By Robbie Neiswanger
Arkansas News Bureau • rneiswanger@arkansasnews.com
FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas defensive end Jake Bequette wasn’t making any excuses Saturday night.
The Razorbacks got everything they needed on offense, scoring a touchdown to take the lead in the fourth quarter in Tiger Stadium. But with 1:12 left, Bequette and the defense couldn’t hold up its end of the bargain in Tiger Stadium.
“They had some time, but we have to stop them there,” Bequette said after the loss. “It was all on us to finish the game off there and we couldn’t get it done.”
Plenty went wrong for the Razorbacks during their 33-30 overtime loss at No. 17 LSU on Saturday. Arkansas’ offense started poorly in the first half and settled for field goals, the Hogs gave up a special teams touchdown, and place kicker Alex Tejada missed his fourth attempt to end the game.
But Arkansas’ defense pointed the finger at itself for allowing LSU to patiently piece together an 8-play, 41-yard drive capped by Josh Jasper’s game-tying field goal with nine seconds left. It came a week after LSU struggled during its final drive in a 25-23 loss to Ole Miss and was the second time the Hogs were stung by a late scoring drive on the road.
“Every time you get a game that you should have won it cuts deep,” Arkansas defensive tackle Malcolm Sheppard said. “Everybody gave their all and everyone competed. It just didn’t fall in our favor at the end of the game.”
Two screen passes on the drive hurt Arkansas the most.
LSU quarterback Jordan Jefferson completed an 8-yard pass to running back Stevan Ridley on first-and-10 from Arkansas’ 48. The yardage wasn’t the problem, though. It was that Ridley broke a tackle, then slipped out of bounds to stop the clock.
After a nine-yard run, Ridley got open again and caught another eight-yard pass to set up the field goal attempt.
“We needed to do a better job,” Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino said. “The first time they threw the running back flare, we needed to get him tackled and keep him in bounds. They didn’t have any timeouts. That would’ve been huge. The second time they threw it to him, we were not in the right coverage.”
Defensive coordinator Willy Robinson said his “gut feeling” was to use a four-man front against the Tigers on the final drive, but went against it.
Instead, Arkansas rushed three players and dropped eight into coverage most of the drive.
“We weren’t able to get enough pressure on it,” Robinson said. “We went to the four down and it still wasn’t positive enough. … If we did anything with it, I probably should’ve pressured a little bit more.”
The drive ended up spoiling what had been a decent day for the defense. Arkansas, which had given up big scoring plays in bunches all season, limited the Tigers to 326 yards. LSU’s longest gain was a 24-yard catch by receiver Brandon LaFell.
But the end result left Arkansas feeling much like it did in the 23-20 loss to top-ranked Florida on Sept. 17.
Arkansas tied that game 20-20 in the fourth quarter, but the Gators marched downfield and got in position for a game-winning field goal. As much as Arkansas learned from that experience, it couldn’t capitalize at LSU.
“We still have to respond,” said Robinson, when asked if Arkansas may have scored too early on its go-ahead touchdown drive. “We were in that situation against Florida and I just didn’t finish it for us. That’s on me.”
REPORT CARD
Quarterbacks B-
Running Backs A-
Receivers B-
Offensive Line C+
Defensive Line B-
Linebackers B
Secondary B-
Special Teams C-
Coaching B
