After a week to rest, Arkansas has an opportunity to build on their first SEC win of the Ryan Silverfield era on Halloween night against Missouri.
Despite the open week, the Hogs are pretty banged up. Chris Marshall, who left the Vanderbilt game with a hamstring injury in the second quarter, is listed as Questionable, while Caden Kitler, who has lost his starting center job to Kash Courtney due to a combination of poor play and a lingering injury, is Out.
Missouri’s injury report is very short, and a notable name is not on it: Ahmad Hardy. The Tigers’ star running back was shot in the leg at an outdoor concert back in May. He was finally cleared for practice last week and is now expected to play.
Will he actually impact the game? I doubt it. He hasn’t even practiced all season until last week, so it’s going to take time to knock the rust off. I think there’s a chance that Mizzou runs all over the Hogs regardless of how many snaps Hardy plays. I also think there’s a chance a night game plus rainy weather bog down Mizzou’s offense, again regardless of how many snaps Hardy plays.
Meet the Tigers
Eli Drinkwitz is a well-known name in Arkansas. Raised in Alma, he played at Arkansas Tech and was an assistant coach at Alma and Springdale high schools from 2005 to 2009, before Gus Malzahn added him to the Auburn staff. That’s where he met Chip Lindsey, an Alabama high school coach also hired by Malzahn.
Drink spent two years on the Auburn staff and then coached running backs during Malzahn’s single year at Arkansas State. He opted to stay behind when Malzahn went back to Auburn, serving as new coach Bryan Harsin’s offensive coordinator at A-State (2013) and then joining his staff at Boise State in 2014 and 2015. He finally set out on his own after the 2015 season, coordinating NC State’s offense from 2016 to 2018 and then getting his first head coaching job at Appalachian State in 2019, going 10-2.
Arkansas kicked the tires on him during the 2019 coaching carousel, but ended up in Columbia. The rumor is that he believed Missouri was in a better position to succeed, and he probably wasn’t wrong. He’s 51-31 in his seven seasons at Missouri, where fan expectations do not unreasonably exceed program resources.
Drink’s 28-26 SEC record has come about in the most predictable way possible: beating bad teams, losing to good ones. The Tigers have broken through with a few good wins in recent years, like beating Ohio State in the 2023 Cotton Bowl.
This year’s team is sitting where Drink’s last several have sat, in the bottom half of the AP top-25. The Tigers are favored and have to feel good, since Mizzou rarely loses to unranked teams.
When Mizzou has the ball
The aforementioned Lindsey is now Mizzou’s offensive coordinator, replacing Kirby Moore, who took the Washington State head coaching job. In Lindsey, Drink is returning to his Malzahn roots. The Outside Zone that has been a staple of the Drinkwitz offense for the last several years has been deemphasized this year (Hardy getting shot may have also played a role in that).
Missouri has been generating big plays, but the usual ultra-efficiency of their run game has completely evaporated this season. They frequently fall behind the chains, leaving them dependent on an inconsistent diet of explosives.
When Missouri gets an explosive run, it’s really explosive (12th in highlight yards per opportunity), but they’re getting a lot of explosives (108th in explosive run rate).
With Hardy out, the run game has been led by a heavy dose of Jamal Roberts. The volume is there, especially in the big wins over Florida (24 carries for 211 yards) and Texas A&M (34 carries for 222 yards), but the high number of carries have also come in bad games (20 carries for 39 yards against Ole Miss).
The Florida numbers may be a bit misleading: about three-fourths of Roberts’ rushing yards came on runs of 80 and 77. His other 22 carries went for just 54 yards. That makes Ole Miss’s dominant defensive performance less of an outlier: the Rebels focused on preventing the big runs knowing that Mizzou would struggle with the shorter ones.
Quarterback Austin Simmons came in from Ole Miss. He’s been a monster off play action (10.4 yards per dropback, second in SEC), and the Tigers push the ball down the field while rarely allowing him to get hit. Down-to-down efficiency is mediocre, however.
Arkansas’ primary focus has to be stopping the explosive run game of Missouri while limiting the deep passing game as much as possible. Without explosives, Mizzou drives will fizzle and their tendency to fall behind the chains will become a major issue.
When Arkansas has the ball
Mizzou’s defense has been very good and is built on forcing third downs. The Tigers are great at knocking teams off-schedule and preventing early conversions (2nd in early conversion rate, or the percentage of generated first downs that come before third down).
They’ve been bitten for an explosive here and there, but their defense has no major weaknesses.
Running the ball will not be easy. Jaden Baugh and Reuben Owens couldn’t. It’s hard to see Arkansas running it well, despite the massive in-season improvement we’ve seen from the Razorback running game.
I think Arkansas’ best chance is to lean more heavily into the Leads runs with Braylen Russell that provided a lot of success against both Tennessee and Vanderbilt. Missouri’s defensive front is extremely athletic and disruptive, so it’s hard to expect much success from the Outside Zone that Tim Cramsey wants to be the offense’s base run play.
If the Hogs can’t run it, they are going to put the offensive line in a tough spot, as Missouri can tee off on KJ Jackson.
The Tigers have been victimized by a few big plays in the passing game, but they’ve consistently generated pressure and disrupted opponents trying to throw the ball.
Keys to the game
Limit Mizzou’s explosives. The difference between the Missouri offense’s good games and its bad games has been just a few plays in each. Ole Miss and Mississippi State limited the big plays and won; Florida and Texas A&M didn’t and lost. The Tigers will get some big pass plays, but winning may come down to how many big run plays Missouri can get.
Get a crazy score. I’m afraid this game looks like a mismatch in the trenches. Mizzou will protect their quarterback and get after Arkansas’, while stopping the Hogs’ run game. That’s a recipe for this one to get ugly quick given that Arkansas’ offense is entirely reliant on winning the offensive line battle. I think things will have to get a bit spooky for Mizzou if Arkansas wants to win: whether it’s a non-offensive touchdown or some kind of crazy offensive score, I think we’re going to have to see the Hogs score unconventionally at least once to have a chance.
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