Brooks' pick 6 jump started upset

Thanks to Greg Brooks, the University of Arkansas scored on an interception return for the first time in four seasons. The defensive score came on Mississippi State’s first possession of Saturday night’s game at Davis-Wade Stadium.

Brooks, a sophomore nickel back, intercepted a K.J. Costello pass on second and 7 and returned it 69 yards for a touchdown to give Arkansas a 7-0 lead with 11:44 left in the first quarter.

The last time a Razorback had a pick-six was a 24-yard return by Santos Ramirez in Arkansas’ 31-10 victory over No. 11 Florida in Fayetteville on Nov. 5, 2016. Ramirez’s interception on a pass by Luke Del Rio also gave Arkansas a 7-0 lead in the first quarter.

For starters

Arkansas had two new starting defensive ends with sophomore Zach Williams and redshirt freshman Eric Gregory.

Both made their first career starts with senior Dorian Gerald sidelined by an ankle injury he suffered against Georgia last week, and junior Julius Coates not dressed out for an undisclosed reason.

The Razorbacks started three defensive linemen, with senior Jonathan Marshall at nose guard.

Arkansas started six defensive backs, with true freshman Myles Slusher added to the lineup to make his first start.

On offense, fifth-year senior tight end Blake Kern made his first career start.

Back to back

Feleipe Franks became the first Arkansas quarterback with starts in back-to-back games in a seven-game stretch spanning the past two seasons.

It was the second start at Mississippi State for Franks, a graduate transfer from Florida. He also started for the Gators in their 13-6 road victory against the Bulldogs in 2018.

The last Arkansas quarterback with consecutive starts had been Nick Starkel, who made four in a row last season against Colorado State, San Jose State, Texas A&M and Kentucky.

Arkansas had five different starting quarterbacks in the last five games of 2019 – Starkel (Alabama), Ben Hicks (Mississippi State), John Stephen Jones (Western Kentucky), KJ Jefferson (LSU) and Jack Lindsey (Missouri).

Franks started last week against Georgia in his Arkansas debut.

Henry scores

Redshirt freshman tight end Hudson Henry caught his first career touchdown pass to give the Razorbacks a 21-7 lead with 11:21 left in the third quarter. Feleipe Franks and Henry connected on a 11-yard pass for the score.

Roster update

Starting defensive end Julius Coates and reserve running back A’Montae Spivey did not make the trip for Arkansas. The Razorbacks traveled with 68 players, according to a team spokesman.

2 for Foucha

Arkansas sophomore safety Joe Foucha, playing off the bench for the second consecutive game, intercepted a pass by K.J. Costello in the second quarter. Then he added another interception in the fourth quarter.

It was Foucha’s second and third career interceptions. His first interception was in last season’s opener against Portland State.

Back home

Redshirt freshman quarterback KJ Jefferson is the only Razorback from Mississippi. He played at North Panola High School in Sardis, Miss.

Jefferson came into the game early in the second half for a goal-line package, but he fumbled as he was stopped on fourth and goal from the Mississippi State 2, after gaining 1 yard on third and goal from the 3.

Injury report

Each team lost its star running back to undisclosed injuries.

Arkansas senior Rakeem Boyd limped to the bench after gaining 3 yards on second-and-goal run from the Mississippi State 6 and didn’t return.

Bulldogs senior K.J. Hill was injured on Mississippi State’s first drive and missed the rest of the game.

Boyd had 8 carries for 28 yards. Hill had 1 carry for 7 yards.

Arkansas sophomore receiver Treylon Burks and junior cornerback Montaric Brown also suffered undisclosed injuries in the first half and didn’t return.

Long wait

Arkansas’ offense didn’t take its first snap until the 3:59 mark of the first quarter.

Mississippi State took the opening kickoff and held the ball the first 3:16 before Greg Brooks’ interception return for a touchdown.

The Bulldogs got the ball again and put together a 15-play, 75-yard touchdown drive that consumed 7:45 off the clock.

Not half bad

Arkansas had a halftime lead over a nationally ranked team for the second consecutive game. The Razorbacks led at No. 16 Mississippi State 14-7 after leading No. 4 Georgia 7-5 at halftime last week.

22 years ago

Saturday night marked the first game against Arkansas for Mike Leach as Mississippi State’s head coach, but he faced the Razorbacks once previously as Kentucky’s offensive coordinator.

That game in Little Rock was 22 years ago to the date of the Arkansas-Mississippi State matchup. The Razorbacks beat the Wildcats and Leach 27-20 at War Memorial Stadium on Oct. 3, 1998.

In 2017 when Leach was Washington State’s coach, he brought up the crowd noise generated at War Memorial Stadium.

“Little Rock, Arkansas, that’s the loudest place I ever played,” Leach said. “Entirely concrete structure. It’s as if you had a football game in the neighbors’ basement and all the kids were yelling louder than hell, and you could tell when you were starting out [during warmups].

“You’d clap your hands and you’d hear it five times and yell, ‘Go, go, go, go, hit, hit, hit, hit.’ Well, then after, and you figure there’s 45,000. You multiply that times five. That equals approximately 250,000. That’s a lot of people, and there’s no stadiums that hold 250,000 people. So 250,000 people are louder than 100,000 people.

“If something good happened for Arkansas, and one excuse was as good as the next, they’d shoot off that howitzer which would echo. It’s probably still echoing from the last time we were there. It would go on forever, so yeah, that was loud.”

Flag bearers

Arkansas senior tight end Blake Kern and junior linebacker Bumper Pool carried the Arkansas and United States flags, respectively, when the Razorbacks ran onto the field.

Cowbells ringing

The coronavirus pandemic couldn’t stop cowbells from being rung at Davis-Wade Stadium.

While the crowd was limited for social-distancing purposes, the Mississippi State fans in attendance did ring their cowbells. The piped-in sound allowed under SEC rules also included ringing cowbells.