LITTLE ROCK — With the game in the balance, a pass on fourth and 1 is expected to catch a defense unawares, but Louisiana-Monroe wasn’t surprised by Arkansas’s 11th-hour gambit Saturday night at War Memorial Stadium.

The Warhawks were in position to defend the play-action pass, but Arkansas quarterback Casey Dick delivered the ball where only 6-3 freshman Chris Gragg could reach it. The 25-yard reception positioned Arkansas for the decisive play of its comeback win. Two plays later Dick’s 8-yard touchdown pass to tight end D.J. Williams put Arkansas ahead for the duration of its 28-27 victory.

“We end up having guys in place on the fourth down play that they convert,” said Charlie Weatherbie, ULM head coach. “We’ve got a guy behind him and a guy in front of him and we don’t make the play on the ball.”

Knowing Arkansas head coach Bobby Petrino’s penchant for risk taking, Weatherbie said it was easy to divine his counterpart’s intentions.

ADVERTISEMENT

“We know that Coach Petrino will do stuff like that,” Weatherbie said. “We know that he’s a river boat gambler so to speak.”

Weatherbie said the play’s outcome determined how posterity would remember Petrino’s daring call.

“Hey, he gambled and it paid off,” Weatherbie said. “That was quite a call. They made it happen, so it made it an even a greater call. Now if we wouldn’t have made it, then what would’ve been? The game would’ve been over.”

Gragg’s high-wire catch was one of several plays the Warhawks were left to lament after the game.

Weatherbie pointed to running back Rodney Lovett’s inability to secure a shovel pass as a play of great consequence . Walk-on kicker Jeremy Gener’s 45-yard, game-winning field goal attempt would’ve been considerably closer had the third-down pass been completed.

“We drive the ball the length of the field and have some 40 some seconds left,” Weatherbie said. “All we got to do is catch a little shovel pass and we probably get the ball down to about the 10 or 15-yard line.

“They’re blitzing us. We know they’re coming. We know what they’re going to do. We just don’t make the catch on the ball. Then we still got a chance with a field goal that’s 45 yards. We just didn’t make the plays when it was time to make the plays.”

ULM freshman receiver Anthony McCall said the Warhawks weren’t intimidated by a crowd of 55,048 in full throat. They almost channeled the partisans’ energy into an upset.

“That was a big crowd out there,” McCall said after catching six passes for 125 yards and two touchdowns.

“That’s probably the loudest crowd we’ll play in front of all year. I think we really fed off that as a team..... It’s frustrating. That’s a tough loss to take. We came into a great venue, great crowd, came in and played our hearts out, but things just didn’t go our way in the end.”