FAYETTEVILLE — Santos Ramirez knew something was up, but it wasn’t what he thought. Typically, Bret Bielema deviates from the normal the day before a game with something to teach perspective.
“A lot of times, Coach B tries to teach us something about life,” Ramirez said. “I thought that’s what we were doing Friday afternoon when he stopped the bus. I thought he was probably going to tell us about a little kid.”
That wasn’t the plan this time. The Arkansas head coach wanted to drive something home about playing at home. Bielema wanted to make sure his team understood the importance of defending the turf inside Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium.
The Hogs earned some great road victories over the last two seasons. There have been triumphs at Tennessee, Ole Miss, LSU, and even this year at TCU. They need some home victories to brag about, too.
“People have different homes,” Bielema said. “The home me and my wife share now is awesome, but it’s not the home I have lived in my whole life.
“I told those guys, ‘Whatever you have to do, let’s do what we have to do to protect this house.’ The good news is that there are going to be 70,000 to 80,000 people there tomorrow to help you do this. I thought they bought into it hook, line and sinker; never wavered. We needed help from the crowd. They delivered.”
They can brag about Saturday after Ramirez put the finishing touch on No. 12 Ole Miss with a hit on a loosely carried football by quarterback Chad Kelly with 1:40 to play. Austin Allen killed the rest of the clock with three retreating kneel downs to give fans a 34-30 victory to cherish.
Ramirez was the last to enter the interview room, perhaps 10 minutes after Allen and a few others took turns toasting the effort by their coaches, teammates and fans. He was chosen for a segment on Bielema’s TV show that will air Sunday.
“Sorry to keep you guys waiting,” Ramirez said.
Honestly, he was talking about the interviews. But he could have just as easily been talking about finally delivering the kind of big play most have been expecting from the sophomore from Shreveport, La. The 6-2, 205-pounder looks like an SEC strong safety, perhaps the missing piece to the puzzle for a defense shredded over the last two seasons.
It was the fourth-and-16 scramble by Kelly that could be a defining moment for Ramirez and the Arkansas defense. The Ole Miss quarterback was near the first down stakes when Ramirez put his shoulder squarely on the football and the ball bounced backward and out of bounds, seven yards shy of a first down.
“I was telling everyone before that play to watch the quarterback scramble,” Ramirez said. “And I was thinking when he came out of the pocket that he’s been carrying it loose all night. I tried to put a hit on the ball and it worked out.”
Bielema praised the defense for its play all night, but he saved special praise for Ramirez.
“Our guy laid the wood and popped that ball out,” Bielema said “It was a fun way to end it.”
Of course, the offense rallied with a 10-play, 56-yard drive for the winning touchdown with 2:20 left. There were plenty of highlights as the Hogs found their running game to go with Allen’s slick passing.
But the defense contributed, too. It was a three-and-out that set up the only touchdown by either team in the third quarter, a 38-yard drive capped by Allen’s short option pitch - ruled a pass - that Rawleigh Williams finished with a beautiful jump cut for a 2-yard touchdown play.
The game-winner was another marvelous cut, a 6-yard sweep by Jared Cornelius with 2:20 left. The junior wide receiver motioned into the backfield and set up beside Allen as a setback in the shotgun. The play was designed to go all the way to the boundary, but he cut it hard behind left tackle Dan Skipper’s kick-out block.
“Those were big-time cuts by Rawleigh and Jared - big time,” Bielema said. “They were just huge plays. Jared was supposed to stay outside, but he saw the lane open up and cut it perfectly.”
Cornelius said the Rebels flew to the boundary.
“I was going there and it seemed like they all went outside,” Cornelius said. “It just opened up for that cut. When I turned, it was pretty obvious that no one was going to touch me. I was pretty sure it was a touchdown.”
Allen felt bad for getting credit for a completed pass on the Williams touchdown.
“I guess I did pitch it forward, but not by much,” he said. “It’s really just an option read.”
There was a chance for more of a pass, but it wasn’t open.
“The play started with Keon Hatcher coming back in motion,” Allen said. “I was going to shovel it down to him. But the end stayed low. So the read was to go wide with it and either take it in or pitch to Rawleigh. It was a great run by Rawleigh.”
Allen delighted in giving the win to the fans, so good the previous week when the Hogs couldn’t match No. 1 Alabama in a 49-30 loss.
“It was huge for our fans, huge for our state,” Allen said. “They have been great for us. We wanted this for them.
“Coach B talked about protecting the home field. That’s big. Everyone bought in.”
The talk Friday came on the overlook just outside the northwest corner of the stadium. The buses that take the team to the hotel didn’t take their usual route south to I-49. Instead, the buses took a left turn instead of the usual right.
“We came up Stadium Drive,” Allen said. “I knew something was up. What he said hit home.”
Of course, there was the typical Xs and Os talk later at the hotel. The main focus was for the defense “to control” Kelly, Bielema said.
The Hogs forced two Kelly turnovers and lost a potential third on an offside penalty. That’s two more than they forced last year when the Hogs won an overtime shootout in Oxford, Miss., when neither team had a turnover.
“We thought we could rattle him,” said Jeremiah Ledbetter, who sacked Kelly on the play before Ramirez forced the fumble.
“Last year we pressured him, we just didn’t get him down. We missed a lot of opportunities to sack him. We focused on cleaning up those mistakes.
“Our coaches had a great call on the last sack. They had their protection called to the slot and we had a slant with Taiwan Johnson and Deatrich Wise to that side, and me sliding underneath them. ”
Tackling was much better than the previous week against Alabama.
“We still missed some,” Ramirez said. “They have great players. Kelly is a great player, but we did rattle him a little bit. We tried to get in his head. He has some issues and we tried to do things to bother him.”
The Hogs have had issues on defense. Safety Josh Liddell had tackled poorly at times this season, but he had eight solos and shared team honors with Brooks Ellis at nine total stops.
“Josh is a relentless preparing guy,” Bielema said. “He’s a very quiet young man. If you interview him, you get two words out of him, you are doing good. I’ve spoken to him six times and I’ve known him for four years. Very quiet, very confident.
“He did a nice job of bouncing back. Last week, Alabama makes a lot of teams look silly. You know what I mean? You can’t just dwell on that world. He knew he had to get better and he did that. Again, just a true testament.
“I’ll tell you what, (secondary coach) Paul Rhoads, too, and I’m very blessed with the staff that I have. The combination of Robb Smith and Paul, and Vernon (Hargreaves) and Rory (Segrest), defensively when everybody is saying these all these things, to bounce back and play the way they did was big.”
Ole Miss made just 129 yards in the second half.
“One of the things we obviously do statistically, is break down the opponent,” Bielema said. “Some of the numbers that they put up have been very impressive and it can get to be daunting.
“But our kids focused on the task. We knew three keys, one of them was obviously to align and play the ball correctly for four quarters from the snap to the whistle. I thought our guys did that. Obviously, we gave up some plays, but they’re good.”
Offensively, the key was for the Hogs to find their identity with the running game. It’s been Bielema’s strength in past seasons. It may be the key to beating a Hugh Freeze-coached Mississippi team. The Rebels are 3-9 when giving up 200 yards rushing under Freeze.
Arkansas rushed for 253 yards, subtracting losses of 54 left a net of 200. The Hogs were at 224 before Allen took initial losses of 8, 7 and 9 yards to run the clock out.
Running back Rawleigh Williams, once committed to Ole Miss as a recruit, made 180 on 27 carries. Devwah Whaley added 65 on 11 carries and also provided some confidence to become an every-down back with some great blitz pickup hits.
Williams saw some new running lanes with improved blocking by the offensive line.
“Coach Bielema and the coaching staff always preach fighting that extra second and things will open up,” Williams said. “That’s what happened today and things opened up like they haven’t all season.”
Bielema said the entire offese was asked “to strain” a little longer on blocks. They did that against the Rebels and things clicked.
“I learned with Hayden Fry a long time ago, someone can throw for 300 yards and you still have a chance to win,” Bielema said. “But if somebody runs for 200 or higher, you really have a chance to win. I preached that to our guys all week. I knew we had to run the football. I thought there were explosive plays we took advantage of tonight.
“For our formula, not everybody’s formula, it’s about running the ball. Last week we threw for 400 against Alabama. That’s great to talk about, we scored 30 and it’s no easy task. But we can’t win the game that way. For us to play our formula, here at Arkansas, to have success, we got to have them both work.”
And the Hogs must play defense. All of those big offensive plays show up on SportsCenter each night. Ramirez left the interview room hoping his defensive play would make the ESPN highlights.
“I haven’t seen it yet,” Ramirez said. “They didn’t show it to me when I went up to do the interview on Coach Bielema’s TV show. I do hope to see it soon. Maybe it’ll be on (SportsCenter). That will be fun.”
If not, there are fun things to think about.
“I know people don’t think we can play defense,” Ramirez said. “We think we can play defense. We think we just have to tackle better. We have to get people on the ground. We did that tonight. It was fun.”
There were some fun hits, Ramirez said. He knocked the ball loose on another play, but it was ultimately ruled an incomplete pass.
“That one I got a shoulder stinger,” Ramirez said. “My arm was dangling. But it didn’t take long for the feeling to come back. I wanted back out there.”
There would be one more big hit. It finished off the Rebels.