FAYETTEVILLE -- Arkansas will look to hit reset on the season Saturday when they face Florida in the Swamp.
Arkansas (2-6, 0-5) has lost six games in a row and to win on Saturday would require them doing something they have never done and that's win at The Swamp. Florida (5-3, 3-2) is coming off a one-sided loss to Georgia, but has been good at home. The Gators are undefeated in The Swamp including a 29-16 win over Tennessee Saturday, Sept. 16.
Many eyes will be on Arkansas quarterback KJ Jefferson who will be playing for new offensive coordinator Kenny Guiton. Dan Enos was fired following a 7-3 loss to Mississippi State before last Saturday's bye week. Jefferson has completed 143-of-219 passes for 1,547 yards, 14 touchdowns and seven interceptions. Jefferson also has rushed 112 times for 228 yards and three touchdowns. He talked about what it would mean to get a win in The Swamp.
"It would go down in history," Jefferson said. "I mean, it would be fun. I feel like that would bring some excitement and pride back into the building. And for the state as well. My teammates and myself, we need that spark and that pride. Just being able to go into a hostile environment like Florida and be able to come away victorious would be a big deal."
Arkansas Coach Sam Pittman has a lot of respect for the Gators and knows it will take a great effort to defeat Florida.
"Well, coming off the bye week, we went eight in a row, I’m glad we ended up having the bye," Pittman said. "We needed it to get healthy. Obviously we made a coordinator change and to get some of the offense and things of that nature put in. We needed all that time, we used it wisely and we’ve had good practice this week and we’re excited to go to Florida on Saturday."
Pittman gave his overall thoughts on Florida.
"A lot of team speed," Pittman said. "You really want to stay out of third-and-long. They’ve got a lot of stuff. So we’re having to figure out exactly how we’re attacking that. We’ve got an idea of how we think we can win third down. But they’re a lot like Georgia was. Odd front with four-man front, a lot of field pressure, a lot of boundary free safety pressure. Third down, big-time exotic team.
"Offensively, they want to get the ball to the edge, whether it’s stretch, with the reverses. I really like what they’re doing offensively. They’re hiding the football. It’s old-school, Wing-T, who has the ball? It’s not Wing-T, but you get the idea they want you to figure out where the ball is a little late. A lot of dressing pre-snap and post-snap. They’re really wanting to attack the edges, no matter what that might be. A lot of reverses, a lot of jet sweeps. They’ve got two, at least two, really good running backs that they love to run the stretch with, and they’re both really good players. Their quarterback is very accurate. Doesn’t throw a lot of deep balls, but the balls that he throws, he’s very, very accurate. Very good player."
Quarterback Graham Mertz is having a good season for Florida. He has completed 195-of-257 passes for 2,127 yards, 14 touchdowns and two interceptions.
"A lot of play action, a lot of naked throws, a lot of bubbles," Pittman said. "Not a lot of shots. Not a lot of long balls, let’s say that. They attempt those, but I would say a majority of their passes are within that 10 yards and under. On fourth down against South Carolina, they threw one out there about plus-3 and they needed 11 and the guy just made a play.
"They’ve got two — they got more, but 1 (Ricky Pearsall) and 3 (Eugene Wilson III) as wideouts are really good players. One of them is a freshman (Wilson). But they’re not asking him, to me, to sit in there and read the full field all the time. Now they do, obviously, but to me, they run a lot of things that he can do and he does well. Therefore, they’re not putting him in a lot of positions where he’s throwing it up for grabs."
Pearsall has caught 50 passes for 718 yards and three touchdowns. Wilson had pulled in 31 passes for 326 yards and two touchdowns.
The Hogs may get junior running back Raheim "Rocket" Sanders back for this game. Pittman said that Sanders, who has battled a knee injury all season, has practiced since Monday and also talked about what he needs to do for clearance to play.
"Yeah, there’s a chance that he’ll be available," Pittman said. "He has practiced. Monday and Tuesday. Limited basis but he has practiced and we’re hoping that he’ll be available on Saturday.
"Probably just another couple of days of consistency. Flashes that I’ve seen, I feel really good about him being able to play, but just another couple of days of consistency. Today is a big third down day for us. How is he going to protect and things of that nature. Just the whole week, of what the whole Monday through Thursday encompasses, but the first two days I feel confident that he will be able to go out there and help us."
Pittman went into more detail why he feels staying out of third and long is particularly important against Florida.
"All the different looks that they give you, of whom to declare the five most dangerous guys," Pittman said. "They have a very exotic package. It changes, seems to be, weekly. There’s some similarities, but it does change via team weekly. So you just have to locate the bigs first, who the guys that you don’t want the back on, and then go from there. But they just have so many different looks, they’re very hard to prepare for just whom to block, and then you obviously have to block the guys. We think they’ve got two really good defensive ends, and they’ve got big linebackers. We don’t want to be in that third-and-long where we’re sitting there having to drop back all the time. Maybe we can roll. Maybe we can run it. Maybe we can naked. Maybe we can do some things other than just drop back."
Arkansas has four games remaining in the regular season. They will need to win them all to become bowl eligible. Pittman was asked if he has talked to the team about that this week?
"We haven’t talked a whole lot this week about that," Pittman said. "We’ve talked a lot about passion and getting our pride back and getting our respect back. We’ve never won at Florida, in Gainesville. We’ve got plenty of incentives. One of them is we need to play better and we need to get respect from the people of our state and our own university. We’ve got to get our respect back. We’ve been playing hard, so I’m not saying that we’ve lost respect from everybody. We’ve been playing hard. We’ve lost some close games, but we need to win one. I feel like we’ll all feel a lot better."
Arkansas and Florida will kickoff at 11 a.m. on Saturday and televised on ESPN2.
