UA’s Martin receives indoctrination vs. Tide

Arkansas’ offense had eight more snaps (72) than top-ranked Alabama Saturday night but mustered only 227 yards.

That included only 27 rushing yards on 29 carries.

One positive for the Razorbacks in the 41-9 defeat was wide receiver Brandon Martin’s four catches for 34 yards. This came one week after his first collegiate catch went for 15 yards against South Carolina. Martin was the No. 1 junior college wide receiver in the nation out of Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College but sidelined with injuries prior to the South Carolina game. He’s happy to be back on the field again.

“It’s a blessing that I can be out there to try to help my team win some games,” Martin said. “I just had to take a different approach to learning the plays and get healthy. I’m very excited.”

The Razorbacks also had a new quarterback with redshirt freshman Cole Kelley taking over for the injured Austin Allen. Kelley was 23 of 42 passing for 200 yards, one touchdown and one interception. He was thankful to have Martin, redshirt freshman Jordan Jones and others as targets.

“We’ve got some great athletes out there,” Kelley said. “That’s always a plus.”

Wide-receivers coach Michael Smith said Martin is “doing a lot better (with) a lot of confidence in some of the things he did. … He’s that type of wide receiver when he knows what he’s doing. That’s my biggest challenge to him, to keep trying to learn it as much as possible. When he plays fast, I think people saw last week he has the talent to do it for us.”

Getting healthy helped Martin and so did his a firmer mental grasp of the game, Smith said.

“He is healthy. He’s running around a lot better. But at the end of the day, you’ve got to know what you’re doing. That was the thing, when he got in, he knew what he was doing. I think he had one time in the game Saturday that he didn’t execute the assignment he had the way he needed to. We’re going to get that cor-

rected. If he keeps progressing the way that he’s doing right now we’re going to be fine.

Jones caught four passes for 72 yards including a 46-yard gain on Saturday night.

About Jones and other receivers, “I thought we did some good things,” Smith said. “There was some times we were getting open and unfortunately we weren’t able to get the ball to them. But we didn’t play good enough to win. That’s our main goal as a wide-receiving corps is that we go out and play good enough to help this team win. Regardless of the stats we have, and going back and grading them, at the end of the day if we don’t have a W it really doesn’t matter.”

Jones’ 3-yard touchdown catch came against three Alabama defenders.

“It was very impressive,” Smith said. “When a guy goes in traffic like that, it’s always good to see. We want our guys to be fearless and I don’t know if he could’ve dropped it as hard as Cole threw it to him. I was excited for him. To score a touchdown against Alabama, I don’t care what time of the game it is, it’s something he’ll have as a memory for the rest of his life.”

Kelley boasts a big arm. “I receruited him,” Smith said, “so we knew that. … It was just a case of him getting his opportunity. Unfortunately, he had to get it the way he’s gotten it. But he’s a big boy, he’s playing in a big boy league and he’s going to do big-boy things for us.”

Arkansas plays 21st-ranked Auburn at 6:30 Saturday night in Reynolds Razorback Stadium on the SEC Network (Resort Channel 79).