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There have been a lot of horrendous losses in the past 10 years for the Hogs. This one is an all-timer. Not only was the 44-17 final score bad enough. Arkansas got thoroughly beat down by a C-USA team. Not because some weird things happened, or some freak plays. No. Arkansas got beat down by a team that was better than them. A C-USA team that was better on offense, defense, and special teams. We want to talk special teams? Here’s how bad this one was.
North Texas just pulled off the best punt return of the season and it’s not even close. pic.twitter.com/xjjIv8m87s
— Yahoo Sports College Football (@YahooSportsCFB) September 15, 2018
There is no excuse for how bad this is. Only horrendously poor coaching. But oh. That’s not the only example of horrendously poor coaching that happened today. At halftime, Cole Kelley’s line was 14/32 passing for 161 yards and 3 interceptions. It’s bad enough that we had Kelley throw the ball 32 times in this situation but it gets worse.
He put Kelley out there to start the second half.
You don’t need me to tell you that he went out there and it went poorly. The third pass of the half was intercepted. Finally Morris heard enough of the boos from the fans (at least those who managed to stay) and finally put in Connor Noland. If you’re wondering where Ty Storey went, well reader, he didn’t play at all. Yup we went straight from Kelley to the true freshman because WE WERE DOWN 34 TO 10 AT THIS POINT. After that Cole Hedlund (remember him?) hit a FG and he had more points by himself than the Hogs.
Mason Fine only threw for 281 yards in this game. Easily his lowest total of the season, because he didn’t have to throw for that many. In the first half he was consistently gifted great field position. In the second half they didn’t have to pass because they were already blowing the doors off the Hogs.
Arkansas was a disaster on offense in every way imaginable. They had 126 rushing yards on 32 carries. And 68 of those came on the last rush of the game. None of Kelley, Noland, or John Stephen Jones could get things going in the passing game. It was just all around bad.
Going into the season, it was clear that things needed time to get fixed. The thing is, things weren’t get the doors blown off by a C-USA team. Things were bad. They weren’t this bad. This is a monumental disaster.
And if there isn’t an immediate answer. Changes need to be made.