FAYETTEVILLE -- Last season Ole Miss rolled into Razorback Stadium and had an easy time of it against Arkansas.
Jaxson Dart and Ole Miss defeated the Razorbacks 63-31 throwing deep pass after deep pass for touchdowns. Arkansas has five new starters in the secondary this season from that game. Are they better prepared in the secondary this season?
"Well, hopefully we’re better," Sam Pittman said. "It’s hard to tell. I certainly feel like we are. But we haven’t been tested like we’re going to get tested Saturday. So we’ll find out more about us, but we’re very confident going in, but we’ll find out more where we are, how much man coverage we can play against them. They’ve got a tremendous amount of speed, their quarterback’s accurate, good player. He worries me about his scramble ability as well, but you didn’t ask about that. But I think secondary-wise, as you said, as you stated, it was embarrassing for us last year, not only the kids, but the coaches, everybody. We do think we can do a better job this year than we did last year. We just have to have a good week of practice, but we have confidence in our guys."
The two cornerbacks, Julian Neal and Kani Walker, both are 6-2 and over 200 pounds. Safety Larry Worth is 6-3, 230. Pittman has a bigger secondary this season.
"Well, I think the size matters because we are tackling better," Pittman said. "I think a lot of times when you want to tackle a guy, you have a chance to tackle them a little bit more than, ‘Man, he’s really big and I’m not’ type of situation. They have a lot of confidence back there, I do too, with having corners that are 6-2, big, 200-something pounds. Just makes a difference to me, and I’m not saying any small guy can’t play, I’m not saying that, because we’ve proven that they can. But having SEC size over there gives us a little bit more of an advantage, and I think Kani’s playing really well."
The Hogs will be missing some players including a wide receiver who broke his foot in the win over Arkansas State.
"Monte’s hurt," Pittman said. "He broke his foot. So he’s going to decide whether he wants that surgery or not. But he’s going to be out for a while, if not for the season."
Defensive tackle David Oke, a transfer from Abilene Christian, has missed the first two games and his status for the Rebels is unknown as well.
"Oke, he’s going to run today and we’ll see if he can," Pittman said Monday. "You know guys, if you don’t practice, you’re not going to play very good. I mean, that’s just how it is. I don’t know if he’ll practice today. If he can get in and practice Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, then we’ll take him. Let’s look back. It’s amazing. It doesn’t really matter how good you are, if you don’t practice, you’re just not going to play very good. There may be an instance here and there, but there are a million instances where that’s true.
"Take Xavian Sorey, for example. Didn’t practice much before we played Alabama A&M, one tackle. Practiced the entire week, 15 tackles, half a sack, interception — much different deal. So we’ve got guys that if Oke’s not ready-ready to go, we’ve got guys we feel like will play better. Just depends. He needs to practice at least three days this week. He will not today, so we’ll see."
Sorey stepped up big in the win over Arkansas State after a lackluster performance in the opener against Alabama A&M. One of Arkansas State's two touchdowns was a 98-yard kickoff return by Chauncy Cobb. Pittman explained what happened on that play.
"We just lost contain," Pittman said. "We missed two tackles in there. Whether that be personnel-wise what we need to do, or we just need to do a better job coaching. Once he broke, he’s got a lot of speed and we didn’t have anybody on the field that could catch him. It was a really good play by him. I mean, he did some really good things there. It is concerning. They were going to go to the field and he broke it back to the boundary. If we have enough speed on the field, if we have enough defensive players on the field that are used to tackling, I think those are some of the things that I brought up after the return."
Arkansas (2-0) will be in Oxford on Saturday for a 6 p.m. kickoff on ESPN.
