Arkansas football has a PhD in the art of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. The Razorbacks may have given us their magnum opus in Saturday’s season finale against Missouri.
Missouri football coach Eli Drinkwitz ran a 1940s-style offense in the dreary Fayetteville weather, passing for just 25 – yes, 25 – yards. But the Arkansas defense was helpless in the run game, allowing the Tigers to rack up 322 yards on the ground. That’s a statline legendary run-happy Harding coach Paul Simmons would be proud of.
At numerous points throughout the game, it appeared Missouri was doing its best Arkansas impression by trying to give the game away. But, among the more jaded followers, it sometimes seemed the Hogs would not be denied in their pursuit of defeat.
After trading first-quarter touchdowns, Missouri quarterback Beau Pribula second-guessed himself on a screen pass and let the ball slip out of his hands. Arkansas linebacker Bradley Shaw promptly scooped it and scored it to put the Hogs in front 14-7.
It was Arkansas’ first fumble recovery since the season opener and just its second scoop-and-score in the last six years. Arkansas entered the contest with a minus-14 turnover margin, good for dead last in the SEC and 132nd out of 136 FBS teams.
The Razorbacks also benefitted from two special teams snafus from Mizzou – but only converted them into three total points. Missouri’s long snapper flung the ball over the punter’s head toward the end of the first half, but an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty from Keshawn Davila took away what would have been terrific field position. Still, the Hogs failed to convert in plus territory and settled for a field goal.
After a Tiger touchdown in the third quarter, another snap flew over the holder’s head on the PAT. Rather than scooping the ball up and trying to run it back for two points, Kani Walker dove on it. The kicker would have been the only man to beat.
Christmas just kept coming early for Arkansas. In the fourth quarter, Mizzou was knocking on the door of a touchdown when center Connor Tollison appeared to stomp on Cam Ball after the whistle, triggering an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty that derailed the drive and forced Drinkwitz to settle for a field goal.
Arkansas has consistently shot itself in the foot this season, and even when the opponent tries to self-inflict the same wounds, the Hogs make sure to whisk the gun away.
Simple Gifts for Arkansas Football
At nearly every juncture of this dismal year, Razorback football let one opportunity after another go to waste. Special teams errors, defensive woes, indiscipline and poor offensive execution hamstrung the best playcaller in school history. None of those issues were nearly as prevalent in his first stint on The Hill 15 years ago.
A sizable portion of that blame does, of course, fall at the feet of interim coach Bobby Petrino, who was in charge of the locker room for the majority of the season.
It is genuinely impressive to lose a football game when you win the turnover battle and the opponent passes for 25 yards. For Petrino it was all part of a frustrating end to a frustrating mid-season takeover. “We just couldn’t find a way to win the games, but there’s a lot of positives in there,” he said afterward. “I could have a stack of negatives, but that’s not going to do any good. The positives are that the players kept together. They did a good job academically.”
