Hogs need BYU win, then bye week

FAYETTEVILLE — Seems unfathomable for the Arkansas Razorbacks looking beyond Saturday’s nonconference game at previously 16th-ranked Brigham Young to next week’s Oct. 22 open date.

You almost could excuse them if they do.

“We’ve got to get healthy,” Arkansas Coach Sam Pittman said Saturday on the Razorbacks’ Radio Network post the Razorbacks’ 40-17 SEC West loss at 23rd-ranked Mississippi State. “Obviously we play a big game at BYU (in Provo, Utah) next week. We’ve got to find a way to win that game and then have an off week and hopefully get some of our players back.”

To Arkansas’ injury plight, teams will chorus “Cry Me a River.”

It’s midseason college football. Every team aches.

Look around the SEC. Four teams started backup quarterbacks last Saturday because their starting quarterbacks were injured the previous week.

Arkansas star quarterback KJ Jefferson, head injury in the Oct. 1 loss at Alabama, was among the idled.

Arkansas did not lose in Starkville, Miss. because of quarterbacking. Transfer Cade Fortin, practicing the best last week, Pittman said, started but was replaced on the second series by 2021 backup Malik Hornsby. Hornsby didn’t play perfectly, two fourth-quarter interceptions and an on the goal-line zinged incomplete fastball when a changeup might have scored. But he played admirably.

Well enough to win off 8 of 17 for 234 yards and a touchdown passing and a team-leading 114 rushing on eight carries.

A rash of secondary injuries, starting with the season- ender in the season- opener to 2020 All-American Jalen Catalon, proved most primary. Nickel back/safety Myles Slusher stayed home injured. Battle field promoted reserves Jayden Johnson and Khari Johnson were injury felled Saturday.

Genius acclaimed when his plan in Starkville of just pass rushing three and dropping eight back, foiled 2020 former Mississippi State quarterback KJ Costello, 21-14 the week after Costello set a SEC record 623 passing yards defeating then reigning national champion LSU, and beating MSU star quarterback Will Rogers and the Bulldogs 31-28 last year in Fayetteville, Arkansas defensive coordinator Barry Odom now catches criticism for that plan last Saturday.

Odom so 2022 amped the pass rush with four down lineman and versatile transfer linebacker Drew Sanders that Arkansas was leading the SEC in sacks. But with Rogers difficult to sack because of his ultra-quick release and the depleted secondary needing help, Sanders stayed in coverage.

The running game that Mississippi State has now but didn’t in 2020 and 2021, plus Rogers, outstanding and enhanced by Arkansas near misses on four possible interceptions become none, proved too much.

So did Arkansas’ offensive inability to convert fourth and short.

“We couldn’t convert situations and they did,” Pittman said.

Last year’s 9-4 Hogs overcame a 3-game losing streak.

Can these 3-3 Hogs?

“We need a bye week,” Pittman said. “But we don’t have that. We have BYU Saturday. We’ll go up there and we’ll believe we’re going to win. That’s just how it is.”