Razorbacks Finding Identity on Offense, but Not Good One

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — In the morning-after post-mortem following a fourth straight loss, we are starting to find out some answers about this Arkansas team halfway through the season.

I'm reasonably sure the Razorbacks' offensive coaches and players don't wake up on Saturday mornings planning to be horrific, but that's exactly what they're playing like mired in a four-game losing streak. The inconsistency is completely maddening at times.

So far, the only way Sam Pittman is probably keeping this team's attitude headed the right way is they keep providing hope. There are glimpses they can make big plays at times, just not enough of them strung together to win games. It's one thing to make a play in the first quarter, but when they need to make a play in the fourth quarter, those keep going sideways.

Quarterback KJ Jefferson is pressing. He wants to make a play and knows he has to do that for a shot at winning. That's when mistakes tend to happen. His interception early led to an Ole Miss score. Then, in the fourth quarter when the Hogs had to have a play at the end to drive back down the field for a chance to win, he forced another throw that was picked off. Cancel the comeback.

"We've got to find a way to run the football," he said later. "Until we do that, we're putting way too much pressure on our quarterback, our offensive line to protect during those times, and our wideouts to get open. It's hard to win a game when you can't run the football. We've got to figure out a way to do it. Obviously, we're trying. But what we're doing is not working, so we've got to figure that part of it out. We can't, the way we're built, we can't win games not having success rushing the football."

While much is being made about the defense making drastic improvement, it's really hard to find that in the result. Let's not get hung up analyzing individual good plays here and there. Everybody makes them and it can skew your judgement in the heat of the moment.

Ole Miss gained 196 yards on the ground while the Hogs stumbled their way to a net total of 36. With 5 sacks that ended up costing them 41 yards, that shows up in doing anything on the ground and in the passing game. For whatever reason, they can't run the ball consistently.

That wasn't the plan. Everybody expected the running game to be really good. A lot of folks had unrealistic expectations based on guesses that leads to wild opinions when the games start being played. That's where we find ourselves these days.

After a week of shuffling players all across the offensive line, by halftime Saturday night they ended up going back to what they started with in Little Rock back on Labor Day weekend. That means the players aren't any good answers.

Forget about improvement. If they haven't done it by halfway through the season, there won't be enough down the stretch to make much difference. As I say, nobody can train a Clydesdale to a win in the Kentucky Derby.

Steve Spurriers comment after his South Carolina beat up Brett Bielema's first team here back in 2013 flashed through my mind watching the Hogs' debacle in Oxford. "Brett's just going to have to recruit his way out of this," he said at the time. It's not a quick process and, sooners or later, fans aren't going to accept winning 7 or 8 games a year as a goal.

Sam talks about the "Arkansas way" an awful lot. That's really what it is. Winning 7 or 8 used to be cause for concern. Now it's celebrated and contracts to be extended and huge raises given. Big money for hope to get expensive inconsistency.

HOGS FEED:

RANDOM THOUGHTS: ROBIN NEEDS BATMAN AROUND TO KEEP BEING A SUPER HERO

RAZORBACK DEFENSE KEEPS ARKANSAS IN GAME, BUT OLE MISS FINDS WAY TO HOLD ON

WHY IS EVERYONE SO MAD ABOUT THESE DAN ENOS E-MAILS?

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