Coach Bret Bielema said the fine details of the successful fake punt Arkansas ran for a 24-yard gain during last Saturday’s 28-24 loss at Rutgers were a collaboration from several members of the coaching staff, but the genesis of the play came from a fake Vanderbilt used to complete a long pass for a first down against Georgia in a game the Bulldogs won 33-28 on Oct. 15, 2011.
“I think all coaches steal,” Bielema said. “That was a modification of one I had seen in the SEC a couple of years ago.”
Arkansas deep snapper Alan D’Appollonio, who earned SEC special teams player of the week honor for his efforts Saturday,switched to jersey No. 82 for the game so the Razorbacks wouldn’t have to announce to the officials that his No. 53 would be an eligible receiver on game day and possibly tip off Rutgers.
D’Appollonio snapped to punter Sam Irwin-Hill,who began running to his right like he does on rugby punts, allowing the snapper to release downfield.
Several Razorbacks shifted beforethe snap from the right to the left side of D’Appollonio, making him an eligible receiver.
“That type of shift, you don’t have any idea how they’re going to react,” Bielema said of the defense.
“A guy can stumble into a play as well as anything.”
No Rutgers player was alerted to D’Appollonio’s release and he was unguarded as Irwin-Hill floated a pass to him to the Rutgers’ 27, setting up a Zach Hocker field goal. The 24-yard completion, along with flawless deep snapping on punts, field goals and extra points, earned him the SEC honor.
SEC review
Coach Bret Bielema said Monday he had sent clips of two plays to the SEC office for interpretation, one of them being Jarrett Lake’s personal foul penalty for shoving Rutgers quarterback Gary Nova out of bounds.
“I sent it into the league office because that quarterback lowered his shoulder just as much as J. Lake did,” Bielema said.
“But they’re always going to protect the quarterback.”
Several observers at Saturday’s game pointed out the SEC officiating crew likely missed a Rutgers blocker shoving a Razorback in the back during Janarion Grant’s 47-yard punt return that set up the winning touchdown.
“Football is football,” Bielema said. “It’s definitely something I sent in. … If you slow it down, we’ve got a couple of guys in long dreads, they grabbed his dreads as well and you kind of see his head snap back a little bit. It’s all part of the game. We’ve got to make our own breaks.”Tube talk
Arkansas’ SEC road opener at Florida on Oct. 5 will appear on either CBS at 2:30 p.m. Central or on one of the three ESPN networks with a 6 p.m. kickoff.
CBS exercised its six-day option for the slate of games.
The Arkansas-Florida game is in contention for the prime 2:30 p.m. slot along with Ole Miss at Auburn and Georgia at Tennessee.
Weight-less
Coach Bret Bielema said the football staff mirrored its eight-week cycle of summer conditioning to the eight weeks of uninterrupted games the Razorbacks are playing now.
“We needed to be playing just as strong in week 4, week 5 as we are in 7 and8,” he said. “We backed off a little bit this week as far as what we’re asking them to do in the weight room, and some concessions were made there to just get their feet back underneath them and let them get ready for SEC play.”Tempo check
Arkansas ranks 120th nationally in average time between snaps on offense, according to a recent study.
The web site SBNation took a look last week at the speed of offenses using this simple formula: Total time of possession in seconds divided by number of offensive snaps. The result is the number of seconds taken per play.
Arkansas was sixth from the bottom, with a play being run every 30.8 seconds, according to the study. The Razorbacks were essentially tied with Alabama and Southern Cal in the results, ahead of only Texas State (a play every 32.9 seconds), Florida (31.9), and Miami of Ohio (31.0). On the other end, hurry-up systems by BYU (17.8), Wyoming (18.0), Oregon (18.6), California (18.8) and Houston (19.6) made up the top five “fastest” offenses.
Updated with the Rutgers game included, Arkansas is running a play every 30.5 seconds, which would still rank 120th.
Philon feats
Arkansas defensive tackle Darius Philon broke loose in the first half, slipping through the Rutgers line to hammer quarterback Gary Nova as he released a screen pass, then sacking him two plays later for a 6-yard loss.
Philon, a freshman from Mobile, Ala., stormed past a guard on the first snap of the next series and sacked Nova again for a 9-yard loss, setting up the bad field position that led to Tevin Mitchel’s interception and 26-yard touchdown return two plays later.
Mask mishaps
Cornerback Tevin Mitchel received his third face-mask penalty of the year when he snagged Rutgers’ Paul James at the end of a 10-yard run on the first play of the second quarter.
“We’re going to set a world record for face masks at the corner position if we don’t learn how to knife our opponents or do a better job of wrapping up,” Bret Bielema said.
Sports, Pages 17 on 09/24/2013