FAYETTEVILLE — Top-ranked Alabama — loaded three deep — delivered an antiseptic first half to remove any doubt in a 52-3 victory over an Arkansas team with just barely enough to play for the third straight game.
The Razorbacks were especially thin against the Crimson Tide. Center Ricky Stromberg and inside linebacker Grant Morgan were among those out with injuries. The Hogs had only 63 scholarship players available against the nation’s best team.
They pieced together a decent first quarter, then unraveled in uncharacteristic fashion. It left first-year coach Sam Pittman — in a bit of a pitch to recruits — trying to explain a rare blowout loss after what had been a competitive first nine games.
“The message you give every (recruiting) class, they are highly recruited and you need depth,” he said. “Y'all don’t have any idea what it’s been like with covid-19, injuries and (players) opting out.
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“You have tests on Thursday night and you put together the team on Friday. You hope (next year) you have a deeper team, you get a vaccine and opting out is a thing of the past.”
The Razorbacks finished the regular season 3-7, apparently in line for a bowl bid in a season with no minimum-win requirements to play in a bowl game. Pittman didn’t flinch when asked if the Hogs would embrace more work.
“I want to practice,” Pittman said. “Teams that don’t go to a bowl are losing 15 practices to everyone else.”
It sounded like the locker room is excited to practice some more, too.
“We are excited,” said junior receiver Mike Woods. “Not too many guys (here) have gone to a bowl game.”
That a bowl game might be next — probably on Dec. 30 or 31 — was one of the few bright things to discuss after Alabama dominated in the first half and mostly ran clock in the second half.
Pittman said the Tide “beat our butts bad,” but he emphasized that no one else handled the Hogs like that this season. He said it was a case of running into a great team with limited weapons to fight back.
There was a summary of a post-game conversation between Alabama coach Nick Saban and Pittman.
“I don’t want to say, but he was kind and I was nice,” Pittman said. “I saw tape and thought this was maybe the best Alabama team. He’ll hate me for saying that. He calls that rat poison.
“They are hard to stop and then we gave them points. The second half, they were trying to go home and trying to run the clock out. I hate that we gave up that play at the end when all they were doing was just handing it off.”
There were few silver linings for the Razorbacks on a cold, overcast Saturday at Reynolds Razorback Stadium. The Tide scored four touchdowns in the second quarter to jump to a 38-3 halftime lead and there was never a hint of an Arkansas rally.
Alabama rolled into the SEC Championship Game next week against Florida with the only perfect 10-0 mark in the all-league regular-season slate.
The Tide did not show any weaknesses, except perhaps little-used punter Charlie Scott. He punted twice for a 37.5-yard average Saturday. That’s close to what he’d done in his first nine games — 13 punts for a 38.2-yard average.
The trick is slowing the Alabama offense enough to force some punts. The Hogs did not until the second team entered late in the third quarter.
Alabama was held well below its season average in total offense (535.6), but still made 443 thanks to an 80-yard run by third-team running back Jase McClellan with 1:51 left.
The Hogs tackled well and competed fiercely on defense except on DeVonta Smith’s 84-yard punt return for a touchdown that broke a 3-3 tie in the first quarter. Even then, the Hogs hardly had a shot at the 4.3 speedster likely to get votes in the Heisman Trophy race.
They played solid in deep coverage against a team that has found open space behind every secondary this season. Smith, an All-America wide receiver, only had three catches for 22 yards.
But the best play for the Hogs in a tough-nosed start to that 3-3 deadlock came when Alabama star running back Najee Harris tried to make a cut when Jonathan Marshall penetrated.
With Marshall wedged between two of the superb Tide blockers, Harris slipped for lost yardage on a third-and-3 play. Alabama quarterback Mac Jones passed incomplete on a pass to the sideline on the next play, a fourth-and-4.
It resulted in Arkansas’ best field position of the first half, at its own 43 with 4:18 left in the first quarter and energized the home sideline and the sparse crowd who braved the 36-degree temperature at kickoff.
After Feleipe Franks played the first two possessions (leading a march for a 26-yard field goal by Matthew Phillips), KJ Jefferson took over at quarterback. All the Hogs did with Jefferson is sputter. There were two procedure penalties and an incomplete pass on third-and-11.
Punter Reid Bauer had to jump to the right to avoid a rusher, then launched a towering 42-yard punt that was beyond the coverage. Smith stepped to his right to make the first cover man miss, then cut to his right to find a perfectly set wall. He sailed untouched on the 84-yard play. It was 10-3 at 2:36 left in the first quarter and the Tide never looked back.
The Hogs covered Smith in fine fashion in the first half with a cornerback rotation of LaDarrius Bishop and Montaric Brown. Hudson Clark did not play in the first half. He tried to go on the field on an extra point try when the Hogs only had 10 on the field, but retreated to the sideline when it was apparent he could not line up in time.
Franks sat out the Missouri game with rib injuries, but started against the Tide. He was injured again with two sacks in the second possession while leading the Hogs to their only points on the day.
Jefferson relieved for one series, then relieved Franks again to start the second half. Jefferson was knocked out of the game with a knee injury on a run into the middle late in the third quarter.
Franks then finished the game, dodging pass rushers just as he did at the outset. He finished with 8 of 10 passing for 90 yards and seven sacks. He carried 18 times on the day.
There were times the senior transfer from Florida held the ball too long. He bounced out of the pocket on one sack, fumbling at the 5-yard line to set up an Alabama score early in the second quarter.
Pittman said the Alabama pass rush looked “pretty overwhelming. We had trouble with their line games. They were running behind our center.”
It was similar action that Pittman recalled from trying to block the Tide blitzes during time as Georgia’s offensive line coach with a much better unit.
“I’ve had trouble picking that up at Georgia with the best line in football,” he said. “We got it to third and manageable, but we have to move the pocket. I thought we could hit some shorter passes and slants, but evidently they were not open.”
Pittman said the punt return was a case of not executing the plan.
“We wanted to kick it to the sideline,” he said. “We kicked it to him right down the middle and then we didn’t touch him.”
On committing seven penalties in the first half, he said, “We’ll have to look at that. The frustrating thing were the illegal motions. We had only two practice with a new center, but we didn’t have problems in practice.”
The Hogs gained just 188 yards in total offense. Trelon Smith made 69 yards on 19 carries, but there wasn’t much after a 16-yard dash in the first quarter. He was knocked around at the line of scrimmage on most tries.
Woods caught three passes for 43 yards, the best of the wide receivers. He battled Alabama cornerback Pat Surtain II, perhaps the nation’s best cover man. Surtain is a finalist for the Nagurski Trophy, given to the nation’s best defender.
It was the kind of competition Woods has enjoyed all season. He said he much prefers playing an schedule of all SEC teams.
“To me, 10 SEC games, I like it,” he said. “We are playing a bunch of ranked teams. I hope we do it every year. It’s better than what we used to do.”
That’s coming from someone who survived the gauntlet. The Hogs just didn’t have enough who made it to the end.