FAYETTEVILLE -- Austin Allen was about as tough on himself as LSU's defense was on him Saturday night.
Maybe tougher.
"You never want to go out on a Saturday and play like that," Allen said after LSU beat Arkansas 38-10 at Reynolds Razorback Stadium. "You get 12 opportunities and you kind of waste one, I'm kind of sick to my stomach right now with how I played.
"I feel like I let the seniors down."
It was the final home game for Arkansas' seniors and Allen, a redshirt junior, said not winning for them made it especially disappointing.
"I know how much the seniors have been through," he said. "We all wanted to send them out on top."
Allen came into the game completing 61.8 percent of his passes (170 of 275) for 2,291 yards and 19 touchdowns with 8 interceptions through his nine starts this season.
Against an LSU defense that held No. 1 Alabama scoreless for three quarters last week before the Crimson Tide rallied to win 10-0, Allen completed 15 of 31 passes for 210 yards and 1 touchdown with 2 interceptions. He was sacked three times.
"I'm going to have to look long and hard in the mirror this week and figure some things out,," Allen said. "Take a self-inventory and figure out why I didn't play too well today and try to come out and be better next week."
Both of Allen's interceptions came on first-down plays.
"If he throws first-down picks, we can't have that," Arkansas Coach Bret Bielema said. "I love him, love his competitive spirit and where he's at. But he obviously was out of sync a little bit.
"We have to make sure we aren't putting too much on him to do things, because he's got to play cleaner and play quicker to get back to where he was."
Allen suffered a sprained right knee in a 56-3 loss at Auburn Oct. 22 and didn't practice the next week when the Razorbacks had an open date, but Bielema said he had no issues in practice leading up to Saturday.
"Health-wise, he's been great all week, felt really good," Bielema said. "As coaches we felt really good about it as well.
"We have to make sure we're all on the same page there."
Allen said after the game he was fine physically.
Arkansas beat Florida 31-10 last Saturday, but Allen wasn't particularly sharp, completing 15 of 26 passes for 243 yards and 1 touchdown and an interception that was returned for a touchdown.
"Even last week, as well as we performed, I thought he was just a little bit off," Bielema said of the Florida game. "But this week we had done certain things during practice and he had been very locked in and was very accurate and looked like the Austin we had seen all the way through the season.
"But today I think there was just a little bit of uncharacteristic things. Just a simple thing like we sent a guy in motion before we were set and that's just not him. He's so good about being heady and being smart, and we need to get back to that.
"He and I will have a conversation and make sure he's right for us moving forward."
Arkansas senior offensive tackle Dan Skipper offered strong support for Allen.
"We all have good days, we all have bad days," Skipper said. "I'm not going to sit here and judge his play.
"He's been a freaking rock for us all year, so to sit there and say that he did this, or didn't do this, or whatever, that's hogwash.
"Ya'll can do what you want, but we don't win first down, get behind the sticks, it's hard to win games."
Allen began Arkansas' third possession with a pass that was intercepted by LSU middle linebacker Donnie Alexander at the Razorbacks' 32 and returned to the 18, setting up a Leonard Fournette touchdown run that put the Tigers ahead 14-0 in the second quarter.
Allen said he saw Alexander "walling off" wide receiver Drew Morgan.
"He had his hands on Drew and I thought he was going to carry him inside," Allen said. "I guess he read my eyes and reacted pretty well and just made a good play on the ball."
Allen's longest completion of the game went for 54 yards on a screen pass to tailback Rawleigh Williams in the fourth quarter that gave Arkansas a first and goal at the LSU 3.
But the Razorbacks couldn't cut into the the Tigers' 31-10 lead when safety Dwayne Thomas intercepted Allen on the next play to give LSU possession at its 5 with 7:05 to play.
Allen's intended receiver was Jared Cornelius, who ran a similar route earlier in the game when he broke open on the outside, but Allen didn't see him.
"I wanted to work Jared because I know one-on-one he's usually pretty good out there," Allen said. "That guy [Thomas] had outside leverage and it was just a bad read by me. I shouldn't have thrown the ball."
Arkansas' struggles in the running game make it tougher for Allen. The Tigers held the Razorbacks to 81 yards on 24 attempts.
Allen and the Razorbacks also were forced into passing after LSU pushed its lead to 28-10 midway through the third quarter.
"I thought we ran the ball pretty effectively at times," Allen said. "We just kind of got down and had to throw the ball there at the end.
"But any time you can't run the ball, that's our formula to win, being able to run the ball to set up the pass. The way we got down, I don't think we could stick to it as much as we wanted to.
"We've got to figure some things out."
Sports on 11/13/2016