Razorbacks celebrate for a change
Two struggling Southeastern Conference teams gave fans sitting in overpriced seats a good show Saturday in Oxford, Miss., where beverages other than Diet Coke are served late into the night.
The SEC Network won’t get many better games than this one, played in Vaught-Hemingway Stadium on the University of Mississippi campus, which once produced Miss Americas and All-American football players in equal measure.
Ole Miss, playing at home, was a slight favorite at kickoff, mandated by TV for 11 a.m., but anyone who plays the percentages rather than the law of averages had to give Arkansas a shot.
Though neither team had the quarterback with which it started the season, and there’s a chance that neither head coach will be at his current post next year, Arkansas had an edge or two.
The Razorbacks, 2-5 at kickoff, believed in a script that saw them becoming bowl eligible for a fourth-straight year with a
4-1 finish or better. That will require some heavy lifting by the Hogs, who must play LSU and Mississippi State back-to-back and guard against complacency against Missouri, which is 2-1 against Arkansas since joining the SEC. But for a team 0-4 in the SEC that could play “let’s get it over with,” the prospect of a bowl game is one reason to keep the faith.
Ole Miss has no such beacon of hope, having declared itself ineligible for postseason play this year in light of an ongoing NCAA investigation at the school that seemingly predates the Battle of Vicksburg. It doesn’t take much adversity for such a squad to go south, this one taking predictable pastings by Alabama (66-3), Auburn (4423) and LSU (40-24) and losing quarterback Shea Patterson the week before playing Arkansas.
Las Vegas oddsmakers set the opening line at Ole Miss minus-4, and the Rebels remained a slight favorite all week, possibly because Arkansas had looked so feeble in an October that it allowed 48 points to South Carolina, 41 to Alabama and 52 to Auburn. Winning a shootout with Ole Miss became tougher when arguably its best player, center Frank Ragnow, and a top running back, Chase
Hayden, were ruled out for the season.
People giving the points were counting their money, so to speak, when it was 31-7 Ole Miss in the second quarter. But anyone who has seen an Arkansas-Ole Miss football game in recent years knows that bad things often happen to the Rebels against the Razorbacks, especially on their home field.
Faster than an Ole Miss fan can say “hotty toddy,” Arkansas began chipping into that deficit and the Rebels buckled under pressure. Ole Miss was driving, poised to score again, when defensive captain Santos Ramirez forced a fumble that changed the complexion of the game. Kevin Richardson II, another defensive veteran, returned a fourth-quarter fumble for a touchdown that made it 37-35 with six minutes left.
Connor Limpert then joined the Razorback club of improbable football heroes including the “immortal” Teddy Barnes (touchdown catch against Texas A&M in 1975) and Matteral Richardson (game-ending interception in third overtime against LSU in 2007). Pressed into duty after the incumbent place-kicker bowed out in despair in the Week 2 loss to TCU, Limpert made a 34-yard field goal at the gun to send Arkansas home from Oxford a 38-37 winner.
Thus did the Rebels lose to the Hogs by one point again at Vaught-Hemingway, where Hunter Heavy’s heave to Alex Collins on fourth and 25 and Brandon Allen’s twopoint conversion in overtime keynoted a 5352 Arkansas victory in 2015. Ole Miss, which never lost to Arkansas when Johnny Vaught coached against Frank Broyles, suddenly finds itself 1-4 against Bret Bielema with the losses consecutive.
Thus did Bielema, clearly on the hot seat at Arkansas, win on a Saturday that fellow SEC coaches Butch Jones, Jim McElwain and Kevin Sumlin lost.
Though it improves his Razorback records only to 11-26 (SEC) and 28-31 (overall), Arkansas’ coach is an SEC winner for the first time since the July birth of Briella Nichole Bielema, his and wife Jennifer’s first child.
Though beating Ole Miss doesn’t guarantee success against any remaining SEC opponent, Bielema can point out to his players that Arkansas made a November push to a bowl victory in both 2014 and 2015 and that having played Alabama and not having to play Georgia, there aren’t any monsters on the schedule.
Still, which is the bigger takeaway from Saturday’s game: Arkansas’ sorry first half or sterling second half? Both came against Ole Miss, which for Arkansas football has become a free space on an SEC bingo card. But after losing seven straight games to Power Five teams and being written off by fans, the Razorbacks were desperate for something good to happen in Oxford. For one afternoon at least, they became rebels with a cause and Razorback Nation celebrated a football Saturday for a change.