Hogs answer offensive questions during loss to Tide

FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas Coach Chad Morris, quarterback Ty Storey and tight end Cheyenne O’Grady answered the same question in much the same fashion.

How did this Razorbacks’ offense that needed a touchdown with less than a minute left to lose — 44-17 against North Texas on Sept. 15 — score 31 Saturday on nationally No. 1 Alabama?

Arkansas lost, 65-31 to the reigning national champion, but the Razorbacks’ 31 points and 405 yards total offense mark the most points scored and most yards netted against Nick Saban’s 6-0 Crimson Tide this season.

Quite a feat considering those Alabama opponents include Louisville, coached by former Arkansas genius-in-residence Bobby Petrino, offensively explosive Texas A&M and the Ole Miss Rebels. Ole Miss, 4-2 visiting Arkansas this Saturday night in Little Rock, has scored 76, 70, 47, and 38 in its victories but was Tidal waved, 62-7.

What turned Arkansas’ offensive tide against the Tide?

Time. Time finally came on his side, new Arkansas Coach Morris explained.

“When you coach offensive football it takes time to create continuity,” Morris said. “It takes time to create consistency. And you go through growing pains. You find out who you thought was your playmaker maybe needs to be put at another position. It’s been a process and I think it will continue to be a process.”

Cohesive teamwork is stressed both sides of the ball but it’s essential offensively, about every football coach on any level will assert.

Occasionally, it can take just one on defense to make a play even if the other 10 don’t fulfill assignments.

Offensively, 10 of 11 can play as one yet by the miscreant one become undone.

Arkansas’ offensive occurrences undone by one have decreased, O’Grady said.

“Everybody’s starting to get it,” O’Grady said. “In the past there would be one person that would mess up on their assignment whether it be a receiver, an O-lineman, a running back missing a guy to block. Somebody would always mess up. I feel like we’re really coming together now.”

As for the quarterback, the Storey line starts with the line.

While Alabama’s defensively certainly pressured and harassed him, the Tide sacked him but once. Storey completed 25 of 39 for 230 yards and two touchdowns.

Backup quarterback-become-goal-line specialist Cole Kelley passed a 3-yard touchdown and ran a 1-yard touchdown. The line paved the road to to 172 net rushing yards 102 by running back Rakeem Boyd

“I feel like the line is playing really well,” Storey said. “They come in every day, keep working hard and they are giving us time back there and that’s all you can ask for.”

Given the line’s lack of depth from the end of spring ball since exacerbated by injuries, it was a stellar performance.

“We gave up one sack against one of the best defensive fronts in all of college football,” Morris said. “Those guys kept battling. They’re a lot of the reason we improved so much offensively.”