Early Scare For Alabama Against Arkansas? I'm Not Buying It

There has been a lot talk so far about who will be the first to potentially upset Alabama this year, and Arkansas seems to be the popular pick to do so. The headline should clue you in on how I feel about the chances of this happening.

 

The secondary will get tested early and often against the Arkansas passing game, but how many chances will Ryan Mallett get to make the big play? It is well known Bama's defense is built on preventing the big play, but how often will they actually be tested? 

 

Take a look the numbers from the game last year:

 

Mallett threw 12 for 35 for 160 yards, 1 TD and 1 INT, with his longest completion of the game being 25 yards. He had two others for 23 and 20, but that's only 3 completions out of 35 attempts that amounted to anything significant, only one of which led to a TD. 42% of the passing yards, 68 out of 160, came on 3 completions.

 

Arkansas managed only 4 fewer 1^st downs than Alabama, but their 3^rd down conversion rate was awful, converting only 2 of 14.

 

Looking at these numbers, it is easy to see Mallett was unable to develop any type of consistency. The game was still within reach until Alabama unleashed their own passing attack in the 3^rd quarter.

 

Something to remember about these low numbers: they came one week after the Razorbacks absolutely lit up Georgia’s defense for 408 yards, 5 TDs, 0 INT on 21 for 39 passing (that is 19 yard per catch). While their defense was not on the same level as Alabama, those numbers are still obscene, and Arkansas wins that game if they don't have an even worse defense than Georgia that day.

 

Am I supposed to believe their offense will all of a sudden figure out how to put up big numbers on such a stout defense? Bama’s front seven could be faster and stronger this year, led by Marcell Dareus and company, which will take a lot of pressure of such a green secondary.

 

And guess what, it’s no secret what Arkansas wants to do, and that's air it out. 

 

This may seem like a scathing attack against Arkansas, which is far from the truth. I believe they will be much better this year, and the game will be closer than last year’s result. But I don’t expect the Tide to give up many big plays, and I don’t think Arkansas will have done enough on either side of the ball to pull out a win on September 25.