Alabama Beats Arkansas – Again – What They’re Saying

Alabama beats Arkansas 52-0 and leaves the Razorbacks with a 104-7 point differential in the past two weeks. There was not much pretty about the way the Hogs competed. There weren’t many positives or silver linings to find for the second week in a row.

Here is a collection of what the sports world is saying about the game in Tuscaloosa, Bret Bielema his team, now 3-5 on the season and a bye week to regroup.

Bret Bielema after the Alabama game in his own words:

From ESPN’s Alex Scarborough, in an column titled “Bielema’s Rebuild at Arkansas Ways Off:”

All Bielema could do was watch. There wasn’t a call he could have made to change the outcome of the game. He stayed committed to the run with 31 carries to his top two tailbacks — Alex Collins and Jonathan Williams — but neither broke the 100-yard mark and only four times did they rush the ball for 10 or more yards. When Brandon Allendid get a chance to throw the ball he had very little success, completing 7 of 25 passes for 91 yards and no touchdowns. His longest completion — a 25-yard pass to Hunter Henry — was followed up by an interception on the very next play. In fact, it was the very same play thrown to the very same receiver, only flipped and run out of shotgun instead of under center.

“Obviously, this is getting a little old,” Bielema said, the first words of his postgame news conference ringing true on the heels of a 52-7 beat down against South Carolina a week earlier. “Nothing we did out there can give us any indication that the things we need to do are that far away. It’s a long way to go. We are at a point where we have to look at ourselves offensively, defensively and special teams, all the things we are asking our kids to do.”

…

Against Alabama, Arkansas showed its youth as much as its lack of talent. The Razorbacks, who haven’t finished with a top-15 recruiting class once since 2006, had more first-year starters and underclassmen on the field Saturday than most teams in the SEC. Two of its offensive linemen were true freshmen. Its brightest young star on defense, defensive linemanDarius Philon, was a redshirt freshman Alabama tried to grayshirt coming out of high school.

…

“It’s to that point where you have to understand where we are going with the guys that survive this,” Bielema said. “The guys that move forward with us will be rewarded. I don’t know if it is going to come the next game or if it will be in the next month from now, or a year from now, but it’s going to take a leap of faith.”

On Saturday, Bielema saw in person just how far that leap from rebuilding a program to playing competitive football will be.

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Drew Champlin of AL.com wrote:

“It’s been a rough five weeks in a row.”

Bielema had respect for Alabama, but said the biggest jump his team needed to make was on consistency. Arkansas lost a fumble to open the second half on the kickoff return and quarterbackBrandon Allen threw two interceptions, hitting just 7 of 25 passes for 91 yards.

“We obviously made them look very good,” Bielema said. “Personnel-wise, they are at some places where we want to strive to be, but we’re just not quite in that league yet.”

Bielema noted a fourth-quarter play where the Razorbacks went for it on fourth down to score a touchdown, but said a main route-runner ran the wrong route.

“We run a smash concept and one of the guys that was a main route runner runs a completely different route because he, in his mind, thought he heard a different word,” Bielema said. “He’s the only guy in the huddle that heard that.

“The word is ‘smash’ and ‘Kansas.’ Those words don’t even begin to sound remotely like one another.”

Bielema said he’s frustrated and he knows fans are, but urged them to stay positive.

“The fan base, I know they live and die with every play, every turnover, every score,” Bielema said. “I know, it’s frustrating. The biggest thing is, just like our players, we’ve got to keep the faith. One of the great things that excited me about the state of Arkansas is the tremendous pride.

“Believe me, as a head coach, I’m very frustrated. To be positive and to help with recruiting, one of the great things that always comes up with our recruits is how passionate the Arkansas fan base is.

“The more passion and love they can show to recruits, the better off it’ll be for all of us.”

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And here is what Nick Saban had to say after the game:

Coach Nick Saban offered the following assessment after the game.

“Well, they are a good running team and they have some really good backs,” Saban said. “We missed a lot of tackles out there. Some of it was not good tackling, but some of it was really good running on their part, making guys miss. But I thought our guys played physical on the line of scrimmage. I thought we were soft on a few runs. I thought we did a good job of adjusting to formations.

“When we played the second-team guys, we got misaligned a couple times and they got some 12-yard runs on us. We knew we had to control the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball to have success in this game. Arkansas has been successful when they’ve been able to run the ball against people. We certainly respected their passing game, but we were trying to stop their run as much as possible.”