By Harry King
BATON ROUGE, La. — Arkansas fans will have to wait 288 days to see if the Razorbacks take the next step under coach Bobby Petrino. Meanwhile, they will have much to anticipate.
The Razorbacks couldn’t have gotten any closer to winning on the road than they did Saturday night. If there is any consolation in the fourth of four road losses, it is that LSU needed more than 60 minutes to subdue the Razorbacks.
The shame is that Alex Tejada, who was so good during regulation time with three field goals and two booming kickoffs, was the goat in overtime. From the right hash mark, he hung a 36-yard attempt to the right that would have necessitated a second OT. Maybe he was thinking about the Florida game when his kick from the right hash to break a 20-20 tie in the fourth quarter had too much hook and went wide left.
Golfers do that, pushing a tee shot to the right after snap-hooking one or two previous.
On the other side, Josh Jasper’s third field goal of the game, a 41-yarder, tied the score at 30 with four seconds left and his 36-yarder was the game winner.
Ironically, for 48 quarters, Arkansas was the most proficient team in the Southeastern Conference at scoring inside the 20. Until Tejada’s miss, Arkansas was 45-of-46 on such opportunities.
For now, Razorback fans should enjoy the turnaround from 5-7 to 7-5 and the prize of a January bowl game in either Dallas or Memphis. Also, appreciate the resiliency of a Petrino-coached team that rallied from 17-3 and 24-13 in a stadium where the P.A. man introduces the kickoff with, “It’s Saturday night in Death Valley.”
To compete with the best in the SEC, Arkansas must win some conference games on the road and the Razorbacks’ next opportunity is Sept.18 at Georgia.
Arkansas’ first three road losses were more about the opposing defenses than they were about raucous crowds and that was the case again at LSU.
Arkansas quarterback Ryan Mallett made some brilliant plays in the fourth quarter, including a fourth-down touchdown pass to Joe Adams — only a few plays removed from a helmet-to-helmet hit — for a 30-27 lead with 78 seconds to play. Mallett celebrated the TD pass by racing more than 50 yards, discarding his helmet along the way, before making a left turn to shake hands with red-clad fans on the opposite side of a chain link fence.
Mallett was only 17-of-39 against LSU, including 10-of-19 in the second half. His receivers dropped some, partly because LSU plastered them on occasion, and he overthrew some. When a reporter baited him about the drops, Mallett handled it adroitly with, “Next question.”
In the losses to Alabama, Florida, and Ole Miss, Mallett was a combined 36-of-96.
The Tigers pursued Mallett relentlessly, particularly in the first half when they sacked him three times. Arkansas did a better job protecting him in the second half and the Tigers did not record a sack.
After Jasper kicked it to 33-30, Arkansas began by handing the ball to Ronnie Wingo Jr. Drake Nevis swallowed him up for a 2-yard loss. Mallett’s second-down pass was knocked down by defensive lineman Lavar Edwards who hung around the line of scrimmage. An 8-yard completion put Tejada on the spot.
LSU quarterback Jordan Jefferson, who will not be mistaken for Mallett, completed 17-of-25, including four for 37 yards in the last-minute drive for the tying field goal.
Arkansas defensive tackle Malcolm Sheppard summed up the loss: “Every time you get a game that you should have won it cuts deep.”
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Harry King is sports columnist for Stephens Media’s Arkansas News Bureau. His e-mail address is hking@arkansasnews.com.
