Scout.com: Instant Analysis: LSU-Arkansas

Instant Analysis: LSU-Arkansas

This story originally published on CollegeFootballNews.com

By Matt Zemek

Staff Columnist
Posted Nov 28, 2008

Six years ago, Arkansas pulled off an incredible late-season win in Little Rock against LSU, thanks to a touchdown pass into the right-hand corner of the end zone at War Memorial Stadium. After failing to beat LSU at home in 2004 and 2006, the Razorbacks regained some familiar last-minute magic to break the hearts of the Bayou Bengals once again.

Yes, this year’s one-point win over the defending national champions wasn’t as significant as that 2002 triumph, achieved by Matt Jones’s 31-yard throw to DeCori Birmingham with nine seconds left in regulation. That long-ago pass—thrown to the south end of the ballpark, and to the right side of the field—gave the Hogs a 21-20 win over LSU, the SEC West championship, and a date in the league title game against Georgia. This year, a very similar set of on-field events took place, as the home team completed an amazing comeback to leave the Tigers stricken and stunned.

”Jones-to-Birmingham with nine seconds left” in 2002 turned into “Dick-to-Crawford with 21 seconds left” in 2008. Quarterback Casey Dick--who relieved his brother, Nathan, to kick-start Arkansas’ offense and lead a comeback from a 30-14 deficit--hit receiver London Crawford at that same karma-kissed end of War Memorial Stadium to give the Razorbacks another one-point win, this time by a 31-30 count. While this wild and improbable triumph sent a massive electric charge through an exultant throng of Hog fans, the win over LSU merely gave Bobby Petrino’s team a fifth scalp—one short of the total needed for bowl eligibility—and some warm thoughts entering the offseason.

For free-falling LSU, the only thing that can comfort a team mired in a spectacular downward spiral is that its regular season has mercifully ended. Even on a day when its quarterback threw no pick-sixes—Jordan Jefferson was very solid as the starting signal caller, in place of interception-prone Jarrett Lee—LSU couldn’t prevail because its defense continued to crack, mentally and physically. A series of brain-dead penalties turned a short-lived Arkansas drive into a field goal that put the Hogs down by only six (30-24) entering the home stretch, enabling them to win with their last-minute touchdown. LSU’s defense gave up multiple fourth-down conversions to Arkansas on the Razorbacks’ game-winning drive, a testament to this team’s inability to close down SEC opponents. With today’s road loss in its SEC finale, the team that won the league last season—and has usually ruled the roost this decade in the SEC West—tumbled to 3-5 in the conference, and to third place in its division. For all their injuries and inconsistencies, the Tigers never expected to lose five games in SEC action and find a lower-tier December bowl game on their calendar.

LSU might have a postseason date, while Arkansas will be home for the holidays, but in light of this stunning turn of events in Little Rock, it’s the Hogs who will have a lot more momentum and optimism heading into 2009.

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