FAYETTEVILLE -- On Saturday, the Battle for the Golden Boot will include two interim head coaches.
Bobby Petrino took over at Arkansas following a one-sided loss to Notre Dame while Frank Wilson did the same at LSU after the team lost to Texas A&M. Both teams have underachieved by their expectations heading into the season. Arkansas (2-7, 0-5) and LSU (5-4, 2-4) both have experienced some close losses.
Arkansas had a bye last week while LSU fell to Alabama 20-9. Petrino is looking forward to the game after a bye week.
"It was good for us," Petrino said. "We’re getting some guys healthy. That’s one reason. We had two good days of work last week and then came back last night, had a good practice last night. I thought the players reacted really well, had a lot of enthusiasm and worked extremely hard to get us into a normal schedule so they could be off today and then get us into a regular Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday schedule."
Since LSU faced Alabama Petrino had a chance to watch Wilson's first game. Was there anything different about them?
"Yeah, I mean, it’s hard to really (tell) are there a lot of changes or not," Petrino said. "Defensively they were much more aggressive it seemed like. They brought a lot of pressure, brought a lot of blitz zero in third down situations. Did a good job defending Alabama’s offense. They’ve got good players and they came after them and were really aggressive. That seemed to be a little bit of a different look than that they had been doing.
"Offensively they seemed very similar. Seemed like they’re still in their minds they want to throw the ball first and run the ball second. They played both quarterbacks so that was a little bit different. We’re familiar with both of them, obviously from last year. Have a lot of respect for Nussmeier and the way he’s played throughout his career. He hasn’t had the type of year that he thought he would have but he’s still a really good player and then we’ll have to be ready for both of them."
Petrino was impressed with LSU despite the loss.
"It was a great SEC football game," Petrino said. "You saw two very, very physical teams and two teams with offensive fronts and defensive fronts going at it. They were very competitive in the game and we know the speed of LSU."
Wilson reflected back on the loss to Alabama and the upcoming game with the Hogs.
"Coming off a week where I felt we played a hard-fought game against a very talented Alabama team, where we played for four quarters," Wilson said. "Had opportunities. Unfortunately, we were not able to seize the moment, but I like our team and how we competed in that game. A big one ahead of us as we prepare to go back into Tiger Stadium for what we know as the Battle of the Boot, the Golden Boot, against a very worthy opponent that year in and year out has given us their very best, and don’t expect anything differently this week.
"So we’ll have to get going, up early. 11:45 is not a usual kickoff time for us, so we’ll have to get our juices flowing early in the morning. We’ll do some things from a program standpoint that alerts us and gets us going early, so we can be at our very best against probably one of the more dangerous quarterbacks in the conference, if not the country, when it comes to run-pass threat. A team that’s ranked eighth in the country in overall offense, that certainly has our attention, and that are very dangerous. That can score and has scored routinely on opponents. We start this week in preparation for Arkansas as they get ready to come to Death Valley."
Wilson is very familiar with the way Petrino's offense is potent. Taylen Green, Mike Washington and O'Mega Blake have caught his eye.
"Yeah, he has a unique way of adapting his offensive scheme around his signal caller," Wilson said. "And so as the quarterback, you look back at the history and I’ve faced him for many years and then watched him from afar even when he was at Louisville, and does as good a job as anyone in the country of catering and playing to the strengths of his quarterback. And they’ve done that with this year’s team. So you could have things schematically matched to contain him, but he’s so dangerous, the quarterback, that even when you have the right call, there you go. Taylen Green is taking off and defeating a one on one. So that becomes a huge part of it. You could have it identified. You’ve still got to tackle him. You’ve still got to make that play in space and that has proven to be very difficult for just about everybody they’ve played. So that’s a huge task for us, a huge charge for us, but it’s something that we’re paying attention to, to try to contain him.
"Outside of that, they have a talented running back in Mike Washington, who does a really good job. Approaching 1,000 yards here. O’Mega Blake is a 700-yard receiver for them. So they have talent throughout their offense and it’ll be a tall task for us. But it’s something I think we’re going to do our very best to put ourselves in position to try to slow them down."
Garrett Nussmeier was expected to be one of the better quarterbacks in the SEC this season. He has struggled at times and was replaced by Martin Van Buren against Alabama. This season, Nussmeier has completed 194 of 288 passes for 1,927 yards, 12 touchdowns and 5 interceptions. He has been sacked 15 times. Wilson was asked what has gone wrong for Nussmeier?
"What do I think has gone sideways with Garrett?," Wilson said smiling. "I think as a team, we haven’t performed and done the things that we needed to do specifically in this case, offensively. I think Garrett is not individually or isolated of someone who's gone sideways. I think that we have not done the things necessarily best for us as an offense in a multitude of ways and he's just one of many that have not played up to their desire or their want to. And that's at every position, whether it’s the receivers, the tight ends, the offensive line, the running back, the quarterback included. Collectively, we need to continue to strive to do the things necessary to have success. And so there's a tremendous want to, he does some really good things and there are other things that we need to continue to build on and build around him to have the success that we need both quarterbacks to play well in this game."
Last season, LSU held Arkansas to its second-lowest offense total in the win at Razorback Stadium. Arkansas passed for 240 yards but only rushed for 38.
"Yeah, I felt like in last year's game we didn't establish the run the way we wanted to and the way we would like to," Petrino said. "We also got behind the sticks a lot, and they did a good job of rushing the passer and putting pressure on us and not allowing us to drive the football. And you know, that's something I think we've always been good at, is our ability to drive the football, keep the football, and it just didn't work out that way a year ago."
With Quincy Rhodes and Cam Ball on his defensive line and LSU giving up 20 sacks this season does Petrino feel his unit has an advantage against the Tigers up front?
"They’ve had some protection struggles and some issues with their protection at times," Petrino said. "Certainly that’s one of the areas we need to try to take advantage of."
Arkansas and LSU will kickoff at 11:45 a.m. on Saturday in Baton Rouge. The game will be televised on the SEC Network.
