tape it in to make it fit snugly. Otherwise it would have flopped around on my head like a fish. And then it was a bit of a pain to get on and off as it was so snug. So it never came off until halftime and end of game. LDhog: At Dollarway Junior High (1964) we inherited the high school helmets. I cracked two in the 7th grade before getting a better one. They were cheap and old. We did have face masks. Agingalum: Malvern High, 1964. I don't remember any of us losing a helmet that year or any previous year. Maybe the game was not as "violent" back then, but our helmets fit very snugly. Redpig: Back in my playing days, we used a modified leather helmet in junior high that evolved some by high school in the fall of '53 thru '55. No face masks. FANS WERE ENERGIZED WHEN ARKANSAS NEVER GAVE THE BALL BACK FOR THE LAST FIVE MINUTES OF THE GAME. Votan: I was very happy to see that with five minutes and change left in the game and all we had to was line up and drain the clock, we were able to do it. When everyone in the stadium knows all your going to do is run and you still manage three first downs to basically end the game, well … that's a great thing. To be conditioned and physical enough that late in the game that you can just plow the row is beautiful to me. coloradohog: Went a long way toward winning the game. LDhog: Reminded me of when Sam Pittman was our offense line coach. ScottieBordelon: To wrap up his presser, Sam said that "was priceless." Beamed with pride about it. HOW WAS THE DEFENSE SATURDAY? HogDoctor: I'm trying to temper my concern with the fact that we faced a previous year CFP team with good talent, but I'm worried. …Didn't seem to get a pass rush/pressure often with just four. Their quarterback missed some wide open passes that easily could have lost us the game. Our coverage seemed porous at times. Let's hope the injury report is good after this week because backups looked shaky at times. Especially hope Jalen Catalan and Myles Slusher bounce back. We need both of them and our D dropped off when they had to leave the game. I'm chalking up this defense's performance to first game jitters/working through injury bug to important players and I think our opponent today was a very good team. gashog: I thought our secondary stood out as a concern. I think they will get better, but I also think several of them have a quickly approaching ceiling. If we lose a couple we are toast. Bikehog23: Shoot, we had players on the field I was scrambling to remember ever hearing of them. Definitely hope the secondary injuries aren't serious. tuschhawg: Well, you could say the good news in our porous, inexperienced secondary is that we have lots of film on them for corrections. Clay Henry is fond of reminding us there is maximum improvement between first and second games. danny: We beat a Top 25 team, who played a fifth year senior at quarterback who passed for a 140 efficiency rating and 3,000 yards last year, playing behind an experienced offensive line (guys who played in the playoff championship last year). I was not surprised at all that they threw the ball well. I was also very impressed and a bit surprised by their team speed. Cincy was very good competition. A good game for learning. southpaw: From what you saw Saturday, do you think (defensive line play) has improved? I'm not convinced, but Cincinnati's offensive line has a good reputation. Danny: I think Cincy's O-line was solid, maybe as good as many in the SEC. They looked pretty good against us. I did not see anything particularly glaring good about our pass rush. I thought our defensive line handled the run well. armyhog: We also need to look at the number of players that took reps on the D-line. Live game action and reps is what it takes to improve and our Hogs played a good team. In my opinion the caliber of your opponent helps you identify weakness to where you can correct issues and I'm proud the Hogs played a good opening game. A cupcake wouldn't have helped a bit. ClayHenry: The pass rush won the game. Jordan Domineck's strip sack was the play of the game. There were three sacks and three pressures against a good OL that also held in tight ends to protect. We will see how it goes against an empty backfield against South Carolina quarterback Spencer Rattler. South Carolina used a lot of empty backfield sets with five wide in the opener. danny: If that's "a" pass rush won the game, I concur. That was a great, athletic play. I think the overall pass rush was handled well by Cincy, especially considering that they lost their starting center. I don't mean disrespect, I think Cincy has a pretty salty O-line, it's just I didn't see an overall advantage on our side. jihawg: I think the defensive line is becoming one of our strengths. Check back after Saturday. nlrbuzzard: Rattler got pressured quite a bit against Georgia State. I think he got sacked three times and pressured three or four more. …One of the problems for South Carolina in that game was they did not run the ball very well. Rattler did not take off and run much. I would expect they will try more QB runs against us. They did throw to their backs some. We need to clean up defending wheel routes, though if SC does not run the ball better it will be harder to get those route open. HOW MUCH CAN ARKANSAS' OFFENSE IMPROVE? youdaman: I think they have a whole lot more in the tank. I was very surprised we did not come back to wide receiver Matt Landers more than we did. We only threw one or two balls to Warren Thompson, who supposedly had an unbelievable camp. We never targeted Ketron Jackson. We can get the ball to Jaden Hazelwood way more than we did. The best thing that happened to this offense to me was now teams better be aware of where number 7 (Trey Knox) is, which is going to open up the field for everybody else. eurohog: It must say something, then, about Cincinnati's defense that we were able to beat a ranked team on Week One without resorting to anything fancy. Well, that jump pass was borderline trickery. But the opposite was also true as Cincy kept it close. We must improve that coverage, even without Myles Slusher and Jalen Catalon. FANS PREDICT THE FINAL SCORE OF SATURDAY'S GAME WITH SOUTH CAROLINA … sweetchildofswine: I think we beat them pretty good. They looked bad last week (outside of special teams). I know they'll improve but so will we. Hogs, 34-17. woodhog14: Cincy is better that South Carolina. Hogs 38, Gamecocks 17. Gentryrzrbk: Hogs 38, Chickens 17. RickB: I see a theme here. Ima say Hogs 38, Baby Chicks 17. Harleyhawgidson: Breakout offensive game for hus, Hogs, 45-27. Pavlovhog: No Chik-fil-A, KFC or Popeyes around here. Hogs 18.6, Rooster Boosters 10. youdaman: Hogs, 34-20. bayouhog: 40-21. tuschawg: Hogs 31-21. LDhog: Hogs 40, Chickens 14. Terry Hampton visits Spencer Rattler early and often. jimbeau77: 33-20, Hogs. Not really that close. Chickens just get a late score. lilhawg: Wish I was as confident as most of you. I think it will be close in the fourth quarter. We pull it out with a late interception, 31-27. georgiahawg: Hogs 24-20. Game will be closer than we want and we are still making mistakes we will need to cleanup before the Texas A&M game. Fourth quarter touchdown drive ensures the win and Cam Little makes a 57-plus yard field goal in the first half. JACK_KING: Razorbacks win, 31-21. white25: Arkansas 18, USC 13. Hogs nip the Chicks in a defensive struggle. NOW HIRING QUALIFIED THERAPISTS & ESTHETICIANS Thanks for voting us the Best of the Best! FAYETTEVILLE 3557 North Shiloh Drive 479-571-3689 ROGERS 2603 W Pleasant Grove Rd 479-633-8340 Monday-Saturday 8 am-8 pm | Sunday 10 am-8 pm *Offer valid for first-time guests only. All session times include a total of 10 minutes of time for consultation and dressing, which occurs pre and post-service. Additional taxes and fees may apply. Each location is independently owned and operated. ©2021 ME SPE Franchising, LLC. All rights reserved. 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