The South Carolina at Arkansas Live Blog powered by Jim Harris. The stage is set. It is Razorback game day. The Razorbacks take on the Gamecocks – here we go.
It’s game day, people. Let’s have a blast!
3:20 p.m. 52-7, South Carolina, final — You can sort of see a team like No. 1 Alabama last year hanging 52 on Arkansas at Reynolds Razorback Stadium, but for 14th-ranked South Carolina to come in and put a 52-7 whipping on Arkansas today were pretty shocking for everyone, including first-year Hog head coach Bret Bielema.
Here was his opening statement to the media:
“I’ll tell you guys exactly what I told our team: Today is a day that you have to put in the memory bank and vow that you’ll never let it happen again, as a head coach, as an assistant coach, as a coordinator, as a player, second string, third string. Just unacceptable. I apologize to the homecoming crowd. Obviously, they came out and wanted a good show. I thought our guys showed up and were ready to play. Once again we were hit by a little adversity and we weren’t able to get over that speed bump.”
Arkansas led this game 7-0, scoring on its first possession. South Carolina stomped the Hogs 52-0 from that point. There appeared to be quite a bit of letdown, if not outright quit, on the part of some Arkansas defenders in the second, most of them on the back seven of the defense.
South Carolina ran FIFTY-TWO more plays than Arkansas, 89-37. The Hogs only ran 17 plays in the second half.
Arkansas fumbled at the end of huge runs that could have at least made the score somewhat more respectable, including at the end of a 29-yard run by Alex Collins to the pylon, where he fumbled. Keon Hatcher fumbled at the end of a 50-yard run on a reverse. Both of these came in the second half.
With a 7-3 lead, Brandon Allen was picked again and although it wasn’t a pick six, it set up a 6-yard scoring run by South Carolina’s Mike Davis, and the Gamecocks never looked back.
Although Arkansas doing nothing offensively in the second quarter, Bielema chose to call for a fake punt near midfield with 2:35 left in the first half and South Carolina up 17-7. Sam Irwin-Hill picked the wrong receiver to throw to, the ball landed incomplete, and South Carolina drove 49 yards for another touchdown in the waning seconds of the half.
The Gamecocks then scored on four straight possessions, all of them long drives — one took more than nine minutes — to turn this into a complete embarrassment.
And that’s about all you can say on this one. Arkansas’ passing game rang up 30 yards — THIRTY YARDS. The Hogs, for what it’s worth, did abandon the pass in the second half to try to help South Carolina run out the clock when the game was obviously lost, but still.
Brandon Allen was 4 for 13 passing. Fullback Kiero Small was the Hogs’ leading receiver with two catches for 4 yards. Even Small, when asked if he should ever be the team’s leading receiver in a game, said “no.”
Bielema said that if he had the team practice Sunday and just focus on ball security and tackling, it would clean up most of what was wrong Saturday.
Oh, speaking of No. 1 Alabama, that’s where Arkansas heads next week.
2:24 p.m. 52-7 Gamecocks — Quite a performance here in the second half by the Razorbacks on their home field, before the crowd that pays this new coaching staff such exorbitant salaries.
Steve Spurrier is in a take-no-prisoners mode, running his offense at full bore with the backs for yet another touchdown (mostly on the ground) behind “wildcat” quarterback Shon Carson. Pharoh Cooper also had a 33 yard run that for a moment looked like it might go for the whole 58, before Alan Turner knocked him out of bounds.
Then Brendan Nosovitch bounces off three poor tackle attempts by the Hogs and covers the final 7 yards for the Gamecocks’ seventh touchdown of the day.
Oh, the message boards and call-in shows should be really juicy this week.
2:15 p.m. — When it rains it really pours. In the ultimate laying of a complete egg today, Alex Collins somehow fumbles at the pylon while going in for a touchdown and it’s instead a touchback. No score. South Carolina ball.
Arkansas covered 74 of the needed 75 yards in two plays — Jonathan Williams had a 49 yard run on first down — so there’s that.
This is as bad a shellacking as I can remember in quite a while here at Fayetteville. Alabama made easy work of Bobby Petrino’s first team 49-14 in 2008. South Carolina has NEVER beaten Arkansas has badly as the Gamecocks are whipping this version of the Hogs. Remember, they will no longer be cross-division rivals after this season. Steve Spurrier is getting in his last licks.
2:10 p.m. 45-7 Gamecocks — Spurrier is piling it on. Dylan Thompson hits former Razorback receiver Kane Whitehurst for 15 yards on a post route coming from the left side, with Carroll Washington on the coverage.
It’s been rare that South Carolina and Spurrier have been able to pile it up on anyone the way he used to with the Fun and Gun at Florida in the 1990s.
Whitehurst was dismissed from the Arkansas program for a drug arrest the same weekend Bobby Petrino wrecked his motorcycle, incidentally. He definitely has some speed that Arkansas’ current receiver corps lacks.
1:58 p.m. — Today’s attendance was just announced as 66,302. Far from that is in the stadium now.
