A Razorback Recap

It was set up like a storybook ending in the Sugar Bowl on Tuesday night.

Trailing 28 to 10 at halftime, the Arkansas Razorbacks came charging back in the second half against Ohio State. The defense looked completely different after halftime, playing with energy and confidence. The Buckeyes could only add a 3rd quarter field goal and were kept out of the end zone entirely in the final two quarters. Arkansas' offense, on the other hand, finally seemed to click with that balance of running and passing that made it so dominant in the final few games of its regular season.

It wasn't a perfect performance after halftime, to be sure. Receivers kept dropping balls, which was troubling (there were 5 or 6 drops by Arkansas' best receivers that were simply hard to explain). And QB Ryan Mallett was not at his best, which always seems to be the case when an opposing defense gets pressure on him. But the offense kept putting points on the board, even if they often had to settle for field goals by clutch freshman placekicker Zach Hocker. Standout RB Knile Davis kept chewing up yards on the ground, allowing the Hogs to control time of possession in the second half.

But of course, you don't have to play perfect football. You only have to play better football than your opponent. For awhile in the second half of the Sugar Bowl on Tuesday, it actually looked like the Razorbacks were playing so much better than the Buckeyes that they would be able to overcome that steep 28 - 10 halftime deficit.

Then, in the span of a couple of minutes, the Hogs delivered both unbelievable excitement and excruciating letdown.

Trailing 31 - 26 with a little more than a minute to go, the Hogs forced the Buckeyes to punt from deep in their own territory. A ferocious rush resulted in a blocked punt, and Arkansas fell on the ball at around the 18 yard line. (They could have easily picked up the blocked punt and run it in for a TD, but players are taught to jump on a loose ball and it's hard to fault the Razorback defender who recovered it.) So with a minute left, Mallett had the chance to put the ball in the endzone, win the Sugar Bowl, complete a stellar college career with a signature win, and give the Hogs their best bowl win in decades.

The electricity could be felt all the way from the Superdome, and I was watching the game on TV from about 900 miles away. A first down pass from Mallett to D.J. Williams fell incomplete. A few seconds ticked off the clock. And then, on second down, Mallett ... threw an interception. The Ohio State offense promptly trotted back onto the field and downed the ball to end the game. What looked like an improbable win-in-the-making turned out to be just another gut-wrenching loss.

I don't want to take anything away from the Razorbacks' 2010 football season, which was great on the whole. Coach Bobby Petrino has made huge progress with the program in his three years as head coach. This year the Hogs showed signs of moving into the upper echelons of the Southeastern Conference. But for Mallett & Co., the loss will leave a bad taste for the next few months. As good as he was, Mallett never really showed that he could step up and take over a game in the highest pressure situations. (He is widely expected to enter the NFL draft in the offseason, though there is a small chance he could return for a final year.) The Hogs still seem to suffer from a certain bridesmaid quality: When they do make it to a big stage, they have a hard time acting like they fully belong there.

For Coach Petrino, the challenge next year will be to take another step forward and continue to instill confidence in his players that they can hang with the big boys of college football. And that's the perennial consolation in football anyway, isn't it? There's always next year...