TAT: Hogs Secondary Has Plenty of Room for Improvement

This article originally appeared in the October 16, 2013 issue of The Arkansas Traveler.

With Arkansas in the midst of a four-game losing streak, many fans are complaining about Bret Bielema’s coaching or Brandon Allen’s play at quarterback. These fans are missing the most glaring issue with the Razorback football team: the defense.

More specifically, Arkansas’ secondary is one of the worst I have ever seen. The defensive line has proven to be one of the best in the country, while the secondary remains to be the weakest point on the team.

Opponents are averaging 221.4 passing yards per game against the Razorbacks, which is 53rd in the FBS and seventh in the Southeastern Conference.

At first glance, that doesn’t seem too bad. However, watching the secondary in person tells an entirely different story.

Rutgers, Texas A&M, Florida and South Carolina wide receivers not only got open, but they got wide open. Many of the passes completed in these games were done so without an Arkansas defender anywhere close to the receiver.

When Arkansas has managed to break up passes, they haven’t done it the traditional way of swatting a pass down. Instead, the Razorbacks rely on bone-jarring hits to knock the ball loose from the receiver.

While these are very good plays that tend to make highlight reels, they are not the way football is meant to be played. The duty of the defensive backs should be to never allow the receiver to catch the ball in the first place, not let them catch it and then knock it free.

One problem Arkansas has is that they play 10 yards off the line of scrimmage. That is 10 yards for the receiver to run free and do whatever he wants to do. By the time the defensive back has time to recognize a short five-yard stop route, the ball is already in the receiver’s hand for at least a five-yard gain.

This can be solved by moving the cornerbacks up to the line of scrimmage to jam the receivers at the snap of the ball. Not only will this make short passes more difficult, but it will also throw off the timing between the quarterback and receiver on long-pass plays.

Jamming on every single play would be illogical, because the corners will inevitably get beat deep if they don’t do a sufficient job of jamming the receiver. On short distance plays, though, jamming should be a mainstay.

If it is third-and-three and the receiver runs a five-yard route, as mentioned above, it doesn’t matter if Arkansas hits the receiver so hard that his helmet flies off. If he hangs on to the ball, it’s still a first down.

Also, there are several other statistics that cause concern with the secondary.

The Razorbacks have allowed 15 passing touchdowns this season, which is more than all but five FBS teams. They also have only four interceptions, and two of them were by defensive linemen.

Sadly, this has become the norm for Arkansas over the last couple years. Last season, they finished dead last in the SEC in passing yards allowed per game, while the season before that, they finished 10th in the SEC.

Bielema is not to blame for this problem because he did not recruit most of these players, but in order for him to be successful in the future, he needs to emphasize the secondary while recruiting.

Allowing teams to throw the ball all over the field without any real coverage will only lead to more 45-point losses down the road.