Like some Arkansas fall foliage, the Razorback football team is losing color.
What appeared so bright and colorful in September now looks drab. Losing three straight games after starting 4-0, the Razorbacks may have reached their peak.
Like harsh light in the face of an aging beauty, Southeastern Conference opponents have revealed flaws in Sam Pittman's team that can't be easily obscured. Georgia showed that the Hogs cannot stand up to a Sherman-like ground attack (37-0). Ole Miss bore witness to a shootout (52-51) in a series that oldtimers still speak wistfully of 6-0 and 1-7 games.
The Auburn game Saturday may have been most painful. For the first time since Sept. 25, Arkansas played at home, where it might have felt impregnable having beaten Rice, Texas and Georgia Southern. Moreover, the Razorbacks had a revenge motive after hearing how they were robbed at Auburn the previous year. Surely, a sellout crowd would unnerve Auburn quarterback Bo Nix, whose backward spike was ruled an incompletion, not a fumble, and let the Tigers kick a game-winning field goal at Jordan-Hare Stadium. For those and other reasons, Arkansas went off a slight favorite in the Las Vegas line.
What happened was that Nix played the game of his life, or close to it, and powered the Tigers to a 38-23 victory. As he did two weeks ago at LSU, where Auburn had not won since 1999, Nix engineered an SEC road victory, not easy to do.
The son of former Henderson State football coach Patrick Nix passed 39 yards for a touchdown on Auburn's first possession, the Tigers taking a 14-3 lead into halftime. His 71-yard strike in the third quarter completed a 14-point turnaround after Arkansas, driving for a touchdown from the second-half kickoff, went up 17-14. Nix applied the dagger blow with a 23-yard quarterback keeper, 2:30 left, that set the final margin.
The game's biggest play came on defense with Auburn recovering an end-zone fumble in the third quarter after stripping the ball loose from KJ Jefferson. Some questioned why Arkansas threw out of its end zone on third and 15 one play after Jefferson was sacked. Doesn't anyone play field-position football any longer? Others wondered why the Hogs let a punt roll 20 yards downfield to their 11.
Nix's running touchdown came when the Arkansas defense could not get off the field on an Auburn drive lasting 6:11 that it wanted points or to kill as much time as possible. A team that can pound the football in the fourth quarter and pressure the other team's passer (Jefferson was sacked three times) can win anywhere.
And thus did Auburn win at Fayetteville on its fourth consecutive biennial visit to the Ozarks. Fittingly enough, it coincided with the annual War Eagle fair and crafts scene in northwest Arkansas.
And for the sixth consecutive year, an ex-Arkansas State coach walked away a winner against Arkansas. Auburn cares more about beating Alabama and Georgia than it does Arkansas, but Bryan Harsin, like Gus Malzahn, took advantage of an opportunity that won't be presented an Arkansas State coach (beating the Razorbacks) until 2025.
Just like that, Arkansas, which started the month No. 8 in the Associated Press rankings, is out of the top 25. Auburn, unranked against the Razorbacks for a change, is back to No. 19 and, at 5-2, with a chance to set up another magnificent Iron Bowl against an Alabama team found to be something less than omnipotent.
Perhaps for the first time in his 17 games at Arkansas, Sam Pittman may be hearing whispers. How can a team that looked so good against Texas and Texas A&M come out flat against Auburn (never mind that the Longhorns have lost twice more, to Oklahoma and Oklahoma State, and are doing the same things under Steve Sarkisian that got Tom Herman fired)?
Not only Pittman but his coordinators are catching flak. One reads online complaints about Kendal Briles' play calling and Barry Odom's three-man pass rush. Does KJ Jefferson have receivers other than Treylon Burks, he of two touchdown catches Saturday? How can a defense go five games without recovering a fumble or three without an interception?
One explanation is that the Razorbacks weren't that awesome to begin with. That after endless hours studying game film, opposing coaches have pinpointed their weaknesses and that the team's lack of depth, an ages-old problem at Arkansas, is critical. Now, injuries are catching up with the Hogs, losing safety Jalen Catalon for the year with a shoulder injury and mixing and matching offensive linemen by the week.
For a while, it looked as if Jefferson could cover the team's shortcomings. A 245-pound quarterback who can make big plays through the air, the young man from Sardis, Miss., excited Razorback fans like no one at the position since Matt Jones and drew favorable comparisons with Heisman winner (for Auburn) Cam Newton.
No knock on Jefferson, but he is by no means the only good running quarterback in the SEC. Whereas 2020 proved a year for passers (Mac Jones at Alabama, Kyle Trask at Florida, Kellen Mond at Texas A&M), we have a league filled with dual threats. Arkansas has just played two of the best, Matt Corral at Ole Miss and Nix, and has yet to do business with Nick Saban'a latest Alabama sensation, Bryce Young. Corral comes off a 200-yard passing, 195-yard running game against Tennessee not seen in the SEC since Johnny Manziel for A&M in his Heisman-winning 2012 season. In no small part, Corral and Young are considered co-favorites for the 2021 award to college football's most outstanding player.
Arkansas fans, if they can apply perspective long enough, still can find much to celebrate. Two short years ago, in the final days of Chad Morris, the Razorbacks might have been the worst Power Five team in college football. Prospective head coaches generally turned a deaf ear on Arkansas until Pittman, a one-time Razorback aide then coaching the offensive line at Georgia, expressed interest and ex-Razorbacks warmed to him immediately.
A bowl game is well within Arkansas' reach, a worthwhile goal for a team that hasn't been bowling in five years. And after playing before empty seats at home for years, the Razorbacks have sold out Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium twice this year. A Little Rock welcome awaits the team for Saturday's 11 a.m. game against Arkansas-Pine Bluff, a game that many never thought to see but which UA athletic director Hunter Yuracheck considers long overdue.
One bad thing about so many early kickoffs is the losing fans have all day to mope. For them, as for Frank Sinatra in song, Saturday becomes the loneliest night of the week. Hopefully, the UAPB game, coinciding with the final weekend of the state fair, will turn out differently. No more October surprises.