Fourth quarter

Ole Miss outscored the Razorbacks 21-0 in the fourth quarter last week, but it was only a small cause for concern by Coach Sam Pittman, as the Razorbacks held a 42-6 lead prior to that and were clearly running clock.

Pittman said he told offensive coordinator Kendal Briles to run the play clock down after the Razorbacks jumped to a 36-point lead, shrinking the game clock on the Rebels but also taking Arkansas out of its preferred uptempo style.

“I told KB, ‘You can do whatever you want to do, but let’s not snap it until it gets down.’” Pittman said. “It can be an excuse if you want to, because you go, ‘Well, we’re firing at ‘em. We’re going fast.’

“Well, we went on a 10-minute drive against BYU, we went on an 8-minute drive against Cincinnati using the clock. We can do it, we just didn’t.”

On the other side of the ball, Ole Miss rushed for 186 yards among its 216 total yards in the fourth quarter, pumping its totals to an eyepopping 463 rushing yards and 703 total yards.

“Defensively, I think we went into — we played a pretty good third quarter — and then I think we went into, ‘They can’t beat us unless we give up a big long pass.’” Pittman said. “And they said, ‘Well, we can, we’ll just turn around and hand it off and run it on you.’

“I think that might’ve been a miscalculation on what we thought, that they were just going to air it out on us. To be perfectly honest with you, there was no way they could’ve won the game as long as we took the clock off.”

Pittman said the aim was to not have quick three-andout possessions on offense so as not to fuel the hightempo Ole Miss attack.

“You wouldn’t do that against every team, because every team doesn’t have the ability to come back,” he said. “Ole Miss did. We probably went a little too conservative defensively.”