FAYETTEVILLE -- After a defeat, it inevitably sounds like sour grapes for players to say: "They didn't beat us, we beat ourselves."
However, it wasn't merely grapes of wrath for last year's Arkansas Razorbacks to say they beat themselves during their 1-3 September.
It was seeded in truth.
In successive nonconference home losses to Toledo, 16-12 in Little Rock, and 35-24 to Texas Tech in Fayetteville and losing the SEC opener, 28-21 in overtime to Texas A&M at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, the Razorbacks penalized themselves to oblivion.
The Razorbacks were penalized nine times for 85 yards to Toledo's eight for 55 penalty yards. A penalty voiding Jared Cornelius' punt return for a touchdown thrust a dagger into the Hogs.
The Hogs were penalized five times for 43 yards to Tech's four for 31.
Against A&M, the miscues mounted. Eleven penalties for 93 yards, including a pivotal tripping penalty, made A&M's seven penalties for 52 yards look clean.
Even in a 48-13 rout over Texas-El Paso in the season opener, Arkansas committed six penalties for 68 yards to UTEPs two for 15. All uncharacteristic of Coach Bret Bielema's past teams.
Bielema could see it coming.
"If you go back to last year during fall camp, we kinda had some issues pop during our scrimmages," Bielema said.
Only once after A&M, committing seven penalties to Alabama's six in a 27-14 SEC defeat, did Arkansas commit more penalties than its opponent during the final nine games.
"I think it was part of the learning curve," Bielema said. "We still didn't quite get across that for us, the formula for success means playing clean. It took us a little bit of time to draw that conclusion."
Bielema, offensive coordinator Dan Enos, defensive coordinator Robb Smith and all assistants stress this time there's no time for repeating self-inflicted wounds.
"There's been a huge emphasis on it," Bielema asserted.
An emphasis not only in August but April, too.
"I think Coach B made a big emphasis in the springtime in terms of playing clean," Smith said. "We've had officials here for our practices at a couple of big scrimmages, and we did that in the spring as well. Coach B always talks about early on in the season that a lot of games are lost more than won and that certainly occurs in the penalty category. So I think our guys are well in tune to it."
They painfully remember September's 1-3 record.
"It's certainly something that's discussed around our football players nonstop," Enos said. "We have punishments for guys that commit penalties in practice. We coach it every day, all day, as far as pre-snap penalties and personnel and formations and substitutions and all those things that can rear their ugly head on a first game. We stress it all the time."
Sports on 08/31/2016