Halftime Takeaways As Vanderbilt, Arkansas Tied At 14

Vanderbilt and Arkansas are tied at 14 at halftime as both squads look for their first SEC win of the season. The Razorbacks drove down the field to tie the game with 38 seconds left in the half.

Here are three takeaways from the first half of action.

Run game dries up until final drive

The biggest positive from the last two weeks was Arkansas' newfound ability to run the football, especially in the third quarter against Tennessee. Whatever the Razorbacks found on the ground against Texas A&M and Tennessee was largely not present in the first half against the Commodores.

While head coach Ryan Silverfield and offensive coordinator Tim Cramsey did not play Sutton Smith in the first half, Braylen Russell only had 17 rushing yards on seven carries.

Room to run ➡️ @settles_cameron pic.twitter.com/zF3O98EqrM
— Arkansas Football 🐗 (@RazorbackFB) October 18, 2026

Cam Settles, however, had three carries for 23 yards and scored to tie the game at 14 right before halftime.

Punting becomes a major issue

Ryan Silverfield explicitly called out starting punter Gavin Rush on Monday after he had an inconsistent game against Tennessee.

"The punting was terrible," Silverfield said. "You’re exactly right. The last two at the end (were good), but we talked about special teams being very inconsistent. Obviously everyone wants to point to the fact that Max made a long field goal, but he also missed one. We can’t have that.

"The punting is not close to where it needs to be. It’s unacceptable. Call it what it is. We’ve got a coach on our staff that works specifically with punters and we told him he has to punt better or we will make a change there."

Rush's third punt of the night, which came from the Vanderbilt 42, only traveled 22 yards and didn't come close to pinning VU deep in their own territory. His three first half punts only traveled 96 yards in total, good for 32.0 yards per punt.

Defense once again comes up huge

Arkansas' defense kept Arkansas in the game last week against Tennessee and put Arkansas on the scoreboard in the first half on Saturday.

Turned all the way 🆙 @1_jahiem pic.twitter.com/9nSIciM0AC
— Arkansas Football 🐗 (@RazorbackFB) October 18, 2026

After Arkansas' first three offensive drives netted zero points, the UA defense responded with a score of its own. Joker Johnson intercepted a pass from Jared Curtis and returned it for a touchdown to tie the game at 7-7.

Arkansas won the turnover battle for the first time all season last week against Tennessee and is ahead 1-0 so far on Saturday.

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