Spotlight on KJ Jefferson will Shine Brightly Next Season
Sam Pittman and Arkansas will get the praise they deserve.
The biggest spotlight in the off-season, though, will be on KJ Jefferson.
The Razorbacks' quarterback's stock has been rising throughout a 9-4 season and it will continue during an off-season that is going to be filled with high expectations.
His performance in the Hogs' 24-10 win over Penn State in the Outback Bowl on Saturday showed he's capable of putting the game on his back and delivering a win.
That was the plan all along that offensive coordinator Kendal Briles came up with. The best big-play guy all season, wide receiver Treylon Burks, wasn't playing and it didn't take a genius to guess what was coming.
"It was going to feature KJ, our running backs and our offensive line," Pittman said later about the game plan coming into the game.
It didn't work in the first half. Not much did on offense. Pittman didn't panic, the staff made some adjustments and part of that was to turn Jefferson loose running.
"We saw that if our back was over here, that blitzed from (the opposite side)," Pittman said. "We changed our read to lead the tight end frontside. The (blitz) was not crossing our quarterback and that gave us the read for our two options off of three plays. That read became big."
For non-football geeks that meant either the running back was going to have a lot of room ... or Jefferson was.
He saw it on the reads at the mesh point, which is what he does best.
"Great ones get it done," Pittman said.
Jefferson had a game that looked like something from a Cam Newton playbook. He only had 90 yards passing, but ran for 110.
Every team on the Hogs' schedule next year will see that film and sigh. Accounting for the quarterback as a runner on every single play gives defensive coordinators fits.
"They committed to running the quarterback," Penn State coach James Franklin said later.
Part of the problem was it wore their inexperienced defense out.
"They went with zone read on the perimeter, then they went zone inside where they were reading the linebacker," Franklin said. "If he ran over the top with the running back, they pulled it and hit the quarterback inside.
"That was a major factor."
It had the Nittany Lions ragged by the time the fourth quarter rolled around.
With a two-touchdown lead by then, the Hogs weren't going to do anything except try to make the game as short as possible by running the ball.
Jefferson finished with 664 yards and six touchdowns on the ground. To save you grabbing the phone for the calculator, that's over 50 yards a game.
He was efficient passing, getting 2,668 yards and 21 touchdowns with just four interceptions.
Next year's opponents will notice that, too. That's just over 200 yards a game and the guy who caught most of those passes will be playing on Sundays next season.
Pittman and Briles are going to need a plan to back him up and Malik Hornsby showed his raw speed and running ability when Jefferson was dinged up a little in the second half.
KJ's not going to try and make anybody miss. He's not going to do much sliding, either.
"That ain’t how we’re built," Pittman said. "Earlier in the year, I said, ‘KJ, you can go left or right.’ He said, ‘No, no, no, no. I have to make a statement.'"
We may get the chance to find out how that works out with him being the focal point of the Hogs' offense unless an outside playmaker emerges (which is possible).
For now, though, everybody should just enjoy the best season in a decade that nobody saw coming in August.
Next season shouldn't be a concern for anybody but the coaches.
The guess is they have already started a countdown clock for that.
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