It was a matchup 50 years in the making, but the Mismatch on Markham was over within minutes.
We knew Arkansas had much more talent, but getting the game away from Fayetteville and with A-State’s best team in several years was quite a coup for the Red Wolves. But Arkansas State fans still had to hope that the Hogs would be unmotivated, and that proved to not be the case on Saturday in front of a sold-out crowd at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock.
Over the first six minutes of the game, Arkansas ran 10 offensive plays for 235 yards and three touchdowns. After building a 28-7 lead, the Hogs got a little sloppy, but returned to form in the second half to win a 56-14 game that was barely even that close.
Advanced stats
“Noise-weighted score” is a really complicated metric that essentially asks, “how replicable was this victory?” It punishes teams that rely on explosive plays, turnovers, or third-down conversions to win. The “noise-weighted score” is almost always going to be closer than the actual score, and its goal to over-weight things that are predictable moving forward. A double-digit victory in this metric is a very good thing.
Arkansas basically had 25-point advantages through both the air and the ground, equaling a 51-point win in terms of expected points added (EPA) from offensive plays. The Red Wolves trimmed the actual margin to 42 points via a special teams touchdown and a small penalty advantage.
This is brutal. Arkansas averaged 11.1 yards per play, had only three negative plays (two were interceptions), and needed only 4.8 plays per drive because they had so many explosives. The Red Wolves managed just 3.8 yards per play with 11 negative plays.
Through two games, the Hogs are doing an excellent job of finishing promising drives with touchdowns. Their only failure on Saturday came when Taylen Green threw an interception right after the Hogs had been set up in the scoring zone by an Xavian Sorey pick.
The Razorback offense was humming in this game. Nearly two-thirds of plays were successful and nearly a quarter were explosive. Arkansas was particularly strong on early downs: 82% of plays came on standard downs (not obvious passing downs), the average standard downs play produced +0.64 expected points, and most impressive of all: 71% of series (sequences starting with a first down) ended in another first down or a score without reaching third down.
As good as the offensive was, the defense was also elite on early downs, holding State to minus-0.33 expected points per play on standard downs and just a 36% early conversion rate. The Red Wolves picked up a few too many third downs (+18% over expected), if you want something to complain about.
When you take out sacks – as these numbers do – you see that State did fine on the ground, posting a respectable 47% success rate and 4.9 yards per rush. But the Red Wolf run defense was overwhelmed by the Hogs, who produced 3.59 line-yards per rush (4.5 is the maximum), 11.1 yards per carry, a 66% success rate, and a 31% explosive rate. All of those are overwhelmingly good.
Jaylen Raynor is a fine quarterback who will have plenty of good games this season, but this wasn’t one of them. An A-State offense that relies on explosive passes failed to produce a single one, and only one-fourth of pass attempts were successful.
I am cautiously optimistic about the Razorback secondary through two games. Kani Walker and Julian Neal have been absolutely locking guys down. Alabama A&M provided no test, but while A-State is far from SEC-level, their receivers aren’t just scrubs, and Neal and Walker completely shut them down.
The Hogs really spread the ball around. O’Mega Blake is the top passing game target, and Mike Washington is the lead back, but this will be a committee approach, which is good to see. I’m hopeful that Green doesn’t hone in on Blake when the games get tougher.
Schematically, Arkansas opened this game with the exact same play they opened with against Alabama A&M. Both ended in an easy completion to Blake on a shallow cross, Petrino’s favorite concept and one the Hogs have been spamming so far this year. One thing to watch: Petrino likes to put a deep post over the top of the shallow cross in case the safety gets greedy and tries to come down on the crosser. May want to watch for that in the coming weeks, starting with the Ole Miss game.
Highlights
Up next
The real season is now here. Arkansas travels to Oxford for a night game against Ole Miss next Saturday. If the Hogs can go 2-1 in this three-game stretch of Ole Miss, Memphis, and Notre Dame, they’ll be in position for a good season.