Arkansas Business

This story is from the archives of ArkansasSports360.com.

We're frankly surprised John L. Smith hasn’t said it yet, because every other football coach who has memorized the key job clichés, especially if he's losing, always says, “Statistics are for losers.”

Yes, we understand ultimately the only numbers that matter are under "Home" and "Visitor" on the scoreboard, and no matter what stat shows Arkansas with an edge, the Razorbacks are 1-3 and nothing will change that.

But Arkansas comes up lacking in enough statistics to explain a lot as to why they're losing like this.

Last Friday, we noted that Arkansas could not continue to trail by such a great margin (minus-10) in turnover margin and expect to win. That area grew worse in the Rutgers game, putting Arkansas at the bottom of the country at minus-12 in takeaway margin, as the Scarlet Knights never turned the ball over while the Hogs had two interceptions. One of those picks cost Arkansas a scoring chance in the 35-26 loss.

Arkansas and its four opponents each have seven sacks on the season. Arkansas was credited with a sack in the Rutgers game when Knights quarterback Gary Nova was flagged for intentional grounding. Ends have contributed four of the Hogs' seven sacks. Interestingly, though the Hogs have 23 total tackles for loss, neither of Arkansas' starting safeties, Eric Bennett or Rohan Gaines, has a tackle behind the line of scrimmage. Obviously they aren't in a lot of help situations for the cornerbacks either. Where are they? (If you bothered to watch the LSU-Auburn game Saturday, you saw safeties on both sides making key plays behind the line all game).

Arkansas has scored 11 of 14 times inside the Red Zone. That’s a positive over four games, even though it was a glaring failure against Rutgers.

Opponents are just 15 of 23 in the Red Zone. Seems the much-maligned defense is doing something right some of the time.

All of those 15 scores in 23 Red Zone attempts, however, are touchdowns. Paul Haynes begs his defense to stiffen and force more field goals. The defense did that three times on Saturday, and Rutgers missed two field goals in the process. The Hogs managed to jump offside on the third field goal, which was made, and the Scarlet Knights gained a first down and then a touchdown on the first play.

There is no statistic for costly dumb plays, but that would be one. The Hogs also showed undisciplined moments on defense when D.D. Jones blasted a lineman after a procedure penalty had been called, and late in the game Jones added to the meltdown mode when he slapped a Rutgers lineman in the head.

Arkansas has been penalized 23 times for 179 yards, or an average of 44.8 per game. That’s 18 yards less than opponents. However, Arkansas’ penalties have been more silly and undisciplined than the result of excessive physical effort — bad pass coverage for interference, untimely offsides and procedure calls by linemen, etc. Arkansas doesn’t play with enough passion, it seems, to get a helmet-to-helmet flag or a penalty for nailing a defenseless receiver. The Hogs don’t get to the quarterback quickly enough to earn a roughing-the-passer call.

Arkansas is trailing in first downs, 98 to 78, in per-game rushing yardage (146.5 to 97.8) and even in passing yardage, where one would have expected the Hogs to excel (312.2 to 294.8).

Oddly, though, Arkansas is average more yards per play than opponents (6.2 to 5.7). That’s including a dismal 3.3 yards per rush, which is well below such previous lows as the 3.8 yards per rush in what otherwise was a great 1998 season.