Shudders: Aggies win going away
Trevor Knight beat Arkansas up the gut, then over the top, leaving Razorback fans wondering if an Arkansas football team will ever beat Texas A&M again.
Three big plays by the Aggie quarterback turned the tide in a game A&M thrice trailed but won 45-24 late Saturday night in AT&T Cowboys Stadium, of late an 0-3 horror house for the Razorbacks after winning four straight in Jerry Jones’ football palace between Dallas and Fort Worth.
Knight is the fourth different A&M quarterback to beat Arkansas since theirs became a Southeastern Conference series. As with Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel in 2012 and ‘13, the Razorbacks could not stop the former Oklahoma Sooner on the ground or through the air.
Knight embarrassed Arkansas twice with long quarterback keepers for second-quarter touchdowns, a 48-yarder knotting it at 17-17 with 13 seconds before the break. On both plays, the first going 42 yards after the teams changed ends, Knight plowed up the middle without the proverbial straw in his path. He deserved a game ball merely for a team-high 157 of A&M’s staggering 366 yards rushing.
But as has been the case in A&M’s ongoing streak of five straight victories over Arkansas, the Aggies’ dagger shot came on a deep pass.
Knight’s 92-yard strike to Josh Reynolds wasn’t exactly what John Chavis’ Aggie defense needed after being on the field for almost 10 minutes on Arkansas’ previous possession. But it broke a 17-all tie and triggered a 21-point Aggie fourth quarter that found A&M vastly superior to an Arkansas unit that suddenly couldn’t block or tackle.
Freshman Trayveon Williams put on a fourth-quarter show with touchdown runs of 33 and 22 yards, the latter with 4:57 left after Austin Allen’s five-yard touchdown pass to Jared Cornelius for Arkansas’ first points since 1:31 of the second quarter.
Bret Bielema had much to keep him awake after his team’s first loss, but the shabby performances of his offensive and defensive lines surely must trouble the Razorback coach, now 0-4 against the Aggies.
With the game hanging in the balance, Arkansas blockers, the team’s supposed strength, were stymied, then whipped by the Aggies’ ball-hawking defensive line. Arkansas scored 24 points on four trips inside the A&M 20 but its three red-zone failures were grim and revealing.
Arkansas settled for 10-7 instead of achieving 14-7 after Rawleigh Williams III burst 55 yards to the Aggie two in the second quarter. Arkansas ran five plays from the two or closer on a drive extended by A&M penalties for holding and pass interference. Williams erred in bouncing outside on second down from the two, losing five yards courtesy of A&M all-timer Myles Garrett.
Williams later fumbled at the one after Arkansas reached the nine but redeemed himself with an eight-yard blast for a 17-10 lead after Allen passed 38 yards to Cornelius.
Everything changed late in the third quarter after Arkansas kept the ball for 19 plays, 89 yards and 9:55 of clock time — all for naught.
Arkansas had four downs from the two after Allen hit Jeremy Sprinkle for 11 yards. Allen kept it twice from the one — getting awfully close on third down, the officials reviewing his forward progress — before an inexplicable fourth-down call sapped the Hogs’ momentum.
Whether Dan Enos, Bielema’s offensive playcaller, the head coach himself or an undercover agent sent the play in really doesn’t
matter. One yard from breaking a 17-all tie, Keon Hatcher lost five yards on a jet sweep — not the Hogs’ bread-and-butter play by any means, but one popular on this night, wideout Dominique Reed fumbling earlier.
Two plays later, Knight hooked up with Reynolds, beating DJ Dean, and Arkansas looked like a beaten team for the rest of the game, which lasted almost until midnight local time.
Rest assured that after honors for Dan Skipper and Frank Ragnow, Arkansas won’t produce the SEC offensive lineman of the week for the third-straight game. Arkansas almost lost Allen a couple of times, the quarterback taking a shot to the chest and later fumbling after Brian Wallace, playing right tackle, was whipped by Daeshon Hall and Tyrel Dodson recovered.
Allen completed 28 passes for 371 yards and two touchdowns but went to the air 42 times, about twice as often as was predicted here Saturday that Arkansas could manage safely against the Aggies. Unless the Razorbacks are required to start a quarterback named Allen, it made no sense for the battered and bruised youngster, who has some Bill Montgomery-like qualities, to take every Arkansas snap.
A&M averaged 10 yards to Arkansas’ 6 per play, rendering the Razorbacks’ 19:30 advantage in clock time meaningless. Bottom line: Knight and the Aggies fed the scoreboard while Allen and the Hogs moved the chains and milked the clock. Advantage: A&M, and not for the first time in this recently one-sided series.