Rushing toward success

Re- establishing run gets Hogs on track

FAYETTEVILLE — A couple of games into the season, many college football analysts were wondering where the Arkansas running game had gone.

The Razorbacks ran only 31 times for 103 yards in their 16- 12 loss to Toledo, causing offensive line coach Sam Pittman to declare, “You get what you emphasize. We’ve thrown 73 passes and we haven’t given up a sack, and we can’t run the ball.”

The Razorbacks rededicated themselves to the run the following week against Texas Tech, gaining 228 yards, and have had at least 213 rushing yards in five of their past six games heading into Saturday’s SEC West game at No. 18 Ole Miss.

That includes a seasonhigh 291 last week in a 63- 28 victory against Tennessee-Martin.

“Coach Pittman talks about swag- jo — mojo and swag combined — and we’ve kind of got our swagjo back,” offensive guard Frank Ragnow said. “The first couple of games we kind of lost our identity of who we are.”

The run of 200- yard games has allowed Arkansas to climb back to an average of 196 rushing yards per game, good for No. 4 in the SEC and No. 36 in the country.

“It’s got to be a part of what we do,” Arkansas Coach Bret Bielema said of having a dependable running attack. “We don’t function well as a whole if that’s not happening.”

Junior tailback Alex Collins ran for a season- best 173 yards and five touchdowns last week to surge into 16th place in the FBS with 120 rushing yards per game. Collins, with 960 yards, is 40 yards short of hitting the 1,000- yard mark in each of his first three seasons.

“He’s one of the better ones I’ve been around,” Arkansas offensive coordinator Dan Enos said. “I’ve been around some good ones.

“He’s explosive. He runs hard. He’s very competitive and very determined. Those are some really good characteristics to some of the good backs that I’ve seen and been around.”

Running backs coach Jemal Singleton said Collins’ week of practice, following a two- fumble game against Auburn in which he rushed for 105 yards, was the key to his

production last week.

“You practice how you play, and you play how you practice,” Singleton said. “He was much more in tune and was doing the things we needed him to do and it showed up on Saturday.”

Collins’ 960 yards accounts for 61 percent of Arkansas’ rushing, a higher percentage than he had when paired with Jonathan Williams the past two seasons. With Williams out, freshman Rawleigh Williams managed 254 yards before needing neck surgery following an injury in Arkansas’ 54- 46 victory over Auburn. Kody Walker returned from a dislocated thumb two weeks back and has piled up 117 yards, and quarterback Brandon Allen has 115 yards.

Arkansas’ October surge — a 3- 1 record with the only loss coming at Alabama — coincided with a much more balanced approach after the Razorbacks piled up 720 passing yards to 285 rushing yards in the first two games.

“After that Toledo game we put a huge emphasis back on the running game, and I feel like that’s shown,” center Mitch Smothers said. “We weren’t talking about it enough prior to the Toledo game.”

Allen is No. 29 nationally with 254 passing yards per game, and the Arkansas passing game is No. 38 with 260 yards per game.

The Hogs’ running game, which was tied with Texas- El Paso at No. 89 in the country

with 142.5 yards per game after two weeks, has surged back to No. 36 in the nation.

Pittman said attacking the edge of defenses, with endarounds and other means, has helped produce what he called hidden yardage.

“When we couldn’t get the ball outside, we couldn’t run the ball,” Pittman said. “Now, as you see, we’re doing it with different people, including our tailbacks. But now we’re getting the ball outside, which has certainly loosened up the inside for us and took some of those safeties and moved them outside. And certainly you see we haven’t been blitzed nearly as much as we were in the past.”

Arkansas has run and passed for at least 200 yards in four of the past five games, with the 27- 14 loss at Alabama being the lone exception.

“We’ve got to be able to run the football and run it effectively,” Singleton said. “When you do, it opens up so many other things, whether it’s the play- action or even the dropback pass game. It’s a little bit easier to get some things going when you can run the football.”