State of the Hogs: Kneel-down finishes whipping of Florida

Arkansas receiver Drew Morgan (80) celebrates after scoring a touchdown during the second quarter of a game against Florida on Saturday, Nov. 5, 2016, in Fayetteville.

— There is a time and place for everything in sports. Arkansas quarterback Austin Allen found the perfect time for a kneel. It was at the end of a game, not before it.

With all due respect to the six players on the Arkansas women's team who did the same thing during the national anthem prior to an exhibition game Thursday, Allen showed the right time and place when he killed the final ticks of a resounding 31-10 victory over No. 11 Florida on Saturday at Reynolds Razorback Stadium.

I could find only one person on a knee during the anthem on this blue bird day in the Ozarks. It was a photographer trying to get a close-up shot of a member of the drum line while the Razorback Marching Band played at full attention.

Of course, the teams are in the locker room when the anthem is played before a college football game, perhaps the way to do it going forward for basketball, too. The Hogs were inside the Broyles Athletic Center, probably hearing one of several passionate pleas from seniors like wide receiver Drew Morgan.

Allen's end of game kneel -- with a knee sprained just two weeks ago in a whipping at Auburn -- didn't elicit much afterward. Arkansas coach Bret Bielema didn't offer any “borderline erotic” comments like at the end of the Texas Bowl victory when Brandon Allen killed the clock by taking a knee.

Bielema may have understood the significance of the reporter's question about the way the game ended, or perhaps he didn't. He just replied that it was “very nice and the right time” and accepted a congratulatory handshake with a big smile.

Maybe Bielema was just too happy after two weeks of enduring criticism and heat after the ugly way Auburn ran over the Razorbacks. It had to be sweet to win in physical fashion over the Gators, dominating the trenches on both sides of the ball. Arkansas won the running game stats, 223-12. The Gators called only 11 running plays on a day the Hogs filled all running lanes.

Florida made just one first down on the ground.

The victory over Texas was 31-7 and it's always sweet to beat the Longhorns. But the 31-10 thumping of Florida was just as complete, perhaps more needed. And it was against a better team than the 2014 Longhorns. The Gators could play in a second straight SEC Championship Game.

“Our defense played great and Florida wouldn't have gotten a touchdown except for me,” said Allen, who had an interception returned for a touchdown in the first quarter. “They dominated the line of scrimmage.”

Actually, the Hogs did that on both sides of the ball, finding their running game with the help of Johnny Gibson, a first-time starter at right guard. The walk-on from Dumas also flipped to left guard when Hjalte Froholdt was injured.

“What a game he had,” said Allen, noting the game's first play was a call off Gibson's block for a 9-yard run by Rawleigh Williams.

“Johnny came back to the huddle and said, 'I just pancaked the linebacker.' He flat out blocked them all day. They have great linebackers. (Jarrad Davis) is special. They are so fast at linebacker, but our line got to the second level on them all day.”

Take your pick on the most impressive stat, but the totals on the ground were impressive for both sides of the ball. One game after giving up a school record 543 yards on the ground against Auburn in a 56-3 loss, Florida made just 12 net yards after 25 yards in sacks.

It reminded of Texas being stuffed for minus 27 in the bowl game two years ago. Arkansas won that one 31-7.

Then there was the UA running game, with that first run by Williams, good for 148 on 26 carries. The Hogs netted 223 on the ground, whipping the proud Florida defense, praised for its nice work against divisional foes. But the Gators aren't the same as the beasts from the West.

“We talked about that this week,” said Morgan, the UA senior from Greenwood. “We play in the West. It's like a whole different conference. Florida is good, but the West is an entirely different level of animals. Nothing bad on Florida, but they came into a rowdy house full of Razorbacks.”

And those Razorbacks were set on making history. They knew that the Hogs had not beaten the Gators since joining the SEC in 1992. Their only triumph came in the 1982 Bluebonnet Bowl. Florida had won the last nine, many of them by big scores.

“We knew that,” Morgan said. “We talked about it.”

Speaking of talk, Bielema said he turned the Friday night team meeting over to seniors, asking them to remind the team about home, where they came from and what playing in their stadium means.

“I got up,” Morgan said. “I talked and so did a few others. It was emotional.”

Morgan was one of the seniors to talk in the team huddle before the start of the fourth quarter. That's usually when Bielema speaks, but not this time.

“This was about the seniors, their game,” Bielema said. “What did Drew say? I can't repeat it. He's a good Christian kid. Loose lips sink ships. I think it was probably just telling them to fight through adversity, that there would probably still be some momentum swings.”

Senior defensive end Jeremiah Ledbetter, a Florida native, gave his version of Morgan's motivational speech in the team huddle to start the final quarter.

“I think it was about just continuing to pedal,” Ledbetter said. “Put the pedal down. It wasn't over. They were in our home and we had talked about home Friday night.”

Morgan said it was probably a lot like many of his other talks. He likes to talk about “the juice,” a message he came up with one night laying awake during the summer.

“I get them juiced up,” he said. “It was positive. It's our home. Buckle down.”

Morgan was buckled down, strapped tight. He took a little bit to find the creases in the Florida secondary, thought to be one of the SEC's best. He kept getting better as the game progressed, gaining confidence after beating Florida safety Marcus Maye for a 7-yard catch in the back of the end zone on third down with 16 seconds left in the half for a 21-7 UA lead.

The Gators played eight in the box for much of the game, leaving cornerbacks Quincy Taylor and Teez Tabor one-on-one on the outside. But they finally backed the safeties deep on the hashes because the Hogs were clicking in the passing game, too.

Allen and Morgan clicked on a 21-yard completion over the middle to erase a third-and-16 late in the third quarter, a play that left Morgan and Maye sprawled after a nasty collision. That play didn't lead to points, but Morgan did make plenty of yards after the catch on others.

“We've played good corners against Alabama and Auburn, but those two (from Florida) were number one and two on the draft boards,” he said. “They were good. And they play man. I was as prepared for them as any game I've played. I watched them for two weeks.

“The one over the middle, that was an option route, cover two. I saw it and Austin did, too. I knew what I was getting myself into. It was going to be a big hit, trouble. But I wanted it.”

There were spins after the catch on short routes, all of them that produced yards. He was the best wide receiver on the field, with no due respect to Florida's wideouts, considered one of the best of the SEC East.

“I was going to get everything there was out there, every time,” he said. “I don't know where some of that came from, but I just spun and kept going. They finally got in zone and I knew to sit and wait for Austin to find me.”

There were also big plays in the screen game, something the Hogs have used before, but never the way they attacked Florida's speed rushers. Devwah Whaley and Williams combined for four catches for 91 yards.

“We knew their rushers came hard off the edge,” Allen said. “We had repped it and repped it this week. And our backs ran great, on the screens and in the run game. They were running with their pads over their toes.”

Defensively, there was no running room for the Gators. There was a lineup switch with JaMichael Winston and Ledbetter starting for the first time this year at end, and true freshman McTelvin “Sosa” Agim taking Ledbetter's tackle spot for his first start. It was set on Sunday after the lopsided loss to Auburn. Randy Ramsey started at outside linebacker.

Deatrich Wise was the odd man out in the lineup shuffle on defense. He did play and play well. He was a factor in pass rush situations, pressuring Florida's Luke Del Rio and chasing down one running back for a key play. Wise played at nose tackle, joining Tevin Beanum, Ledbetter and Agim.

“One of the things as a head coach, I hire coaches that are good at their respective positions,” Bielema said. “But one of the things I've always done as a head coach is if I feel that a player needs to play, I'll just come in and say it.

“I'm not going to give you a lot of reasons why, I just believe – and I just felt – I thought (Ledbetter) had done some good things inside (at tackle), but I saw him getting a lot more activity on the edges and he was great out there today. I wanted to get Sosa in the mix a little bit more. I wanted to get Randy on the field in base.

“It's just things I feel, and you know, and you know I'm not a guy who stands up here and pats himself on the back, but when shit needs to happen, I've got to make it happen, and that's what I needed to do, and I think that part is fun to see your kids respond that way.”

There was also a more physical approach to practice in the past week, after taking some of the contact off of the first team in the bye week.

“It was physical this week,” Ledbetter said. “Practice was intense. It paid dividends. Everyone was ready to take out their frustrations from the Auburn game. There was a great sense of urgency.”

There were some words from former players, too. Former Arkansas defensive end Trey Flowers, now with the New England Patriots, spoke to the team.

“I can't give you exact words,” Bielema said, “but they were along the lines that every day in this world, you have to got to find ways to eat, and you've got to find ways to eat, and every day that guy across from you is trying to take away your food, and our guys really responded.

“We kind of had a little motto out there today about nobody goes hungry. Everybody is hungry and nobody getting full until the end. Obviously, I can eat with the best of them, so I was staying hungry as well.”

Ledbetter said it was vintage Flowers, a speech he had never heard in person.

“Trey finished the year before I got here,” Ledbetter said. “But the other guys have told me it's something he's always emphasized. It's his talk about how dogs have to eat and they will take your food. You have to be the dog.”

The Hogs wore all anthracite uniforms with dark chrome helmets. They had not worn the uniforms since losing to Mississippi State in Little Rock three years ago, and had never worn the helmets.

“We were scheduled to wear them for Texas State and we decided to hold them back,” Bielema said. “We got permission from the SEC.

“I had one fan call in and say he was going to boycott the game on Saturday because we were in anthracite, so we've got one mad guy out there at least.”

Bielema was interrupted by Jeff Long, the athletics director, at that point. Long said, “More than one.”

Of course, many more fans are upset about the women's basketball national anthem kneel-down. How much the whipping of the Gators helps isn't clear, but the dark uniforms might be alright again sometime down the line.

“I think so,” Morgan said. “We knew it might be a touchy subject to wear them. We'd never played good in them. We had our swag out today in black.”

That's for sure. The Hogs had the swag all the way through the kneel-down.