Razorback offense caps season in fitting fashion
The Arkansas offense capped its 2023 season with a familiar performance, struggling to maintain any consistent success and only finding the end zone late and with the game well in hand. The Razorbacks lost their starting quarterback KJ Jefferson to injury in the first quarter, but head coach Sam Pittman doesn’t think any quarterback could be expected to do much under the pressure Jefferson and Jacolby Criswell faced against the Missouri Tigers in a 48-14 loss.
The Razorbacks lost five yards on their first offensive possession, punting it away after a third-down sack. On the first play of their second drive, Jefferson ran for 22 yards before suffering a knee injury that would remove him from the game and fumbled in the process. Jefferson worked with the training staff to try and get his knee taped up well to see if he might could return, but Pittman didn’t want Jefferson to play at less than 100%.
“He was trying to come back,” Pittman said. “But we had said after half we’d wait and see where he was. After half, he was very, very tender on that knee. I don’t think there was any major problem there, but he was very tender on the knee and could not return to the game. And honestly, I didn’t really want him to come back unless he was healthy, healthy.”
In Jefferson’s absence, Morrilton (Ark.) native Jacolby Criswell completed 12 of his 20 pass attempts for 96 yards and a touchdown, which went to Andrew Armstrong in the fourth quarter. Criswell was also sacked three times, two of which resulted in fumbles. The Razorbacks finished with 234 yards of offense, 147 of which came in the fourth quarter after falling behind 41-0, and totaled five lost fumbles on the afternoon.
“I thought he ran the offense as good as you could ask for a guy who hasn’t played a lot,” Pittman said. “Obviously, when he dropped back to pass he didn’t have time to throw it. Certainly that’s not his fault. We got beat at running back, we got beat on the O-line, and he didn’t see a hot and get the ball out fast enough on an empty protection he was hot on. So, really he didn’t have an opportunity to throw the ball down the field.
“It’d be hard to judge his performance but you could say he was tough and very gritty. You saw that he’s a competitor. So, he’s athletic and things of that nature and tough. I thought he did a nice job leading the team. Obviously, in the fourth quarter he led us down to a couple touchdowns. Nice touchdown pass, but it’s really hard to judge him other than his character and his toughness to continue to get up and play.”
The Hogs have already gained one transfer commitment for the offensive line so far in former Michigan State tackle Keyshawn Blackstock. After another rough performance for the O-Line and offense in general, Pittman acknowledges the several changes needed in the offseason.
“We’ve just got a lot of work to do,” Pittman said. “We obviously need help on the offensive line. We need help in several places that we’ve got to try and recruit. And we’ll get a coordinator in here hopefully in no longer than a week. And I told the kids that we just have a lot of work to do, and us as coaches have an extremely large amount of work to do as well. But certainly things that are fixable and we’ve got to go get it fixed.”
