ARKANSAS FOOTBALL: Hogs’ Business Continues

By Robbie Neiswanger

Posted: November 16, 2009 at 5 a.m.

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FAYETTEVILLE — As the final seconds ticked off the clock in Razorback Stadium, Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino was hit with a splashing surprise Saturday night.

A handful of players dumped a Gatorade cooler over his back after the 56-20 win over Troy. The reason for the celebratory bath? Arkansas picked up its sixth win, achieving its season-long goal of becoming bowl eligible.

But Petrino wasn’t gushing about the feat during his postgame press conference. Instead, he was looking ahead.

“Yeah, we’re happy about that,” Petrino said. “Now we need to win the next game. That’s the biggest thing for us: to go and do a good job and beat Mississippi State.”

Arkansas (6-4, 2-4 in Southeastern Conference) may know its bowl eligibility is secure, but the Hogs have more on their minds. The Razorbacks — who have won three straight — want to improve their attractiveness by closing strong.

Arkansas is one of nine SEC schools bowl eligible. Two others still have an opportunity: Tennessee has five wins and Mississippi State (4-6, 2-4) must win its fi nal two games against Arkansas and Ole Miss to join the club.

The SEC has nine guaranteed slots for bowl teams with the likelihood of 10 because of Alabama and Florida, who are on track for BCS bowls. Where teams will spend the holidays is far from known, though, because there is a jumbled pack.

LSU has eight wins, while Ole Miss and Auburn have seven apiece. Arkansas, Georgia, South Carolina and Kentucky are all sitting on the six-win mark with two weeks remaining.

So quarterback Ryan Mallett believes winning is vital.

“We get to go bowling, but we’ve got to go play Mississippi State and LSU first, and hopefully win those,” Mallett said. “We’re trying to win out, so we’ve got to go to work (Sunday) and Monday.”

Mallett’s play the past three weeks has been a big reason for Arkansas’ late-season push.

The sophomore set or tied six school records during that stretch, four of which came Saturday night. Mallett broke Arkansas’ singleseason passing mark (2,882) and consecutive passes thrown without an interception (141). He also tied his record for touchdown passes in a game (five) and career 300-yard passing performances (four).

“He probably had his best game as far as operating the offense under center,” Petrino said Saturday. “(Troy) blitzed a lot more than they’ve shown and Ryan did a good job of getting us out of bad plays and into good plays.”

Mallett has completed 82.2 percent of his passes for 982 yards with eight touchdowns and one interception the past three games. He is third in the nation in pass eft ciency rating (164.96) and seventh in passing yards a game (288.2).

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