Western Carolina loaded the box on Saturday at War Memorial Stadium and dared Arkansas to beat it through the air.
KJ Jefferson was more than happy to oblige, but it was concerning that the Razorbacks weren’t able to get more going on the ground.
“I don’t know if it’s, I felt like we were trying to make big runs the entire day,” Arkansas coach Sam Pittman said. “Second play of the day, Jaedon goes 65, 67 something like that, then you go, ‘Man, he had a big play.’ So I felt like we were pressing a little bit trying to make some big plays.”
Arkansas was down a starting offensive lineman in Brady Latham, who didn’t make the trip, and Devon Manuel was also inactive.
But Pittman acknowledged what the Catamounts’ game plan was.
“They were going to stop Rocket and the running backs,” Pittman said. “A lot of plays were made by their safeties. We had a couple of pin-and-pulls where we wasted a two-on-one. We just had no explosive plays.”
Pittman knows that teams can typically make their biggest adjustments in between game one and game two.
“We just got to strain a little more in the running game and open up holes,” Pittman said. “We’ve been injured in camp with Devon and obviously Brady. I thought we played OK. I think we can play a lot better.”