The national perception of Arkansas football heading into the 2024 season wasn’t exactly great.
Sportsbooks everywhere placed the Razorbacks’ win total at just 4.5 and most of the conversations centered around whether or not Sam Pittman could do enough to save his job.
Things started to shift with a strong showing — albeit in a losing effort — at Oklahoma State in Week 2. Following that with an uninspiring win over UAB last week didn’t really move the needle, though.
In fact, during Friday’s episode of SEC Now on the SEC Network, analyst Chris Doering made the kind of casual comment that Arkansas fans have grown accustomed to hearing when discussing why he believed Auburn was under more pressure going into the SEC opener.
“Arkansas had zero expectations going into the season,” Doering said, before adding that Auburn was considered a dark horse contender for the College Football Playoff.
Those on the extreme ends of the spectrum aside, most fans believed the Razorbacks were capable of making a bowl game. Our survey of more than 1,000 proved that.
While not the same as expecting a College Football Playoff appearance, that is still an expectation and one that was very much still alive — whereas Auburn making the CFP seemed far-fetched after its disappointing loss to Cal.
Comments like those could almost be considered an “insult” to the Razorbacks, who are still out to prove they are nothing like last year’s 4-8 team.
“Stop sleeping on us,” running back Ja’Quinden Jackson said after the win. “It’s not going to always be pretty, but it’s football. It ain’t going to always be perfect. But, hey, stop sleeping on us. We’re not the same team from last year. We’re here. We’re better.”
Arkansas certainly took a step toward bolstering its case with the 24-14 win over Auburn at Jordan-Hare Stadium and will now get another chance next week in the final Southwest Classic at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
“It gives you a shot in the arm,” Pittman said. “It makes you feel good. It makes practicing a little bit easier. But just because I believe that we’ve got a really good team and can win on the road, you have to go do it.”
That’s especially true now that Texas A&M, despite its No. 25 ranking, looks beatable after struggling to put away Bowling Green at home Saturday.
Kickoff at JerryWorld is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. CT next Saturday and the game will be televised on ESPN.
Sategna Reels in Long TD for Arkansas Football
Offensive highlights were few and far between for the Razorbacks, but one of their touchdowns came on a SportsCenter-worthy play.
It came late in the third quarter with the score tied at 7-7 and Arkansas facing a third-and-19. Auburn rushed three and managed to flush Taylen Green out of the pocket. He rolled to the left and eventually launched a pass toward the end zone.
More than 60 yards down the field, Isaiah Sategna got to it and jumped up to catch it over Auburn cornerback Keionte Scott just shy of the goal line. He came down with the ball and got scored what officially went down as a 58-yard touchdown.
“That was a hell of a catch,” Pittman said. “I felt like it might’ve been pass interference. Sategna went up there and we needed a play. Things were going bad at that point.”
Replays showed that Scott clearly hit him early, but Sategna figured there wouldn’t be a flag, making the grab that much more important.
“I saw Taylen rolling out and he let that one go, so I just had to do my job and come down with the ball,” Sategna said. “They were playing pretty handsy all game and they weren’t calling. I wasn’t really expecting a pass interference, but I knew I had to come down with the ball.”
The play not only put Arkansas up for good, but it snapped what had been a pretty rough stretch for the offense. Not including the kneel down at the end of the first half, the Razorbacks had covered just 44 yards on 23 plays with three first downs over its previous six possessions.
“When Taylen rolls out of that pocket, you know something special is going to happen,” left tackle Fernando Carmona said. “When that ball was in the air, ‘Man, who is he throwing it to?’ And you just see Sategna running. When he went up, jumped and got it, I was just like, ‘Man, thank God. Thank God.’”
Passing Game Still a Struggle
Even with that long touchdown pass, it was another rough day throwing the ball for Taylen Green.
The Boise State transfer completed under 50% of his passes for a second straight game, finishing 12 of 27 for 151 yards and two interceptions.
Much like he did after last week’s 11-for-26 performance against UAB, Arkansas football coach Sam Pittman said the issues in the passing game extended beyond Green.
“I just think this that all that works together,” Pittman said. “In other words, those other guys, they have to get open and then we have to give them time. I mean we busted a 63 protection today, a running back busted it. When you do that, you have no time. I just think we have to get better as a whole.”
Thankfully for the Razorbacks, Green still found ways to impact the game. He ran for 80 yards on 18 carries and would have eclipsed the century mark had it not been for three sacks that cost him 27 yards. Three of those runs moved the chains on third down, including two on third-and-10.
“Taylen, he’s a gamer,” Sategna said. “Whenever we needed him most, he was there. He’s going to make big plays in the throwing game and with his legs.”
While some fans are growing concerned about Green’s accuracy, Pittman is still confident in his quarterback.
“He didn’t play his best game,” Pittman said in his postgame interview with the UA radio broadcast. “We’re waiting on that, but I’ll tell you what he is a winner. When the times get tough — it’s just like last week — he’s going to make a play and that’s what he did.”
Singleton Inserted for a Drive
Things were going poorly enough for Taylen Green that when backup Malachi Singleton entered the game for a drive in the third quarter, some interpreted it as a benching.
That was understandable considering Green had just thrown his second interception of the game. However, that was never the case, Pittman said afterward.
“Well, we didn’t bench him,” Pittman said, adding that Green left the game to get treatment for cramping.
In the first meaningful action of his career, Singleton led the offense to a three-and-out. He threw an incomplete pass on a bootleg, Ja’Quinden Jackson gained 4 yards on a run and then Singleton barely managed to get back to the line of scrimmage to avoid a sack.
Ground Game Ices Victory
The touchdown catch by Isaiah Sategna might have been the best single play for Arkansas’ offense, but the highlight of the day was its fourth-quarter touchdown drive.
Sam Pittman admitted his team was deflated for a second when Auburn completed a 67-yard touchdown pass on fourth-and-2 to pull within a field goal with 9:50 remaining.
However, it was very brief, as the offense managed to put together an impressive response. It almost didn’t happen, though.
Green threw three consecutive incomplete passes to start the drive, but a pass interference penalty on Auburn’s Antonio Kite prevented it from being a three-and-out.
Given new life, the Razorbacks turned to the ground game. With a mix of Ja’Quinden Jackson, Taylen Green and Braylen Russell, they covered 60 yards on 10 consecutive runs.
“Man, that was huge,” Carmona said. “We were struggling through a lot of the game. We couldn’t really find our groove, and I feel like in the practices, some of the scrimmages in the spring, we struggled on finishing games and finishing drives. … For us to do that, man, that’s an extreme confidence boost for us going into other games now.”
When the dust settled, Arkansas had gone 75 yards in 12 plays and, most importantly, chewed up 6 minutes and 12 seconds of clock. The drive put the Razorbacks up by two scores with only 3:38 remaining.
The final yard was the toughest of the drive. Jackson punched it in from 1 yard out, but was met at the goal line by Auburn defenders. It was ruled a touchdown, but close enough that the Tigers thought they stopped him and play was paused for a review.
“I was questioning myself, I ain’t going to lie to you,” Jackson said. “But they gave it to me, so I was in.”
The call stood, though, giving Jackson his second 1-yard touchdown run of the game. He finished with only 75 yards on 22 carries, marking the first time he’d been held under 100 yards with the Razorbacks.
His 3.4-yard average was also five yards less than what he averaged over the first three games of the year.
“He didn’t have quite the game that he normally does, but he had a really good SEC game,” Pittman said.
Taking Southern Hospitality to the Extreme
Saturday’s game featured seven turnovers, not including four failed fourth downs that resulted in a turnover on downs, but nothing was more wild than the final two minutes of the first half. Neither team, it seemed, wanted the ball.
On the first play after the two-minute warning, Damari Alston broke free for a long run and looked like he might score. At the very least, he had Auburn inside the 10 with a chance to tie the score at 7-7.
Instead, TJ Metcalf got a hand on the ball as Alston cut back inside and stripped it. Stephen Dix Jr. fell on it in the end zone to give Arkansas its first fumble recovery of the season.
The Razorbacks quickly wasted the opportunity, going three-and-out and giving the ball back to Auburn with 57 seconds remaining.
On the Tigers’ second play, safety Jayden Johnson jumped in front of a Hank Brown pass and returned it 10 yards to give Arkansas the ball in great field position.
Arkansas promptly wasted the opportunity again, as Taylen Green’s pass was tipped and picked off by Sylvester Smith on the very next play.
Brown did hit tight end Rivaldo Fairweather for a 25-yard gain on Auburn’s first play of the ensuing possession, but his next pass was intercepted by Metcalf inside the 10-yard line.
It marked the fifth time the ball changed hands in the span of two minutes, so rather than risk making it six times, Arkansas took a knee to send the game to halftime.
The giving mood actually continued in the third quarter. Auburn made the questionable decision to try a fake punt on the first possession of the half, but Arkansas snuffed it out — only for Green to throw it right back to the Tigers three plays later.
Special Teams Love
If Arkansas’ specialists were a single defensive player, they would have finished tied for third on the team with three tackles against Auburn.
Long snapper Ashton Ngo made two of them in punt coverage, dropping Keionte Scott for no gain and a 1-yard return on the Razorbacks’ first two punts of the game. Last year, Scott had a 74-yard punt return for a touchdown that sparked the Tigers’ massacre in Fayetteville.
Those plays could have easily gone unnoticed by a casual fan, but Sam Pittman made sure to give his snapper some love during his postgame radio interview on the UA radio broadcast — and in doing so, revealed why Ngo had surpassed scholarship long snapper Eli Stein as the punt snapper, prompting him to leave the team just before the start of the season.
“I thought Ashton Ngo made a hell of a tackle on him,” Pittman said. “That’s why he moved to No. 1 snapper. He can fly. He can and you saw it right there, a great play.”
The other tackle was courtesy punter Devin Bale, who also serves as the team’s kickoff specialist. He looked comfortable when laying out Jeremiah Cobb on his 27-yard kickoff return.
Bale was also excellent in his punting duties, averaging 49.7 yards on three punts. Each of them had good hang time, too, which helped the coverage unit get down the field and prevent any damage in the return game.
Of course, Kyle Ramsey missing another 41-yard field goal attempt can’t be ignored. That came on the opening drive of the game, but he did bounce back with a 43-yarder that put the Razorbacks up 10 with 12:04 remaining.
Through four games, though, the Abilene Christian transfer is just 5 of 9 on field goals.
Lineup Switch for Arkansas Football
The Razorbacks made only one change to their starting lineup from last week.
Fresh off a strong 10-tackle performance against UAB, Marshall transfer Stephen Dix Jr. made his first start for Arkansas, replacing Brad Spence at linebacker.
In the Auburn win, he made two tackles, recovered a fumble and broke up a pass, while Spence notched three tackles.
“He just has been coming on and coming on,” Pittman said. “Nothing, to be honest with you, any more than you’ve got to reward players that are playing good. T-Will came to me and that’s what we decided to do. That’s nothing against anybody, Spence or anybody. He just had been playing well.”
It’s also worth noting that Jaylon Braxton, the Razorbacks’ top cornerback, missed his second straight game with tendinitis. That meant Marquise Robinson and Jaheim Singletary each started again.
On the other side of the ball, there were no changes — which is notable considering center Addison Nichols missed all but the first three plays of the UAB game with a high ankle sprain. As expected, based on Pittman’s comments throughout the week, he returned to action and played the whole game.
Other Arkansas vs Auburn Tidbits
- The announced attendance for Arkansas vs Auburn was 88,043. The Razorbacks certainly felt the Jordan-Hare Stadium crowd from the jump, as they were flagged for delay of game before the first snap of the game.
- Linebacker Stephen Dix Jr., defensive tackle Cam Ball and offensive linemen Josh Street and Keyshawn Blackstock served as Arkansas’ team captains Saturday.
- Auburn won the pregame coin toss and deferred to the second half, so Arkansas received the game’s opening kickoff.
- The official temperature at kickoff was 89 degrees. However, it felt even hotter than that, with ESPN reporting the head index at 96 degrees.
- Andrew Armstrong caught five passes for 47 yards and still ranks second in the SEC with 348 receiving yards, despite playing in only three of four games. The performance also moved him past Gary Anderson (1,075 yards) for 28th on the UA’s all-time list with 1,112 career receiving yards.
- The Razorbacks also beat Auburn at Jordan-Hare Stadium two years ago. Sam Pittman is the first Arkansas football coach to beat the Tigers in consecutive trips to the Plains, as the only other time Arkansas accomplished the feat was 2006/2008, when Houston Nutt and Bobby Petrino were the coaches, respectively. “I can’t tell you that I haven’t thought about it. I have,” Pittman admitted. “That’s one of those things when I get old and gray and don’t coach anymore, those are one of those memories that I’ll be very fond of.”
Arkansas vs Auburn Highlights
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