SC 52, UA 7
Bielema: 45-point home loss ‘unacceptable’
Coach Bret Bielema leaves the field Saturday after the Razorbacks fell to South Carolina in Fayetteville.
FAYETTEVILLE — The annual Arkansas-South Carolina series opened in 1992 with a 45-7 Razorback rout on the road.
The interdivision series ended 22 games later with a switchback of epic proportions Saturday, a 52-7 romp by No. 14 South Carolina that marked Arkansas’ second-worst loss at Reynolds Razorback Stadium and the worst setback of Coach Bret Bielema’s career.
“Just unacceptable,” Bielema said. “I apologize to the homecoming crowd. Obviously they came out and wanted a good show.”
The final score, in front of a crowd of 66,302, could have been an exact reversal
of the series starter if not for a South Carolina touchdown with 67 seconds remaining, a final dagger of one-upmanship from Coach Steve Spurrier on a day when almost everything went right for his Gamecocks.
“I do feel badly for Arkansas,” Spurrier said. “It’s no fun getting your butt beat like this at home, homecoming and all that. They are not as strong a team as they were when they were kicking our tails the last three times I’ve been in here. Bret and his guys need to recruit their way out of it.”
South Carolina (5-1, 3-1) had looked vulnerable in its past couple of games, narrow escapes against Central Florida and Kentucky, giving Arkansas (3-4, 0-3) reason to think an upset could be brewing as the Hogs entered the game as a 5 1/2- point underdog.
The Gamecocks quashed that notion with a dominating performance. South Carolina ran 89 plays to Arkansas’ 37, outgained the Razorbacks 537-248 and kept the ball for 43:25 to Arkansas’ 16:35.
“Obviously our team played the best game we have all year,” Spurrier said. “Sometimes it is all a little misleading. We’re not that good, they’re not that bad. It really worked out for us today.”
The Razorbacks’ only worse loss was last year’s 52-0 defeat by No. 1 Alabama. Bielema’s worst previous loss had been a 48-7 setback to Penn State in 2008.
“I’ll tell you guys exactly what I told our team,” Bielema said. “Today is a day that you have to put in the memory bank and vow that you’ll never let it happen again.”
Arkansas picked up four first downs in its first nine offensive plays, then didn’t get its fifth until the final play of the third quarter, a span of more than 35 minutes.
“No one’s proud of how we played today,” Arkansas fullback Kiero Small said. “South Carolina played a great game. We played a terrible game.”
The unhappy homecoming could be encapsulated in two plays.
Arkansas’ Keon Hatcher was ruled to have fumbled at the end of a 50-yard run to the South Carolina 21 early in the third quarter. Then Alex Collins appeared headed for a score at the end of a 29-yard run in the fourth quarter, but the ball came loose on his dive for the pylon and rolled in the end zone and out of bounds for a touchback.
“I tried to reach into the end zone and I ended up losing it at the end,” said Collins, who ran for 69 yards on 10 carries.
Arkansas lost team defensive captain Robert Thomas, a senior tackle, in the third quarter with a leg injury that Bielema said included a broken bone that will put him out for a long time.
Arkansas’ Brandon Allen completed 4 of 12 passes for just 30 yards and threw his fourth interception in the past three games.
“It was very frustrating,” Allen said. “A lot of things didn’t go right. A lot of things weren’t clicking.”
Allen’s counterpart, senior Connor Shaw, completed 19 of 28 passes for 219 yards and 3 touchdowns and ran for a 10-yard score, a significant improvement over his last trip to Fayetteville when he was knocked out of the game by a crunching Jake Bequette sack in a 44-28 Arkansas victory.
“We knew we had to have a tough mentality playing on the road, and we really didn’t have that here two years ago,” Shaw said. “So we wanted to come in here and make a statement.”
South Carolina tailback Mike Davis, the SEC’s leading rusher, broke numerous tackles en route to 128 yards for his fifth 100-yard game of the season.
South Carolina, which had been struggling on defense, benched some defensive veterans like cornerback Victor Hampton to open the game and Arkansas capitalized.
The Razorbacks came out hot, jumping ahead on the game’s seventh snap on Collins’ 6-yard touchdown run. The series included a 20yard curl throw from Allen to Javontee Herndon to convert a third-and-8 that would be the Hogs’ only catch by a wide receiver.
Arkansas managed 184 yards the rest of the game, with turnovers on three of their nine remaining series of more than one play.
“They did a lot of good things really well,” Allen said. “We just weren’t able to do anything against them.”
The game-changer for the Gamecocks came moments after an Elliot Fry field goal pulled them within 7-3. On a first-and-19 after an Arkansas holding penalty, Hampton read a hitch route to D’Arthur Cowan, intercepted Allen’s pass at the 27 and returned it to the Hogs’ 6. Davis scored on the next snap to put South Carolina ahead and seemingly sap the will from the Razorbacks.
“It was just once adversity smacked us in the face, we didn’t know how to respond,” Arkansas linebacker Jarrett Lake said.