FAYETTEVILLE — The blitz is coming. The Arkansas offensive players know it and they know it’s time to make some plays.
New Mexico State will blitz from the moment they get off the plane this weekend. It’s something Frank Spaziani defenses have stressed all the way back to his days in the Canadian Football League.
Spaziani is in his second year as defensive coordinator at New Mexico State. With nine returning starters, the Aggies know his system and play it well. They have 12 sacks through four games.
One of the lost starters is linebacker Rodney Butler, the nation’s top tackler last year with 165 tackles. Linebackers Dalton Harrington and Terrill Hanks, both upperclassmen, have picked up the slack with Butler graduated. They have 42 and 40 tackles, respectively.
Those with football knowledge have heard of Spaziani. He played defensive end for Joe Paterno, then spent nine years on George Welsh’s Virginia staff, the last five as defensive coordinator. He was coordinator for four years in the CFL, then 10 years in the same role at Boston College where his defenses were often among the top units in the nation.
Spaziani was head coach at Boston College from 2009-2012. His blitzing linebackers were always among the nation’s tackle leaders at BC.
Just know that they’ll be blitzing the Razorbacks. Offensive coordinator Dan Enos said on Monday “they blitz from everywhere.” Quarterback Austin Allen said it makes for an exciting game plan.
“They are a heavy blitz team,” Allen said Tuesday after practice. “They blitz all over the field, but when you get to the red zone, they are really coming after you. They bring them from everywhere.”
The Hogs have had protection issues against the blitz the last two years. Rebuilding the offensive line was an issue last season. Allen was sacked six times last week in a 50-43 overtime loss to Texas A&M.
“I’ve got faith in those guys,” Allen said. “They have worked hard and they are getting better every practice, every game.”
Some might think blitzes would be the way to attack that offensive line, but Allen thinks they are to the point where they can attack blitzes.
“Our coaches have a good game plan on how to pick up the blitzes,” he said. “We can pick it up. It’s exciting to go against this kind of a defense. We watched the tape of them and they do bring it from a lot of directions.”
It’s a chance to show off some of the screen and blitz release moves built into the offense. The tight end game is built on taking care of blitzes. The Hogs hit some plays against A&M’s blitzes.
“We’ve got some new wrinkles, like you saw last week,” Allen said. “We keep getting more guys involved.
“Whether it’s the tight end screens or some other releases, we’ve got some things for the blitz. What you saw is that a lot of things come into play once we get the run game going. Our play-action is big and so are the screens.
“The key for us is to keep the momentum going for our offense. We’ve got some now. We stayed on the field more this last game and got some rhythm.”
Some of it was success on short yardage with Cole Kelley in the shotgun at quarterback. He converted first downs and in the red zone.
“That helped a lot,” said Barry Lunney, tight ends coach. “Cole is a big boy. I ran some option back in the day, but it must be nice when you are 6-6, 250 and going downhill. He’s going to run through some guys.”
That might be going a little light on Kelley. He’s just short of 6-8 and around 270 pounds.
“Maybe,” Lunney said. “He’s a load, I know that.
“He gave us some things on the goal line that are tough to defend. Those plays on the goal line are tough, and he does give you the pass option. You saw that last week. Maybe there is a little more of that, too.”
The Hogs converted five of six chances in the red zone for touchdowns last week. The only miss came in overtime when Allen was intercepted to end the game. That pass came two plays after Jeremy Patton couldn't get his foot down in the back of the end zone - the second consecutive game that has happened to a tight end in a game-tying situation in the fourth quarter or overtime.
“We’d worked on that,” Lunney said. “You try to cover everything, but we hit on that again. We did spend a lot of time last week on Tuesday and Wednesday on red zone stuff and we’ll do it again. Obviously, when you make a mistake, you go over that again, and we did.”
Lunney said there was improvement in several areas of the tight end play against A&M. Austin Cantrell had his best game and Cheyenne O’Grady did good things both in the run and the pass game.
“That was the most extensive playing time for O’Grady,” Lunney said. “You always can improve, but he had a good performance. We had a couple of issues with protection that just can’t happen. We got our quarterback hit so we have things to do better.”
There was a better mesh between Allen and his receivers. Now that Jared Cornelius is out for the year with Achilles surgery, Allen will need someone to step up.
“It could be La’Michael Pettway,” Allen said. “He’s had a good couple of days. It could be Brandon Martin. He’s had a hamstring issue, but he had a good practice today. Those are a couple of big bodies. Brandon looks healthy finally.”
Everyone wants to be on the field this week. The blitz is coming and wide receivers know it’s going to be a lot of man-to-man coverage. It’s a chance to make a big play.