By Harry King
LITTLE ROCK — Bumping into Kevin Scanlon on this particular afternoon was weird, sort of a confluence of Razorback days gone by and those that might be ahead.
Scanlon and some of his 1979 Arkansas teammates — Robert Farrell and Jim Howard among others — were kibitzing on a parking lot a couple of long pass completions from Razorback Stadium.
In that stadium barely two hours earlier, Ryan Mallett set the school record for one-game completion percentage with 23-of-27.
At the bottom of page 104 of the current UA media guide, the one-game records begin with Ronny South going 18-of-22 against Texas A&M in 1967. At the top of the next page, Scanlon is No. 1 in one-season completion percentage with 92-of-139 for .662.
Before the season began, Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino referenced Scanlon’s record while talking about goals for Mallett. Until Saturday, that seemed unlikely. Mallett and high-percentage passer didn’t jibe.
Sure, he was good against Missouri State and Eastern Michigan, but those were gimmes. Throwing against Alabama, Florida and Ole Miss, he was below 45 percent. Anxiety about the rush, greed for the deep ball, and dropped passes were factors.
Cognizant of Mallett’s penchant for the bomb, South Carolina dared him to try. He responded with discipline, going from one receiver to the next until he came upon the one that was open. On the final touchdown drive, it appeared that he checked three or four possibilities before locating D.J. Williams on a crossing pattern.
That decision was just as impressive as the 50-yard strike that Jarius Wright dropped against Ole Miss.
Williams caught seven and eight others divvied up 16 catches. Nobody dropped one and Mallett’s completion to London Crawford on the hard-to-throw deep out was as much receiver as it was passer.
Mallett’s 37-of-43 the past two weeks have bumped his season-long percentage to 57.6. If Williams returns for his senior year, Mallett should have a bunch of familiar targets available in 2010 and could scare Scanlon’s record.
During the post-game, South Carolina defensive coordinator Ellis Johnson said his bunch had to abandon some attempts to confuse Mallett when Arkansas “got the running game going.”
He misspoke. What he meant was that the Gamecocks had to make some changes when it became obvious that Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino was going to stick with the running game. Petrino recently owned up to being impatient at Ole Miss when the running backs only carried the ball 14 times.
In the 33-16 victory over South Carolina, the running backs toted the ball 26 times for 82 yards and Joe Adams added 18 yards on two end-arounds. Mallett’s minus 19 on two sacks makes the bottom line look very average, but the threat of the run enhanced the play-action stuff.
The importance of the running game cannot be overstated. For validation, check out LSU, Iowa, Penn State, California and Oklahoma during the weekend. Each team was nationally ranked when it lost last week. None of the losers ran for 100 yards and four of them made 80 or less.
Mallett’s stats against Troy, Mississippi State, and LSU will be solid if his running backs get about 30 carries per game.
——-
Harry King is sports columnist for Stephens Media’s Arkansas News Bureau. His e-mail address is hking@arkansasnews.com.
