FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — November is one day old, and the Ryan Silverfield excuses are already rolling in after another Arkansas loss.
That’s become a habit around here this fall.
The Hogs lose. Silverfield steps to the mic. Then he tells everyone why the plan was fine and the result wasn’t.
Saturday was the latest chapter. Missouri beat Arkansas 34-10 on a rainy Halloween night in Fayetteville.
The Razorbacks fell to 3-5 overall and 1-4 in SEC play. The ranked Tigers moved to 6-2 and 3-2.
Four turnovers and seven penalties did most of the damage.
But the play everybody kept talking about came early. It was a fourth down Silverfield says he’d call again.
The fourth-down call he won’t take back
Arkansas faced fourth-and-1 at its own 34-yard line with 3:53 left in the opening quarter.
Silverfield didn’t punt. He dialed up a snap straight to running back Cam Settles.
Settles couldn’t squeeze it. The loose ball skipped all the way to the end zone. Missouri’s Darris Smith fell on it for six.
That made it 10-0. The night never really turned around after that.
Silverfield didn’t back down afterward.
“I thought it was an excellent play call, and I would do the exact same play call assuming we can catch the snap and go get a yard,” Silverfield said. “And I would continue to go for it on the 34-yard line. As we’ve discussed a lot in our press conferences, anytime you get fourth-and-1, opening drive, whatever, we’re going to go for it.”
He also admitted the Hogs had worked on it.
“Unfortunately, we didn’t execute and we’ve got to do a better job of, we practiced that play with a wet ball yesterday and clearly we didn’t execute it well enough, and it’s my job to put us in a better position,” he said.
October’s favorite topic follows Arkansas into November
Notice the middle of that first answer. He admitted fourth down has come up plenty at his press conferences.
He’s not wrong. His fourth-down choices kept coming up through October as the losses piled on.
His rule is simple. If it’s fourth-and-1, Arkansas is going for it. Early, late, doesn’t matter.
There’s nothing wrong with being aggressive. Lots of coaches play the odds on short yardage.
It’s just a harder sell when the snap ends up in the wrong end zone.
On Saturday, that call handed a ranked opponent seven points from 34 yards away.
And it wasn’t the only gift.
Four turnovers turned into 24 Missouri points
Missouri had already grabbed one. A KJ Jackson throw got deflected and intercepted with 9:37 still on the first-quarter clock. Missouri turned it into a field goal.
Jackson later lost a fumble with 10:48 to go in the third quarter.
The last one hurt the most. The Arkansas defense had just taken the ball away, with linebacker Bradley Shaw coming up with a Missouri fumble at 10:04 of the fourth. Right after that, wide receiver Antonio Jordan put the ball on the ground with 9:42 to play.
Add it up, and Missouri scored 24 of its 34 points off Arkansas mistakes.
“Yeah it’s obviously not good enough,” Jackson said. “We preach OTB, owning the ball, and we failed to do that tonight. That’s the reason why we weren’t successful.”
Silverfield said the coaches have covered ball security from every angle.
“I’ve done every ball security drill known to mankind,” he said. “We talk about it. There are times where it shows up, and we saw a variety of different guys obviously not do what they needed to.”
What coaches won’t say out loud
To be fair, Silverfield never threw a player under the bus Saturday.
He didn’t have to. When a coach says the call was great and the result wasn’t, you can finish that sentence yourself.
Nobody calls a fumble in the huddle. Nobody signals in a chop block from the sideline.
It’s an old coaching move. Stand behind the call and let folks connect the dots.
Some of us remember a coach who skipped the polite version. Tampa Bay’s John McKay was asked about his team’s execution after another Buccaneers loss.
“I’m in favor of it,” McKay said.
He had another one ready after a different rough day.
“We didn’t tackle well today, but we made up for it by not blocking,” McKay said.
We don’t have coaches who’ll say that out loud anymore. Silverfield sure won’t. But the snaps still have to be caught.
Two touchdowns taken off the board
Penalties made things worse. Arkansas was flagged a season-high seven times for 85 yards, including five 15-yard calls.
The ugliest stretch came on one third-quarter drive. The march opened at 9:47 of the third and covered 62 yards over 20 snaps.
Jordan, who finished with seven catches for 106 yards, hauled in what looked like a 25-yard touchdown in traffic. An unnecessary roughness flag on offensive lineman Malachi Breland wiped it out.
Settles finally plowed in from close range. Then a chop block on lineman Bryant Williams took that one away, too.
All that work netted three points on a 32-yarder from Max Gilbert.
“On the high-low penalty on the 1-yard line, I’ve run that play over 100 times in 28 years, and unfortunately it got called tonight,” Silverfield said. “The first time I’ve seen it called in a long, long time.”
Then he added this. “No excuses,” he said. “We shouldn’t have put ourselves in those situations.”
Saying “no excuses” right after handing one out takes some nerve. Still, he’s right about the second part.
A halftime chance slipped away
The frustrating part is Arkansas was only down 13-7 at the break.
One stop to start the third quarter, and the Razorbacks would’ve been right back in it.
Missouri didn’t allow that. The Tigers marched 75 yards in eight plays for a touchdown.
They added two more touchdowns before it was over.
Missouri has now won five Battle Line Rivalry games in a row. SEC visitors have also left Fayetteville with a win 10 straight times.
Silverfield said there was “a lot of silence in the locker room and some choice words” after the game.
“Everybody understands that there’s things that need to get fixed immediately,” he said.
What’s next for the Razorbacks
Arkansas heads to Auburn on Saturday, Nov. 7. The game starts at 11:45 a.m. CT, and SEC Network has it.
Silverfield promised more ball security work.
“We’re going to practice it tomorrow and throughout the week,” he said.
Hog fans have heard plenty of promises.
Maybe one of these Saturdays they’ll get a postgame press conference where nobody has to defend a fourth down.
