By Scott Faldon
Times-Record • sfaldon@swtimes.com
AUBURN, ALA. — The game was billed as Ryan Mallett vs. Cam Newton. For more than 23 minutes, that was precisely Arkansas at Auburn.
Then Mallett, the Arkansas quarterback and putative Heisman Trophy candidate, was knocked out of the game. But the battle of quarterbacks didn’t disappoint thanks to Arkansas backup Tyler Wilson’s performance in a 65-43 Auburn win.
The Greenwood native completed 25-of-34 attempts for 332 yards with four touchdowns and two interceptions. Newton finished with 328 total yards of offense by running for 188 with three TDs and throwing for another 140 and one TD.
Wilson had played in just one prior game this season. He completed 1-of-3 passes against Tennessee Tech for 6 yards with one interception. That equates to a negative-16.53 quarterback rating. In two previous seasons, he’d completed 33-of-58 for 287 yards with three TDs and four interceptions for a rating of 101.74. On Saturday, Wilson’s rating was 182.6 and he averaged 9.76 yards per attempt.
Mallett’s injury caught everybody off guard.
As Auburn raced down the field to score a touchdown for a 17-14 lead, Mallett slipped off the sideline and back to the Arkansas locker room. Late in the third quarter, he was spotted on the sideline, wearing his street clothes.
“All I know is he had a concussion and they would not allow him to play,” Petrino said of Mallett. “I don’t know (when it happened).
“When I came in (at halftime), I was informed by our training staff that he wouldn’t be ready to go in the second half.”
The most-likely candidate for his injury happened just before Arkansas scored a touchdown early in the second quarter.
Mallett faked a handoff, slightly rolled to his right and found himself face-to-face with Auburn defensive lineman Nick Fairley. Mallett threw a pass in the direction of Van Stumon that resulted in a defensive pass interference call. But Fairley (6-foot-5, 298 pounds) landed on Mallett. After the play, Mallett stayed down for a few extra seconds before slowing getting to his feet.
On the next play, Mallett handed the ball to Broderick Green for a 1-yard touchdown plunge to make it 14-10 Arkansas with 9:43 remaining in the second quarter.
But most people didn’t see Mallett leave the field. As Wilson trotted onto the field, a wave of confusion swept across the 87,451 spectators in Jordan-Hare Stadium.
Wilson didn’t have much time to prepare. He said he only had about 90 seconds from getting the word to taking the field.
“You’ve always got to be ready when your number is called,” Wilson said. “For a little while there, I knew Ryan wasn’t going to go, so I tried to prepare myself mentally.”
Things didn’t start well for Wilson. Arkansas went backward on his first play thanks to an illegal block by Wade Grayson. Wilson was incomplete on first-and-20 from the Arkansas 14 before hitting Jarius Wright for 9 yards.
After a Ronnie Wingo run failed to get a first down, Auburn blocked the punt to set up a short field. The Tigers scored and took a 24-14 lead.
But Wilson rebounded by completing all three of his attempts for 73 yards, including a 34-yard TD to Greg Childs. That was just a foreshadowing of the second half where he threw for 250 yards and three more TDs. He led the Razorbacks to a brief 43-37 lead early in the fourth quarter.
But his two interceptions came in the fourth quarter and led to two Auburn touchdowns. The Tigers also returned a fumble for a TD.
“There’s a point where you think … maybe this night will be magical, and it was there for a while,” Wilson said. “It just didn’t turn out there toward the end.”
