Plaintive cry of Hog fans offered in vain
If it was indeed a bad call, it wasn’t the worst ever seen in college football or against Arkansas.
Nobody scored on fifth down, the circumstance of a Colorado touchdown against Missouri in 1990. Colorado went on to a national championship but wouldn’t return that timely gift.
No Memphis native convinced his brethren that Tennessee recovered a fumble when an Arkansas offensive lineman came up with the ball. The same official whistled holding on a field goal that, if allowed to stand, would have raised Arkansas’ lead to 16-7 in the 1971 Liberty Bowl. Arkansas coaches chased one Preston Watts off the field after a 14-13 Tennessee victory, and not to ask directions to Beale Street.
Lou Holtz said this about men wearing striped shirts on a football field: “There are good officials and better officials, and the good ones are working someone else’s game.”
Not that this helps a Razorback fan sleep better after the latest outrage. But to anyone who thinks larger forces (i.e., the Southeastern Conference office) conspire against University of Arkansas teams, the final minute of Saturday’s game against Auburn was especially gruesome.
The Razorbacks thought they recovered a fumble when Auburn quarterback Bo Nix, his team driving for a field goal, fumbled a center snap and clearly spiked the ball behind him. After review, the call of intentional grounding against Nix was upheld, negating any fumble. Thus reprieved, Andres Carlton squeezed a 39-yard kick inside an upright ( he missed one earlier from in close) while Arkansas fumed.
Auburn 30, Arkansas 28. Five in a row for the Tigers in the series, this one with a former Razorback head coach ( Chad Morris) and a former Arkansas position coach (Gus Malzahn) in close harness. But it will be remembered mostly for a crazy finish and a predictable mea culpa from the SEC office, which spoke of “immediate continuing football action” for negating what appeared a fumble recovery by the Hogs’ Joe Foucha.
Bo Nix, son of a former Auburn quarterback and Henderson State head coach, said the influence of Morris could be felt on the Tigers’ last two drives, both resulting in fieldgoal attempts. “I’m super fired up that he’s on my team,” Nix said of Morris, who as a Malzahn aide has presided over two more SEC victories than in 14 games over two seasons at Arkansas.
Sam Pittman, three games into his first season at Arkansas, no doubt sensing the mood of Razorback Nation, supplied this sound byte: “I told the team I was proud of them and the days of us embarrassing our program and our fans are over.” Consider that a shot across the bow aimed in the direction of his UA predecessor.
Pittman had this to say when asked what he saw on Nix’s spike/fumble: “(I saw the) same thing you did. The ball went backward six yards. I saw a fumble and a spike that went backyard six yards.”
Arkansas got that close to its first win at Auburn since 2012, when John L. Smith roamed the Razorback sideline. The Hogs hadn’t scored a touchdown at Jordan- Hare Stadium since 2014, when Auburn gained nearly 600 yards against a defense that would beat Ole Miss, LSU and Texas.
This one invoked memories of a night game in Little Rock in 1995, when in their peak performance under Danny Ford, Barry Lunney Jr. whipped the Hogs to a 27-0 halftime lead over the Terry Bowden-coached Tigers. His reputation as a maverick notwithstanding, Malzahn believes in power running from a hurry-up offense and, gashing out 215 land yards in the first half, Auburn shot to a 17-0 lead Saturday.
But as in the ‘ 95 game at
Little Rock, they had another half to play. And in both games, the scoreboard leader couldn’t kill the clock fast enough or get off the field without yielding points. That one also ended 30-28, Auburn missing a field goal on the game’s last play.
Two weeks later in the same stadium, Arkansas clinched its first SEC Western Division tile with a shaky verdict over Mississippi State. Jackie Sherrill, then coaching the Bulldogs, offered this comment, one that applies to the early- season play of a Pittman-coached squad with a Barry Odom-led defense:
“Does Arkansas have the best players in the league? No. Is it playing the best football? Yes.”
That’s the definition of an overachieving Razorback team, one with a swarming defense and a quarterback who can put the ball in the end zone.
Arkansas has had quarterbacks with stronger arms and more nimble feet than Feleipe Franks, but he should have been star of the game Saturday, With his top running back missing in action and despite shaky receivers, Franks passed for four touchdowns under deteriorating weather conditions.
And yet, and yet: Can anyone explain why Kendal Briles, Pittman’s play caller, pulled Franks from the game to run a goal-line package with a true freshman? Briles might as well have taken out a classified ad in the Birmingham News announcing his intention to punch it in with Malik Hornsby. Arkansas settled for three points when it needed six; a similar play at Mississippi State involving second-year man K.J. Jefferson resulted in a lost fumble.
And does anyone on this staff coach special teams? Three games, two blocked punts, both leading to enemy touchdowns. These Hogs scramble too hard on defense for their effort to be eroded by a sorry kicking game.
Arkansas actually is playing some defense in a season that the concept seems optional at best. We’ll see if it continues when Lane Kiffin, who at one time might have fancied himself a Razorback coach, brings Ole Miss to Fayetteville. The Auburn game should be over by then.