FAYETTEVILLE -- Arkansas Razorbacks Coach Bret Bielema can rightly claim Matt Canada as a small branch on his coaching tree.
Canada served as Bielema's offensive coordinator in 2012 at Wisconsin, the last season for both men with the Badgers.
They'll square off as opponents for the first time since 2011 on Saturday at 11 a.m. at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge. The University of Arkansas, Fayetteville (4-5, 1-4 SEC) will be aiming to claim the Golden Boot trophy for the third time in four seasons against the Tigers (6-3, 3-2 SEC), who were No. 19 in the first College Football Playoff rankings last week.
Canada, a longtime assistant coach at his alma mater Indiana, is in his first year calling the shots for Coach Ed Orgeron's offense.
"I have tremendous respect for him," Bielema said of the 45-year-old Canada. "He's a guy who runs a lot of multiple looks, multiple personnel groupings.
"He tries to keep it very simple. You see a lot of the things on film that maybe to the outside world looking in it looks like there's a lot going on. But the way he calls it and the way he says it, it's very simplistic. And he gets a lot of players involved. He plays to his players' strengths."
Orgeron wanted to add elements to the predictable run sets that Coach Les Miles had in place that were ineffective in some of the Tigers' bigger games, particularly against Alabama.
Canada provided the contrast with an offense that features lots of pre-snap motions, jet sweeps to receivers and threats to the edge of a defense that can confuse defenders and give power backs such as Derrius Guice and Darrel Williams more space between the tackles.
"It's a very interesting concept what they do with all the shifts, all the motion," Arkansas defensive coordinator Paul Rhoads said. "They try to unsettle you. They try to get your eyes where they're not supposed to be, try to get you out of alignment, try to get you out of leverage, and then take advantage of it from there.
"They challenge you. They challenge you in your preparation and based on what I've seen, he does a very good job."
Canada added wrinkles in last week's 24-10 loss at Alabama for which the Razorbacks will have to prepare. Williams took snaps from the Wildcat formation. Quarterback Danny Etling took multiple downfield shots against Alabama's cornerbacks, with mixed success.
LSU outgained Alabama 306-299 in total yards but could not hit on enough of the deep balls to put points on the board.
Orgeron was asked about Canada's impact and the offensive success against Alabama.
"It gives confidence, obviously," Orgeron said. "He had more yards, I guess, than they had against us, and that was evident with his game plan, the shifts and motions were very hard.
"Although they stopped some plays, the things that they stopped, he was able to do something else. He had options. Again, I think that he had a great play call in the first down, play-action pass. That was our game plan to go deep, but we had a chance to make those plays. If we make those plays, that's a different ballgame."
The Arkansas coaching staff noted the number and variety of deep balls thrown by Etling and freshman Myles Brennan, who came in late after Etling took a hard shot.
"I don't think there's any doubt they'll do that again this week," Rhoads said. "I also know we have to be able to stop the north and south run piece of it before they have to do that to expand what it is that they're doing.
"In last week's game, Alabama took away a good bit of the run portion of it and forced them into some of those throws."
Etling completed 12 of 26 passes for 137 yards, hitting Stephan Sullivan with a 31-yard pass and DJ Chark with a 23-yard shot. But he had a chance with open receivers on several other deep throws.
"Yeah, some of them could have been caught," Orgeron said. "Some of them were just a little bit behind. The timing could have been better.
"The thing I was pleased with was the protection. I thought our guys did a tremendous job of protecting the quarterback and giving enough time."
Bielema hired Canada away from Northern Illinois to replace Paul Chryst as offensive coordinator in 2012.
Wisconsin, with Bielema as defensive coordinator and then head coach, had gone 6-0 against Indiana with Canada serving as passing game coordinator (2005-2006) and offensive coordinator (2007-2010). Then Bielema's 2011 Wisconsin team beat Northern Illinois, with Bielema's buddy Dave Doeren as head coach and Canada as offensive coordinator, 49-7 at Soldier Field in Chicago.
The 2012 Badgers averaged 236.4 rushing yards per game to rank No. 13 in the nation, and they really exploded in the Big Ten Championship Game against Nebraska. Canada's offense racked up 640 total yards, including 539 rushing yards and two 200-yard rushers for the first time in school history during a 70-31 rout of the Cornhuskers.
The Badgers unleashed a variety of new formations and trick plays in that game, including snaps out of the Wildcat in what Canada termed a "Barge" formation.
Bielema accepted the head coaching job at Arkansas three days later, and there was speculation Canada might join him in Fayetteville before he hooked up with Doeren again at North Carolina State.
"There was some things panning out here, people I was talking to," Bielema said Monday. "Obviously I ended up hiring Jim [Chaney], but there were a lot of people that I was talking to before that. There was some things I was trying to wait on through the NFL, different people who were free to play or free to come at that time or who weren't.
"So I know he had to go with the opportunity he had at the time. I don't know how it all played out, but I knew where I was going before that was kind of official."
Sports on 11/07/2017