ARKANSAS 49, JACKSONVILLE STATE 24

Good, not grand, opening

Glitches abound in Smith’s winning debut

Arkansas tight end Chris Gragg scores a second-quarter touchdown on a 30-yard pass from quarterback Tyler Wilson as Jacksonville State defender Rashad Smith falls behind. The touchdown pulled the Razorbacks into a 14-14 tie with the Gamecocks. Gragg finshed the game with 7 catches for 110 yards and 2 touchdowns.
Arkansas tight end Chris Gragg scores a second-quarter touchdown on a 30-yard pass from quarterback Tyler Wilson as Jacksonville State defender Rashad Smith falls behind. The touchdown pulled the Razorbacks into a 14-14 tie with the Gamecocks. Gragg finshed the game with 7 catches for 110 yards and 2 touchdowns.

— John L. Smith’s debut at Arkansas turned out successful, he just wishes it had been a little smoother.

The No. 10 Razorbacks flashed their quick-strike offense but also played loose with the ball and gave up big pass plays in a 49-24 victory over Jacksonville State before a crowd of 71,062 at Reynolds Razorback Stadium on Saturday.

“Our expectations are to do better than we did,” Smith said. “I know as a football team, our guys walked off the field kind of like ... pleased that it was a win, but they’re not pleased with how well we played because we can do a lot better.”

Tyler Wilson passed for 367 yards, a school record for a season opener, and three touchdowns, and Chris Gragg caught two touchdown passes. Brandon Mitchell, in his first game as a receiver, caught four passes for 122 yards.

Wilson directed five touchdown drives of less than two minutes, four-touchdown blitz in the second quarter that put the Razorbacks firmly in command at 35-14.

Wilson, a senior, bounced back from a lost fumble on Arkansas’ first possession when he lost control of the ball while pulling back to throw at the Jacksonville State 26.

“The first drive, I don’t know how that happened,” Wilson said. “We just didn’t take good care of the ball like we should have at times.

“Then you see the explosiveness of our offense when we go and score on four straight possessions, put up 49 points, then we let off the accelerator a little bit.”

Offensive coordinator Paul Petrino called all the plays for the first time in his Arkansas career, and the Razorbacks racked up 564 total yards and converted 5 of 9 third-down plays.

“We’ve got to take care of the football better, but ... they blitzed almost 70 percent of the time and we did a great job executing our blitz checks and our blitz pickups and did a good job of getting big plays when they were doing it,” Petrino said.

Jacksonville State Coach Jack Crowe, the former Arkansas coach whose last game in Fayetteville was a 10-3 loss to The Citadel in the 1992 season opener, said he could see the Hogs’ potential to be good.

“The biggest part of this game was the four or five mismatches they created,” Crowe said. “I see all the pieces that could be there. They have four players out there on offense that nobody has four better players than that. When they get consistent with those players, they will have the best offense in the country. In modern day football, you can ride an offense into the national championship.”

The Razorbacks’ defense under first-year defensive coordinator Paul Haynes limited the Gamecocks to 95 rushing yards, but gave up 322 total yards in an performance that included some sloppy tackling and letdowns on thirddown conversions.

“Our guys know what we need to get better at and we’ll continue to do that,” Haynes said.

Arkansas tailback Knile Davis rushed for 70 yards on 18 carries in his return from a fractured ankle that kept him all of last season. But he did find the end zone on a 5-yard run in the second quarter, joining fellow tailbacks Ronnie Wingo, Dennis Johnson and Kody Walker with rushing touchdowns.

Arkansas lost three fumbles — by Wilson, Gragg and Wingo. Arkansas’ only takeaway came on safety Rohan Gaines’ shot to Troymaine Pope. Linebacker Alonzo Highsmith picked up the loose ball and returned it 5 yards, setting up Johnson’s 9-yard touchdown run.

Wilson left the game after three quarters with the Hogs ahead 49-24, completed 19 of 27 passes, highlighted by a 63-yard touchdown pass to Javontee Herndon in the third quarter.

Petrino said Jacksonville State’s pressure tactics gave Wilson the opportunity to hit Gragg and Mitchell in seams for big yardage.

“When linebackers and safeties are trying to cover me and Brandon, that’s the matchups that we want and we executed them pretty good tonight,” said Gragg, who posted his second career 100-yard game.

Sports, Pages 21 on 09/02/2012

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