Simulated Gameday Experience

The Liberty Bowl has fallen off a bit from its 2004 Louisville – Boise State clash-of-the-mid-majors tilt; sure, it reeked of an undercard, but for a bowl who’s typically sitting around second-level status, it counts as glory days.  Since then, Conference USA got raided by the Big East and the Mountain West backed out of the picture; the Liberty Bowl capitalized on that by bringing in some essentially random mediocre SEC West team (note: capitalized is only used in the highest irony possible).  Under this scenario, it’d make East Carolina and Arkansas squaring off wholly unexciting.

However, it’s a bit odd to see Arkansas here.  When we last left the Razorbacks at the beginning of the season, they had to deal with a tough schedule including road games at (what we thought were) the top four SEC teams; they’d have to nearly run the table to have a shot at a bowl game.  Sure enough, that’s what they did, dropping a shootout loss to Georgia early in the season before Joe Cox went in the tank but winning the rest of their games.  Sure, the skins of South Carolina, Troy, Texas A&M, and Auburn aren’t great skins, but those teams are within Arkansas’s peer range, and going 4-1 against their peers is about as good as it gets.  With this schedule, 7-5 counts as an accomplishment, and it’s a credit to Bobby Petrino and the coaching staff that they were able to get it done against this nasty schedule.

Petrino’s teams thrive on two things: a strong-armed quarterback and a power back to provide most of the rushing attack.  Ryan Mallett fits that first description perfectly; not only do NFL scouts salivate over his 6’7”, 238-pound frame (who needs stats when you have projectables?), but the kid had a pretty decent year, too.  As he goes, so do the Razorbacks; 4 of his 5 worst performances came in losses, including all of his sub-50% completion percentage days.  As long as he was over 54%, his team won.  (His 29/7 ratio and average of 9.3 yards per attempt don’t hurt matters.

As a result, the WR corps excelled; Greg Childs led the teams in receptions, yards, and TDs.  Remarkably, of leading WRs Childs, Joe Adams, and Jarius Wright, there was only one game where one of them had over five receptions (Adams, at Alabama), which shows the amazing balance they had in the passing game all season.  Remarkably, TE DJ Williams never got on track in the passing game save against South Carolina (helped in part by a huge end-of-half reception where South Carolina just straight-up sucked at tackling); while Williams is a legitimate receiving threat in theory, it never was really capitalized on.  It’s probably more a function of having four quality receiving threats than a statement against Williams.

What about the power running game?  Well, that had some issues; the team struggled to find a consistent running threat all season, as Michael Smith never really got on track before injuries set in.  Depending on the week, any one of Broderick Green, Ronnie Wingo, or Dennis Johnson was filling in as the primary back.  Green also doubled as the end-zone back, leading the team in carries and accounting for over half the Razorback TDs on the ground.  Thank these guys for Arkansas being second in the nation in red zone conversion percentage (and being fourth in the country in TD percentage).

On the other hand, East Carolina’s managed to fly under the radar for most of the season; I imagine most people wouldn’t have expected the Pirates to end up at 9-4.  The main reason they’ve stayed off the radar is they lost to most of the decent teams they played out-of-conference, looking unimpressive in games against West Virginia, North Carolina, and Virginia Tech.  Fortunately, the rest of the season ended up in the win column (save a bizarre road loss to SMU, fueled by a punt-block TD and an interception return TD) including a tough win over Houston in the conference championship game.

Most people, when pressed to name something about East Carolina they’d actually know, will come up with QB Patrick Pinkney and RB Dominique Lindsay.   Lindsay is legitimately quality, racking up over 1,000 yards and 5TDs on the season after struggling early on (including missing a couple of games at the end of September).   Pinkney, on the other hand … well, Pinkney’s the kind of guy people know because he’s stuck around forever.  He’s a low-risk passer who has a decent completion percentage, but not a whole lot else going for him (14/10 TD/INT, 6.7 yards per attempt); on the plus side he’s not prone to huge swings, having one outstanding game (vs. UAB) balanced against a couple of stinkbombs (vs. Appalachian State, at West Virginia).  Dwayne Harris and Darryl Freeney are the WRs of note; TEs aren’t really used except as additional blockers.

The premiere matchup for this game will be Arkansas’s offense against East Carolina’s offense.  Generally speaking, the better QBs did pretty well against the Pirate D (and even the not-better QBs; seriously, Jarrett Brown completed 77% of his passes?), which doesn’t bode well.  With that being said, East Carolina does have the ability to completely shut down teams’ running games; it was only when teams had success in both facets did East Carolina really get into trouble.  Based on that, I’d expect Arkansas to have success against the Pirates; they probably won’t need to average much more than 3 yards per carry to get the job done, and their path for success – pass down the field, punch it in on the ground – bodes well against an East Carolina team not well-fitted to stop it.  With that being said, players abound on the East Carolina D, from DE CJ Wilson (and DT Linval Joseph) to FS Van Eskridge, CB Emanuel Davis, and LB Jeremy Chambliss.  Don’t think Arkansas’s going to run roughshod over these guys.

I haven’t mentioned the other side of the ball yet for one reason: it’s kind of unassuming.  East Carolina’s good, but not great; Arkansas’s passable and maybe good in the right game.  Whatever.  Special teams trends slightly toward East Carolina, but not enough to really break the game in their favor.

Arkansas should have the edge here, but it’s close.  East Carolina likely won’t get blown out, and I can easily see this game in a 14-10 range at halftime before Arkansas drops an early 3^rd quarter TD to effectively end the game.  Pencil in Arkansas for something like a 38-27 win.

(stats provided thanks to CFB Stats)

Tags: Bowl previews, ESS EEE CEE SUPERIORITY, even though this sucks it's better than lacrosse