FAYETTEVILLE — The man with the 100 mph fastball threw changeups. In baseball parlance, it was soft, beautiful off-speed stuff. Pitcher Cliff Lee would have been proud of Ryan Mallett in Reynolds Razorback Stadium in Arkansas’ 33-16 Southeastern Conference football victory against South Carolina on Saturday.
Mallett, the Arkansas quarterback famous for his rifle arm, lobbed it over defensive ends, in front of safeties and in between linebackers.
Finally, we saw in Mallett the touch that Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino preaches and demands from his quarterbacks. Mallett was brilliant in a 23-of-27 passing performance that included seven strikes to tight end D.J. Williams and five more completions to three running backs. Those 11 completions accounted for 188 yards.
“I thought Ryan played well, real patient, his best game,” Petrino said. “He did a great job of staying calm and he played well.
“D.J. Williams made some great plays. South Carolina was dropping deep. Ryan checked down to him. We did call some plays to him, but some of them were checks. They played high coverage and challenged our patience.”
Some of them didn’t even have Williams in the pass route.
“I guess I was in kinda max protect some,” Williams said. “Just leaked out and was open.”
Mallett didn’t get any touchdown passes, but that was fine.
“SEC wins, that’s what it’s all about,” he said. “They came in here with the No. 3 pass defense in the nation, but we knew we were going to throw on them. Today, we beat them on third down. We needed that and the score reflects it.”
Offensive coordinator Paul Petrino said it was a matter of Mallett letting his receivers make plays.
“He took what they gave him,” Petrino said. “It was his best game. And, some guys with skills made plays for him. You look at the guys around him, they played well today.”
Petrino pointed to a leaping catch in traffic from London Crawford for a first down when Carolina led 16-10 in the third quarter.
“That was a big-time play from London,” he said. “Ryan threw it up for him and he went and got it. Some other guys did that and D.J. caught everything.
“Ryan’s accuracy has improved all year. A lot of people forget he’s just a sophomore. The more he plays, the more his confidence goes up, the more he understands the offense.
“South Carolina came in here with the safeties deep. They didn’t want to give up the big plays. They tried to take away our deep stuff and the playaction, so we went underneath and Ryan did a wonderful job.”
Williams was ready. It didn’t take him long to see he’d be in the action.
“On the first play, you see the safeties are 12 yards deep,” he said. “That gives me the middle and the outside. You know you are going to have one man to work against and it’s you against him. You just have to beat him.”
Quarterback and tight end were on the same page against Carolina.
“Ryan and I were seeing the same things (on third down),” Williams said. “Their defensive backs were back and they were blitzing the linebackers up the middle. I got out and made some plays.”
Paul Petrino said, “I’m been telling you, D.J. is a better allaround player now. We did probably have him in the plan a little more today and then it just developed into more. With what they did against us, we went to some of the things — a few option routes — that we ran last year.”
Defensively, coordinator Willy Robinson said the Hogs changed up their package throughout the game. Some of it had to do with South Carolina secondary coach Lorenzo Ward’s knowledge of their system.
Mallett was never close to an interception in what came close to a near flawless day for the Hogs. They had no turnovers, only one penalty.