FAYETTEVILLE -- Arkansas fell to No. 12 Tennessee on Saturday, but this weekend they will return home to host No. 4 Texas A&M.
Arkansas (2-4, 0-2) will be playing its second game with Bobby Petrino serving as the interim head coach. Texas A&M (6-0, 3-0) will provide another test for the Razorbacks. But before hosting the Aggies Petrino looked back at the 34-31 loss to Tennessee. He was asked if anything jumped out on the film of the game?
" Yeah, there were a number of things," Petrino said. "First and foremost we have to do a better job of playing the game and doing it exactly right and how we’re supposed to. We had too many errors in some of our fits on defense and some of our support on defense and offensively we had too many errors on taking care of the football and protections. We made a couple of bad errors on protections. But it still showed up that we played extremely hard. We were very, very competitive. I liked the way we played with emotion and excitement. But we’ve got to actually play the game of football better to get a win like that."
Has the team done a good job of flushing the Tennessee game with A&M coming in this Saturday?
"I mean that’s one of the reasons I like coming in on Sunday," Petrino said. "I like to get in and have a good team meeting, go through the special teams and then watch the entire video with our position coaches and then we went out last night and the guys that played a lot in the game, they ran and conditioned, mostly to get the soreness out. It really helps get the soreness out. It helps you get better for today. Then we practiced the young guys that didn’t play a lot. Some of the guys that played some in the game still practiced to work on improvement and getting better, and some of them wanted to practice instead of condition, and I’m always all for that. I thought it was good. I think that’s what helps you get the game behind you and move forward. So today is an off day for them and tomorrow when we get to grinding everything’s just on A&M."
Petrino went into more detail on the offensive miscues against Tennessee.
"I mean some it like came on third down, when you’re talking about on the “show” looks and different things they do," Petrino said. "Although I was very, very proud of us only having one penalty and not having any pre-snap penalties with that noise and in that stadium, which is actually pretty amazing, we did have a couple of communication errors.
"We did have a couple of communication errors, and that’s what showed up. The guard not telling the tackle one time and the other tackle not getting the call one time. It ended up being a communication issue, although we didn’t get a penalty on it. One of them maybe it would have been better to get the penalty than the miscommunication. For the most part, they did a nice job of handling the atmosphere and handling the noise. I thought that was a nice job by Taylen and of course our offensive line."
Arkansas had three fumbles against Tennessee. He explained what happened on them.
"The first fumble was simply not pass protection at all," Petrino said. The first fumble was simply not pass protection at all. It was a naked play. Unfortunately, it was to his left and he’s got to know if I’m in a position where I am with that defensive end and the ball, I just have to tuck the ball in my left arm and get as much as I can. He’s trying to overdo it and do a little bit too much. The other one was, did the ball - was it in his hand when his arm went forward or was it not? That’s a hard one. He thought he was going to make a big play and I don’t know, you saw the play. There’s only so much I can say, right?"
Linebackers Stephen Dix Jr. and Xavian Sorey Jr. both played much better than they had in recent weeks.
"I think that they did a really nice job in practice with their leadership throughout the week," Petrino said. "They gave us energy out there. Sorey, I think for the first time all year was 100% healthy.
"He missed a lot in camp and he did not have the speed and quickness in some of the early games, but he showed it in that game. And he actually showed it all week in practice to be the, you know, the first guy to the ball and playing with a lot of energy, and that helped the entire defense. And Dix came in and did a great job and, you know, had a really nice game running to the football and run fits and being physical. We need those 2 guys to play well for us defensively."
Arkansas and Texas A&M will kickoff at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday and televised on ESPN.
