FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Arkansas came out flat in a 34-10 loss to LSU. By the end of the first quarter, the fourth-largest crowd in Razorback Stadium history of 75,983 saw the Razorbacks in a 10-0 hole thanks to quarterback Garrett Nussmeier’s willingness to take advantage of the short and intermediate passing game.
It looked like LSU had the extra week to prepare, not Arkansas. LSU had come off a 29-26 overtime win over then-No. 9 Ole Miss.
Arkansas is far from the first team this season to struggle coming out of a bye week, though. Before LSU came back and won the game against Ole Miss, the Tigers were down 10-0 and only managed 42 yards of total offense in the first quarter despite having the ball four separate times.
It’s a league-wide oddity. 15 of the 16 SEC teams had its first bye week before week 8 and the teams with an extra week to prepare were 6-9 in such games. Arkansas was on the other side of the coin when they beat Tennessee 19-14 after the Volunteers were coming off the open date.
Some of the losses can be explained by the matchup. For example, Mississippi State was always going to be the underdog against Georgia, even if the Bulldogs had three weeks to prepare. Some of the lopsided scores are truly baffling. Missouri lost to Texas A&M, 41-10. Oklahoma got railroaded by Texas in the Red River Rivalry 34-3.
From a health standpoint, Arkansas sure was glad to have the open week as quarterback Taylen Green recovered from a knee injury.
“I’m grateful that it wasn’t really nothing serious and we had a bye week,” Green said about the injury. “The training staff did an amazing job of getting me ready.”
The play on the field, especially early by the defense, really suffered. LSU had 226 yards through the air, 125 of which came after the catch and had similar issues stopping the run game. LSU managed 158 yards on the ground, the most in an SEC game this year.
“We didn’t tackle particularly well,” coach Sam Pittman said. “We made some hits and all that made it second and 4 and second and 5, so I just think that their backs ran hard, their line blocked well, we missed some gaps and we didn’t tackle like we had in the past.”
Arkansas will now have the more traditional one week turnaround against Mississippi State. Kickoff is scheduled for 11:45 a.m. Saturday. The game will be broadcast on SEC Network.
