FAYETTEVILLE — In a game full of them, one of Arkansas’ most befuddling blunders in its double-overtime loss to Oklahoma State was Isaiah Sategna’s muffed punt in the fourth quarter.
Instead of getting the ball back with a chance to add to their 8-point lead, the Razorbacks gave the Cowboys great field position and the defense surrendered its first touchdown of the season. Tack on a two-point conversion and a game Arkansas led by 14 on two separate occasions was suddenly tied at 21-21.
Even with the second-half collapse, the Razorbacks managed to recover and force overtime before ultimately losing 39-31 in a game they statistically dominated.
Plenty of things contributed to the defeat, but what makes the muffed punt stand out is the sheer absurdity of how it unfolded.
The mistake wasn’t entirely on Sategna. As head coach Sam Pittman pointed out in his postgame press conference, teammate Krosse Johnson fell into the talented receiver/return man’s legs just as he was about to secure the ball.
Not only that, but the same thing nearly happened on the first punt of the game — with the same player. Luckily for the Razorbacks, though, Sategna hung on to the ball and gave Arkansas excellent field position, setting up the first touchdown drive.
Raising an Obvious Question
You can be forgiven if you’ve never heard of Krosse Johnson. Those who closely follow Arkansas football on the recruiting trail are likely among the few who know his story.
An unheralded recruit coming out of Holy Cross School in New Orleans in the 2024 class, Johnson was originally committed to Louisiana-Lafayette before flipping to the Razorbacks during the early signing period. A spot came open for him late in the process when Arkansas lost in-state commit and four-star wide receiver Courtney Crutchfield to the staff of Arkansas native Eli Drinkwitz at Missouri.
Even though Johnson was considered just a two-star recruit on Rivals, he possesses elite speed and was good enough to already be on the radar of Bobby Petrino, who clearly knows a thing or two about talented wide receivers.
In his collegiate debut, Johnson played 10 offensive snaps — all with the third-team unit on Arkansas’ final possession of the game — against UAPB and caught two passes for 25 yards on the 90-yard touchdown drive. He also played two special teams snaps late in the game and, based on film review by Best of Arkansas Sports, only one of those was as a gunner on the punt return unit.
So that raises an obvious question: Why in the world was a true freshman/third-team wide receiver with very little experience lining up as one of the primary gunners in a road game against a top-25 opponent?
Furthermore, why did he remain in that spot after not one, but two prior mistakes leading up to the fateful muffed punt?
That’s right — there was another mistake that flew under the radar until Sam Pittman casually brought it up during Monday’s press conference.
In addition to running into the returner on the first punt of the game, Pittman pointed out that Johnson also got too close to the ball when Sategna let a punt drop at the start of the second quarter. While you see his two teammates simultaneously bail out, the freshman continued running toward the ball.
Had he accidentally tripped or there had been a funky bounce and the ball touched him, it would have been live and could have led to another turnover. That’s why teams traditionally shout “Peter” when the punt isn’t caught by the returner, telling all players to run away from the ball.
Deciphering an Answer for Arkansas Football
At this point, we should take a moment to say that this isn’t a “hit piece” on Krosse Johnson.
Plenty of players have struggled early in their career and gone on to have success. In the NFL, Peyton Manning threw a rookie-record 28 interceptions before becoming a Hall of Famer. On a more local level, Brandon Allen’s first significant action was in the ugly upset loss to ULM and his first start was a 52-0 loss to Alabama, but he eventually broke school records and is still in the NFL.
The 5’10” 185-pound Johnson has great speed, which isn’t exactly coachable, and Bobby Petrino wouldn’t have identified him as a recruit if he was a terrible player.
It isn’t his fault that he was put in position to suddenly become a household name in Arkansas for all the wrong reasons. He likely worked extremely hard in practice to earn the opportunity and the coaches rewarded him by playing him on special teams.
However, several external factors likely led to him being in that spot Saturday in Stillwater.
After reviewing the UAPB film, Best of Arkansas Sports found that the Razorbacks’ primary gunner on the punt return unit was cornerback Marquise Robinson.
The South Alabama transfer probably would have continued in that role, in addition to starting on defense, had he not suffered a stinger in pregame warmups. Most people focused on the domino effect it had at cornerback, leading to Jaheim Singletary starting and making his first career interception, but it also impacted the Razorbacks on special teams.
UAPB mostly utilized only one gunner, but there was one instance when it had two on the same play. Arkansas appeared to leave most of its defense on the field and cornerbacks Kee’yon Stewart and Jaylon Braxton were tasked with blocking them.
With Robinson already out and Braxton dealing with tendinitis that limited his reps against Oklahoma State, the Razorbacks were essentially down to two healthy cornerbacks they fully trusted in Singletary and Stewart. It’s understandable that they wouldn’t want to risk using them on special teams given how thin things were.
Another guy Arkansas used as a gunner against UAPB was Dazmin James, another speedy wide receiver it landed late in the recruiting process, but in the 2023 class. The redshirt freshman, though, didn’t travel to Stillwater. Pittman revealed Monday that he was suspended this week for a violation of team rules.
All of those factors likely contributed to Johnson and Bryce Stephens, a pair of wide receivers buried on the offensive depth chart, handling those duties against Oklahoma State.
Stephens is a fourth-year player who is no stranger to playing in front of hostile crowds. Johnson, meanwhile, had no such experience and that showed in the game.
Depth was certainly a factor, but Pittman or special teams coordinator Scott Fountain probably should have subbed in someone else, likely a veteran, after his first mistake and definitely after his second one — especially with tablets on the sideline to quickly identify such errors.
Again, this isn’t a shot at Johnson. He was simply trying to do what he was asked to do and step up when the team needed him. It is more on the coaches for sticking with him long enough for it to bite them.
Luckily for them, it sounds like Robinson should be ready to go for the Arkansas vs UAB game, based on Pittman’s comments Monday. Assuming he’s fully healthy, it’s probably a safe bet that he’ll resume his special teams duties in the Razorbacks’ home opener, ideally rendering the Oklahoma State fiasco to a one-off event.
Another Questionable ST Personnel Decision
The lone member of Sam Pittman’s original coaching staff still at Arkansas is also his most criticized: special teams coordinator Scott Fountain.
Fountain probably deserves more credit that he receives, as he was responsible for recruiting a kicker taken in this year’s NFL Draft (Cam Little) and an All-SEC punter (Max Fletcher), plus the unit as a whole ranked sixth nationally in the SP+.
However, continuing to trot out an inexperienced true freshman as a gunner after two prior mistakes in a road game against a top-25 opponent is not the first questionable personnel decision he’s made at Arkansas.
It flew under the radar at the time, but one of Fountain’s first moves upon arriving in Fayetteville in 2020 was implementing his philosophy of using punters as holders for PATs and field goals.
In theory, that made a lot of sense because punters have a lot more free time in practice to work on timing with the long snapper and kicker than backup quarterbacks, who have traditionally held that role in football.
The problem with that is George Caratan, a transfer from Michigan, didn’t have any experience with holding before coming to Arkansas and the Razorbacks already had a veteran holder in walk-on quarterback Jack Lindsey.
Caratan was awarded the job to start the season and it took only three weeks for it to backfire.
Long before the infamous Bo Nix spike/fumble that was botched by the officiating crew, a botched hold by Caratan led to a missed PAT. As a result, Arkansas started chasing points and failed on back-to-back two-point conversions after its next two touchdowns.
Had it not been for the original missed PAT, the Razorbacks likely would have kicked the next two and had an extra three points in a game they lost by two.
A more high-profile example occurred in 2022, when Arkansas actually had two scholarship punters in veteran Reid Bauer and true freshman Max Fletcher.
While Fletcher evolved into an All-SEC punter last season, he struggled mightily with consistency two years ago, which is understandable because he had never punted in a real game before moving to the U.S. for college. Instead of quickly making a change, the Razorbacks stuck with Fletcher for five games, which not only meant several more ugly punts, but also that he burned his redshirt.
And of course there’s this year’s baffling kicker situation.
Matthew Shipley, the scholarship transfer from Hawaii, was praised throughout fall camp for his drastic improvement since last spring. He made 6 of 8 field goals in the two scrimmages, including a pair of “game-winners” in a pressure situation (two-minute drill).
Instead, Kyle Ramsey – the walk-on transfer from FCS Abilene Christian – won the job. He went 0 for 4 in Arkansas’ final scrimmage, which was two weeks before the opener, but Pittman blamed the performance on a groin injury.
The Razorbacks reportedly shut him down for five days. Upon his return, however, he apparently did enough – or Shipley performed poorly enough – to win the job in the final week leading up to the season.
However, Pittman acknowledged last week that it wasn’t a “cut and dry” decision. If that was the case, it was a bit peculiar to see the guy with six career field goal attempts at Houston before dropping down to the FCS level last year get the nod over the four-year starter who made 76.7% of his 73 attempts at Hawaii, especially when the latter performed better in scrimmages.
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