Clay Henry's Top 10 Keys: Arkansas vs. Tennessee

Arkansas defensive end Dorian Gerald (5) celebrates with teammates after recording a sack during a game against Georgia on Saturday, Sept. 26, 2020, in Fayetteville.

The way to simplify the game of football hit me when I was scanning the Arkansas connections on Jeremy Pruitt’s coaching staff at Tennessee.

There was Steve Caldwell, a former assistant at Arkansas both under Bobby Petrino (2010-11), John L. Smith (2012) and Chad Morris (2018-19). Caldwell is listed as Tennessee's assistant director of life skills development.

It reminded me that it’s all about hitting the quarterback.

Petrino was in the middle of explaining some of his core beliefs — among them why he flips his line from strong to weak side, running backs are not to go out of bounds — when he boiled it down to the key men on the field.

“The team with the best chance to win the game is the one who can hit the other team’s quarterback and keep his quarterback from getting hit," Petrino said.

It’s about offensive tackles and defensive ends. The matchups there are the key to football.

It reminded of an old coaching adage passed on to me from Frank Broyles, learned from playing against Tennessee coach Robert Neyland.

“Coach Neyland always said all things being equal at quarterback, the team with the best tackles wins most of the time,” Broyles said.

Caldwell’s presence on the Arkansas staff under both Petrino and Morris was important for one simple reason: recruiting defensive ends.

If you trace the development of the Arkansas defense under Petrino, the only real advantage was with the likes of Jake Bequette and Trey Flowers, the latter more of a bonus for Bret Bielema’s teams. Caldwell developed Bequette and signed Flowers. No one wanted Flowers in the SEC except Caldwell.

It was Caldwell who signed most of the key Arkansas pass rushers assigned to chase Tennessee quarterback Jarrett Guarantano when the Hogs play host to the Vols at 6:30 p.m. Saturday at Reynolds Razorback Stadium.

Caldwell signed defensive ends Dorian Gerald, Zach Williams, Mataio Soli and Eric Gregory. Caldwell also recruited Isaiah Nichols, the starter at defensive tackle.

Neyland said “tackles,” not defensive ends. In the old days, the tackles were the defensive ends. Linebackers played outside the end, so he was talking about the pass rushers with a hand on the ground, the defensive ends.

None have been consistent at providing pressure for the Hogs. It’s been something that has been lacking sometimes because defensive coordinator Barry Odom has opted for a three-man rush. Because the Hogs have not faced many teams playing with an in-line tight end, there hasn’t been a need for many four-man fronts.

That changed a little last week when Gerald returned after missing three games with an ankle injury. Could he be ready to blossom after spending most of the last two seasons on the sideline?

Obviously, the sack numbers are important in this conversation. The Hogs have been on the wrong side of this statistic for most of the year. They have given up 15 while the defense has come up with just nine. They did not get close to sacking Texas A&M quarterback Kellen Mond in a 42-31 loss last week.

It’s been a more even situation for the Vols. They have given up 11, while the defense has only 10 sacks.

The lead sack man for Tennessee is "Jack" end Deandre Johnson with 3.5 for 14 lost yards. Gerald and Gregory share the Arkansas lead with 1.5 apiece.

It may not be so much about the ends as it the offensive tackles. Tennessee probably has the edge with a massive tandem, Darnell Wright (6-6, 330 pounds) and Wanya Morris (6-5, 320).

The Hogs have rotated Dalton Wagner and Noah Gatlin at right tackle, with so-so results. Left tackle Myron Cunningham has been slightly better.

It may come down to the work of Gerald and Coates, expected to be the main pass rushers for the Hogs coming into the season. Both have battled injuries, but may be about full speed now.

Much of the preview in this space last week concerned stopping the run. The Hogs did a decent job there, but didn’t hit the quarterback. In fact, that was the singular thing that Arkansas coach Sam Pittman pointed to in his post-game summary.

“They have a very powerful offensive line,” Pittman said. “We couldn’t get to (Mond). They converted on third down.

“We ran man, zone and we blitzed. We weren’t saying, ‘We give up.’ We tried a lot of different defenses. We blitzed corners and safeties.

“But any time you have a big running threat with someone like (Texas A&M running back Isaiah) Spiller and you can run naked bootlegs (with Mond), it makes it tough. They ran play action and we didn’t tackle well.”

That’s where the keys to victory for this week’s game against Tennessee start.


Tackling

This has been a strong area for the Razorbacks all year. Under Odom, the Arkansas defense has tackled better than any team since 2014 when linebacker Martrell Spaight led the SEC in tackles.

The team leaders are Grant Morgan (58), Bumper Pool (50) and Jalen Catalon (46). Pool missed parts of two games with cracked ribs, but started against the Aggies. Catalon sat out the last three quarters of the Texas A&M game because of a targeting penalty.

It’s clear that the Hogs need all three clicking to be effective on defense.

Safety depth was stretched too thin against the Aggies with Catalon out. Simeon Blair and Myles Slusher usually split time at one safety spot, but had to play at the same time with Catalon out. Slusher is not full speed because of an ankle injury.

Joe Foucha is the next man on the tackle chart with 24. He’s playing a new position for the Hogs, a hybrid safety spot almost identical to a nickel back.

Odom’s defense sometimes looks like it has two nickels, with Foucha on one side and Greg Brooks on the other. They are smaller defenders who have to play in the box against a running attack like Texas A&M and Tennessee.

How well those safeties and nickels play against the run may be a key in the Tennessee game.

The Chaney Offense

Tennessee’s offensive coordinator is Jim Chaney, a man I got to know through endless conversations about both offensive style and fly fishing.

During Chaney’s two years at Arkansas, our interviews were long and thorough. Chaney is a brilliant man and an intimate friend with Pittman.

They were together at Tennessee before coming to Arkansas together in what most thought was a package deal. It was a stunner when they split at Arkansas and Chaney left for Pittsburgh. They reunited a year later in Georgia.

Chaney taught me about modern offense and the way to use tight ends and bunch receiver alignments with two wide outs paired with a tight end.

“It’s a way to define man-to-man or zone concepts for the quarterback,” Chaney said.

It’s one of Chaney’s favorite formations and it often is used to get an unbalanced look without moving linemen. If it works early against the Razorbacks, Chaney will stick with it until Odom matches it with appropriate personnel.

Pittman and Chaney

It’s an interesting dynamic. How it affects the game is anyone’s guess. The two coaches know how each other thinks. It might be especially valuable to Pittman as he explains to Odom what might be coming in key situations.

One thing is certain: Pittman expects Chaney to try to run the ball more than most SEC teams.

“He’s going to run it 81 times if you don’t stop it,” Pittman said on his Wednesday night radio show.

“Their team is built for it with a big, physical offensive line with five-star players. They look like an SEC football team, like Texas A&M.”

The two men got to know each other in high school when both visited Central Missouri. Both committed to the Mules on that trip, although Pittman later switched to Pittsburg State.

Third Down

The Hogs have been one of the nation’s best defenses on third down. They slumped in this area against Texas A&M, allowing Mond to convert 7 of 11.

That pushed them from first to fourth in the league with a five-game ratio of 36.7%. By comparison, Tennessee's offense converts at just 26.1%, last in the SEC.

The Arkansas offense has improved on third down, but is still 13th in the SEC, ahead of only Tennessee at 32.4%.

“We are getting closer on offense,” Pittman said. “We scored 31 last week, although that was not enough. We scored 33 against Ole Miss with a chance to get to 40 at the end (when the Hogs took a knee at the goal line).”

Quarterback Play

It’s Feleipe Franks for the Hogs against Guarantano. Both have thrown three interceptions, but Franks has only one pick since the opener against Georgia.

Franks has thrown for 1,213 yards and 11 touchdowns, while Guarantano is at 914 with six touchdowns.

The wild card is the running of the two quarterbacks. Franks ran for 90 yards against the Aggies. Some were scrambles, but most were called quarterback counters.

Pittman said Franks doesn’t mind calling his number on run plays in the run-pass option series installed by offensive coordinator Kendal Briles.

“He came here for a reason and it wasn’t to hand the ball off,” Pittman said. “If the defense has an extra man in the box, it doesn’t account for the quarterback. So you have to run the quarterback with that extra man in the box.

“He’s a good runner. He reminds me — and this will be someone most won’t remember — of a big, strong quarterback, Roman Gabriel. Roman just said, ‘Get off me.’"

The Defensive Plan

Odom has had a unique plan each week for the opposing offense.

It’s likely to change again this week because of the way Tennessee loads the line of scrimmage in unbalanced sets and blocking groupings to scheme an advantage at the point of attack.

That could mean Odom will insert an extra defensive lineman and pull one of his three safeties to match personnel.

“We will have to get as big as we can get,” Pittman said. “They play with seven offensive linemen at times in some of Jim’s packages. We are going to have to get big against their double teams.”

The last comment was not so much literal as mental.

“They are going to try to double team our linebackers and so we have to come downhill,” Pittman said. “Our linebackers are going to have to take on those double teams.

“It will be a slobber knocker. We have to be ready for it and I think we will be ready for it.”

Treylon Burks

After making a one-hand catch for a touchdown against Ole Miss, wide receiver Treylon Burks repeated the feat against Texas A&M. His one-handed grab came in the fourth quarter against both teams.

“The defender had his left arm,” Pittman said of last week's catch, "so his left hand never touched the ball. He’s got those 5X-size hands. Of course, he made a big fourth-down catch for us, too.”

Burks, a guest on the radio show, said catching a pass with one hand is a daily routine.

“That’s something we do in practice,” Burks said. “The receiver group works on it.”

Pittman said the plan each week is for the Hogs to get Burks “10 touches either in his route tree or with screens or called runs.”

Burks caught seven passes, including two for touchdowns against the Aggies.

“He’s dynamic once he gets his hands on the ball,” Pittman said.

The Tight End

With Burks often getting double team coverage that leaves someone open. Last week against Texas A&M it was often the tight end.

Freshman tight end Hudson Henry caught six passes and earned praise from Pittman for the way he bounced up after two tough hits.

“Hudson is really perfect for what we are doing,” Pittman said. “We have a good, bad and the ugly film session on Sunday and Hudson was on two clips.”

Both were on plays where the Aggies delivered crushing hits, one of them resulting in a targeting foul and an ejection.

“He made a catch and got hit in the ribs,” Pittman said. “He took it, got right up, handed the ball to the official and got on the line, ready to go.

“The second was the targeting. He’s a redshirt freshman, but he’s tough as an old billy goat. From the beginning of the year until now, he’s much improved.”

Blake Kern has also made plays for the Hogs at tight end. His 14-yard catch to the A&M 1-yard line set up an Arkansas touchdown.

Healthy Runner

Both teams have solid one-two punches at running back, especially since Rakeem Boyd is now healthy for the Razorbacks. Boyd made 100 yards on 18 carries against Texas A&M.

“Boyd is closer to full speed,” Pittman said. “The line helped him and really blocked well against A&M. As far as Rakeem, I think that’s the worst you are going to see him. He’s got a lot more coming.”

Boyd rotates with Trelon Smith, more of a jitter bug type, according to Briles.

Tennessee rotates Eric Gray (355 yards) and Ty Chandler (275). They are both hard chargers and rotate to keep a fresh back in the game.

Effort

This has been a standard section in these “keys” columns for many years. It fell out of this space the last two weeks because the Hogs have fought so hard in the early going under Pittman.

Is it safe to finally say that effort is a given under Pittman? Maybe so.

But it’s worth revisiting this week because the Hogs are playing a team coming off an open date for the second straight week.

For sure, the Hogs are going to get Tennessee’s best shot. The Hogs are going to have to match the Vols in that department. Intensity will be high.

It’s the same every week in the SEC. Playing hard is a requirement.

That’s the good news under Pittman. The Hogs have brought fire every week through five games.

Pittman knows it is the nature of this year’s schedule with 10 games against SEC teams.

“That SEC slate is there and you get through with a game, putting everything you have into it, and you think, ‘Who do we play next? Oh, my Lord, it’s Tennessee!’”

It has been a fun series. The Hogs trail 13-5, but lead 3-2 in Fayetteville games.

The Hogs have won the last two in the series. They shut out the Vols in the second half for a 24-20 victory in 2015 in Knoxville. They rolled to a 49-7 victory in 2011 in Fayetteville.

There have been some spectacular games and controversy, too.

The most talked about by old timers was a 14-13 victory by Tennessee in the 1971 Liberty Bowl when referee Preston Watts made two calls that determined the game.

Tennessee won a six-overtime game in 2002. The Hogs lost a bitter defeat in 1998 when Clint Stoerner fumbled when the Hogs were close to running out the clock for a victory.

The Hogs rallied to win the next year in Fayetteville when Stoerner passed to Anthony Lucas for the winning touchdown in the fourth quarter.

Students piled out of the stands at Reynolds Razorback Stadium to celebrate that 1999 triumph, tore down the goal posts and carried them to Dickson Street.

That scene is improbable these days under covid-19 restrictions that will limit the crowd to fewer than 17,000. Pittman knows that, but urges those there to provide as much noise as possible.

“We need to get to our limit (of fans) and be loud,” Pittman said.