Two-Minute Drill: Arkansas 76, Nicholls State 7

HOW ARKANSAS WON
The Razorbacks scored touchdowns on their first two snaps of the game, and three TDs on the first five plays it blitzing Nicholls State 35-0 in the first quarter. The margin was 56-0 at the half. Yes, there was an opponent on the other side of the Razorbacks, but it was one from the Southland Conference (of which UCA is a member) that hardly put up much of a fight: Arkansas would score 8 touchdowns in the first half on just 20 plays. The Hogs averaged an incredible 21.2 yards per play. And it wasn’t all defense, either. Nicholls managed a first down on its first possessions, but the Colonels would average just 1.2 yards per play for the first half. Arkansas recorded two of the longest runs it’s ever had from scrimmage (Keon Hatcher for 82 on the first play, Jonathan Williams later for 90), and Alex Collins scored three times. D.J. Dean showed his speed on a punt return to set up a score. Arkansas did all that without getting a turnover from the Colonels in the first half and only one for the game: Dean’s nifty interception to stop one of Nicholls’ rare scoring threats, and one that followed the Hogs’ only turnover. It’s very likely the Razorback scout team would have been more competition for the Hogs’ first two teams, but then an announced crowd of 63,000 fans would not have shelled out the big bucks to see it.

FCS ON SCHEDULE
The Big Ten has sworn off playing any more Football Championship Subdivision teams in future seasons, but the SEC and ACC will not give up the easy pickings to fast. Next year in this spot, Arkansas will play FCS school Tennessee-Martin. While some FCS-level (formerly Division I-AA) teams have had a rare moment of success against the big boys (who can forget The Citadel beginning Arkansas’ 1992 season with a 10-3 upset that cost Jack Crowe his job at Fayetteville), they usually are completely outclassed. It’s really not fair fight to begin with, as Football Bowl Subdivision schools are allotted 85 total scholarships while FCS teams dress at most 63 scholarship athletes. And, of course, FCS isn’t getting the cream of the crop of the high school stars either. The wipeout at Fayetteville aside, SEC had a field day running it up on FCS foes on Saturday. Texas A&M destroyed Lamar 73-3 and LSU pancaked Sam Houton State 56-0. However, all was not lost for the Southland Conference against the FBS on Saturday; McNeese State managed to scare Nebraska in Lincoln, Neb., falling 31-24 to the Cornhuskers.

BACK IN 100s
It had been 12 games, dating to last year’s Samford game (yes, another FCS-level team), since both Jonathan Williams and Alex Collins both rushed for more than 100 yards. They did it on Saturday even though they barely touched the ball. Williams, who was questionable to play after being bruised up both in August drills and in last week’s opener at Auburn, carried four times for 143 yards (incidentally, the third back in the Hogs’ trio of stars, Korliss Marshall, was withheld to let a bruised arm heal). Williams was finished by halftime. Collins saw the most action among the Razorbacks’ best backs, had 13 carries for 131 yards. Backups Kody Walker and Denzel Evans saw action, but maybe the most surprising running came from Damon “Duwop” Mitchell, a redshirt freshman former quarterback turned receiver, who apparently has also turned running back in certain situations and had a pair of carries for 12 and 13 yards each.

ALMOST THREE FOR THREE
Receiver Keon Hatcher, who had to spend a week lamenting a dropped deep pass against Auburn that could have gone for a touchdown in the Hogs’ opening defeat, bounced back by scoring the first touchdown on a 82-yard run. The play appeared to be a standard pitchout from Brandon Allen to Alex Collins going from right to left, to the short side of the field. But Hatcher was coming from left to right and received the pitchout, while nearly all of Nicholls’ defense had gone toward the sideline to defend a Collins carry. Hatcher had a blocker and only one defender left on the right side, then clear sailing for the touchdown. “I was just trying not to fall down or get caught from behind,” Hatcher said later. He also scored on a 42-yard pass from Brandon Allen that appeared to be underthrown; Hatcher had to stop and slightly come back for it even though there was no defender around him on his route. That gave a Nicholls player time to recover, but Hatcher danced right around him at the 5-yard line and walked in. Hatcher also was used in Korliss Marshall’s kickoff return spot, and he nearly took the second-half kickoff to the house, finally being run out of bounds near midfield. “Two out of three touches is not bad,” he said.

BREAKTHROUGHS
Both sophomore Drew Morgan and junior college transfer Cody Hollister had their first collegiate catches on Saturday, and both went for touchdowns. Morgan took a pass from Brandon Allen at the 10, broke at tackle at the sideline and finished a 22-yard play. Hollister broke wide open on the right side of the end zone as Allen rolled right and found him for a 7-yard toss. Freshman Jared Cornelius also had some highlights and a couple of plays to forget as well. His bright spots were two catches for  51 yards and a touchdown on a 38-yard play. The speedy Shreveport product also had two carries on reverses for 14 yards, and he would have had a touchdown on one of the runs but an offensive lineman was called for holding.

A PASS RUSH
With all the offense, it’s easy to forget that the Razorbacks played some pretty good defense on Saturday too. The pass rush was regularly caving in Nicholls’ semblance of a pocket, with ends Trey Flowers, Jamichael Winston and Tevin Beanum, plus tackles Taiwan Johnson, Darius Philon and Demarcus Hodge, seemingly having their way. Johnson, who has taken over a new angled nose tackle spot, had 4 solo tackles and a bull rush sack of the quarterback early in the game. He totaled 3 sacks. Winston had 5 solo tackles. The Hogs will need that pass rush this week at Texas Tech.

TEACHING MOMENTS
The defensive coaches can use the game film to point out several plays that could stand correcting among the younger guys, head coach Bret Bielema said after the game. One obvious one was when freshman end Tevin Beanum had the Nicholls quarterback in the backfield but chose to just push him instead of wrapping up. The quarterback escaped that effort and the Hogs weren’t able to get the sack. Later, freshman linebacker Duane Eugene also tried the push technique to no available. “I can’t tell you what Duane Eugene was saying after he missed that one,” Bielema said.

FINALLY, A WIN
No matter the opponent, it was obvious on the sideline and in the stands among the players’ famlies and friends that Saturday’s victory was a long time coming. Arkansas had lost 10 games in a row. The Hogs still have not defeated a FBS team since downing Southern Miss 24-3 last year in Fayetteville when USM was enduring a double-digit losing streak. Arkansas will get that chance to break through against an FBS team on Saturday against Texas Tech, which escaped UTEP 30-26 late Saturday night.

UPCOMING
Arkansas (1-1) will play Texas Tech (2-0) in Lubbock on Saturday, with kickoff scheduled for 2:30 p.m. The game will be carried by ABC. Nicholls State (0-2) gets to play a team on a lower division when the Colonels play host to Division II Henderson State on Saturday in Thibodaux, La. If Arkansas fans haven’t seen enough of Nicholls yet, the Colonels will play in Conway against UCA on Sept. 27 at 3 p.m.