Room for Improvement: What can Arkansas improve before LSU?

The Arkansas football team is staring at a gauntlet of a schedule to open SEC play.

This week at LSU marks the first of four straight games away from Fayetteville. There’s not a lot of time to dwell on last weekend’s 38-31 loss to BYU. That one loss could very easily snowball into a 2-5 (0-4 SEC) record if they aren’t ready.

There’s a lot of things Arkansas can improve from last week – the list is very long. However, here’s three key areas they need to fix first, if they hope to pull off the upset in Baton Rouge. Let’s take a closer look at all three.

Penalties

Let’s get the most obvious one out of the way first. The most glaring area where Arkansas can improve this week is penalties.

The Hogs had a very uncharacteristic game from what you’d expect under Sam Pittman. They finished with 14 penalties for 125 yards and five penalties were called on just the final drive of the game – though only four were actually accepted.

Sam Pittman spoke about the amount of penalties on his Monday press conference.

“You’re going to have some missed assignments in a game, but it’s the penalties that are killing drives and keeping drives alive that just have to get corrected,” Pittman said. “In a nutshell, I think if we take half of the penalties away, we would’ve won the game.”

Saturday provides a big test for the Hogs’ discipline. It will be a night game in Baton Rouge and the crowd noise will be a factor. If Arkansas hopes to upset the No. 12-ranked Tigers, they will need to cut down on the penalties and mistakes dramatically.

Offensive Line

The offensive line is another obvious area where Arkansas can improve this week. It’s been a hot-button topic for weeks now and there hasn’t been much improvement.

“The offensive line just has to play more consistent,” Pittman said. “We probably need to move the pocket a little bit more. We just can’t stand back and let people blitz us or bull us.”

KJ Jefferson was sacked four times against BYU and that number could drastically increase against LSU. Regardless of whether the issues up front are coaching-related, injury-related or scheme-related – they have to be addressed. If not, it’s going to be a long season.

Short Yardage Situations

For two weeks now, Sam Pittman’s decision to go for it on fourth down is being criticized. Against Kent State, Pittman went for it on 4th and 1 from his own 34 and Arkansas failed to convert. This week, Arkansas failed convert twice on 4th and short situations.

However, there’s a disconnect between what Pittman thinks the problem is and what the problem actually is. In his press conferences, Pittman keeps bringing up analytics or “Sam-alytics” (apologies if you’re as sick of hearing that word as much as I am).

The analytics and decision to go for it on fourth down isn’t the issue. The issue is the play call on those fourth downs. Why is KJ Jefferson lining up in shotgun – four yards behind the line – when you only need to pick up a yard or less?

Jefferson is 6-foot-4, 250 pounds and arguably the most physical quarterback in the SEC. Why not have him under center and use that size advantage to move the chains?

Heck, you could even try something similar to what the Philadelphia Eagles implemented last Thursday night.

Every single time the Hogs are within a yard of a 1st down, they should run this play. Every. Single. Time. They aren’t stopping it, I promise you. https://t.co/d1V46NQGq1 pic.twitter.com/bnG163h9CK

— Will Whitson (@will_whitson2) September 18, 2023

The bottom line is that the decision is not the main issue – it’s the play call. Hopefully that formation has been thrown out of the playbook for future fourth downs.