What Silverfield admitted after Arkansas loss to Texas A&M

Considering Arkansas hasn’t exactly won a lot of games against Texas A&M in the last 14 years, another loss on Saturday wasn’t that shocking.

What is causing all of the ruckus after Saturday’s 34-7 debacle in College Station, Texas, is the way the Razorbacks lost. It wasn’t even close.

At least nearly all of the 14 games previously were one-score affairs. Only four of the games were more than a touchdown away. Three were overtimes. One the Hogs lost when a game-winning field goal landed on top of the upright and bounced off to the right.

It’s almost seemed at times they invented ways to lose to the Aggies. The key point here is they were all very competitive.

Until Saturday. According to the coaches this week, it wasn’t a lack of effort.

“I can come up with 200 different ways to run a football, and you guys would be like, ‘Wow, that’s really unique,'” coach Ryan Silverfield told the media on Monday in his regular briefing. “Tim Cramsey would come up with probably 1,000 different ways to throw the football. We had guys that were open. We had a lot of things that were there if we executed better.”

Talent gap is showing up everywhere

The problem is becoming crystal clear: these players just don’t have the ability to compete in the SEC. None of it’s personal and there haven’t been any obvious signs they’ve let go of the rope on the season.

It’s simply they just don’t have that little bit extra ability to win games. It’s not even about throwing the ball.

Right now, quarterback KJ Jackson looks all too often like a deer caught in the headlights. According to experts like former Razorback tight end DJ Williams on Halftime on ESPN Arkansas, there are a lot of technical things going on and we’re seeing the result.

The lack of diversity with receivers is also an issue to some. Folks are wondering where CJ Brown, Antonio Jordan and others have been. If there are injuries, that’s a mystery these days, too.

The questions are coming back to the coaches and, listening to Silverfield, those may be getting lively, too.

“I’m on our wide receiver coach’s tail about dropped footballs, and people say, ‘Well, that’s not on him,'” Silverfield said. “Yeah, it is. Find ways to get him to catch the football, and find ways to get the quarterback to throw the ball more accurately, and find ways to sustain blocks better.”

At least there may be some accountability. How serious that gets probably very few outside of the football offices know. The problem doesn’t stop with the guys catching passes, either.

Scheme isn’t the fix for the Hogs

“Sutton Smith, no different,” Silverfield said. “A play was blocked up perfectly, and the first person he has to make miss is a safety at 12 yards, and he gets tackled square on. I got on our running back coach. Find ways to make Sutton Smith make that guy miss in the open field. How do we continue to find ways to do that?”

Coming up with fancy schemes isn’t the answer. Everybody can draw those up on the board or paper. None of that really matters.

The coach even knows that and he’s starting to say that, just not that bluntly.

“We could do this, this, and this, but we go out there on Tuesday and Wednesday and we’re not doing it,” Silverfield said. “Sometimes it’s how do you peel back even more. Sometimes it’s not what I know. It’s what can the players actually go out there and execute. It’s that fine balance.”

All of this isn’t really great news for the fans. They want answers and those aren’t coming in any direct fashion.

Of course, this could be something new for Silverfield and the top-tier folks.

And that may be the most telling part of the story nobody mentions.