Hogs left to pick up the pieces

FAYETTEVILLE — For the third time in four years the Arkansas Razorbacks are picking up the pieces off a SEC overtime loss to Texas A&M.

This time coach Bret Bielema’s 1-2 Razorbacks pick up pieces upon losing their best and most experienced receiver/punt returner perhaps for the season while their defense must recover confidence lost after gaining it in their previous game.

Senior receiver/returner Jared Cornelius injured his leg during the

50-43 overtime loss to the Aggies Saturday at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, and “It doesn’t look good,” Bielema said Saturday after the game, noting that it possibly involved his Achilles heel.

The coach is expected to elaborate on Cornelius’ status today when he, offensive coordinator Dan Enos and defensive coordinator Paul Rhoads meet with media.

Since Cornelius missed the Belk Bowl last December due to an injury sustained during the Razorbacks’ loss at Missouri, he missed spring ball with a pulled hamstring and most of the August preseason with a back injury rendering him ineffective during the 28-7 loss on Sept.

9 to TCU.

The leading returning receiver from 2016, 32 catches for 515 yards and 4 touchdowns, worked incessantly, losing 10 pounds through the open date week and A&M game week.

Cornelius came back in form against the Aggies with 3 catches, including a touchdown, for 35 yards after absorbing a helmet-to-helmet hit fielding the game’s first punt compelling the offending Aggie to be ejected for targeting.

But Cornelius would soon leave, too, unable to bear weight on his injured leg, a blow that is hard to bear for this struggling team.

It is a blow, but one they can overcome, insists Jonathan Nance, the junior college receiver stepping up against A&M to catch 3 passes netting 100 yards including a 44-yard touchdown from quarterback Austin Allen. Nance’s 49-yard catch from Allen netted Arkansas’ touchdown against the now 4-0 nationally ninth AP ranked TCU Horned Frogs.

“Jared is a big centerpiece to what we have going,” Nance said. “But we still have plenty of weapons. People are just going to have to step up and start making more plays and getting more reps.”

Many recruiting gurus regarded Nance as the Arkansas tag-along to more touted junior college teammate receiver Brandon Martin, but due to various injuries, Martin still hasn’t played a Razorbacks game.

Meanwhile Nance, 9 catches for

200 yards, leads the Razorbacks in receiving.

“He has really good hands,” Bielema said. “A very intelligent player and a guy that is deceptive. He can kind of pull away when that ball is in the air. I’m very excited about him.”

And while “crushed” by Saturday’s outcome, Bielema was excited to see his team, which was shut out in the second half of their last two

2016 games and against TCU this season, score 22 second-half points. Arkansas tallied four touchdowns from 6 yards or less against the Aggies, finally snapping a string of goal-line failures dating back to last year’s loss to Texas A&M.

Arkansas netting 226 rushing yards was a vast improvement for the line and the backs over the TCU game. And though sacked seven times, Allen never turned it over until A&M safety Armani Watts’ interception in overtime.

The Razorbacks’ defense, so effective for over three and a half quarters against TCU keeping that game at 14-7 until under the final 3:00 when the Horned Frogs scored twice, got burned big-time in Arlington by annual Arkansas nemesis Christian Kirk. The A&M junior receiver whose overtime touchdown catch beat Arkansas in 2015 and caught a TD last year, Kirk caught 5 passes for 110 yards Saturday including an 81-yarder from quarterback Kellen Mond for A&M’s first touchdown and the 10yard overtime TD that ultimately won the game.

In between on special teams Kirk returned a fourth-quarter kickoff for a 100-yard touchdown.

Mond hurt the Hogs passing,

12 of 25 for 229 yards with the two TDs to Kirk against an interception, and running, 10 for 109, while A&M running back Keith Ford netted 104 yards and 2 touchdowns on 14 totes.

The big plays that Arkansas’ defense stopped against TCU again bedeviled the Hogs when operated by the Aggies.

Now with all the coaches hotseat websites turning up the heat on Bielema’s seat, the Razorbacks are beset by another group of Aggies.

These are the New Mexico State Aggies coming to Reynolds Razorback Stadium for Saturday’s 11 a.m. SEC Network televised nonconfer- ence game.

And while these Aggies are from the Sun Belt and not the SEC, they lost only 37-31 in their Aug. 31 season-opener at the Arizona State. Arizona State knocked off then No. 24 Oregon last Saturday night while New Mexico State was trouncing UTEP, 41-14.

Arkansas fans did not start this season regarding these New Mexico State Aggies as a big game.

But they didn’t regard The Citadel in 1990, Louisiana-Monroe in 2012 and Toledo in 2014 as big games, either until Arkansas lost them.