No. 8 Arkansas Rallies Again, Tops Vandy at BetLM

No. 8 Arkansas Rallies Again, Tops Vandy

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The eighth-ranked Arkansas Razor­backs know they have plenty of tal­ent. That’s what makes falling behind early and hav­ing to rally for vic­tory so frustrating.

They fell behind by double-digits for the third time this sea­son Sat­ur­day, trail­ing Van­der­bilt by 14 points before com­ing back for a 31–28 vic­tory. The come­back was keyed by Jerry Franklin’s 94-yard fum­ble return for a touch­down that turned a 28–20 deficit in the fourth quar­ter into a 28-all tie.

Arkansas receiver Chris Gragg said it gives him a heart attack some­times falling behind, even though the Razor­backs now have won four straight.

“We never really are on the side­lines think­ing we are going to lose because we have done it so many times, and I just think we have the play­mak­ers and that drive to get the W,” Gragg said.

Razor­backs defen­sive end Jake Bequette said the grow­ing rep­u­ta­tion for slow starts in the first half is very frustrating.

“We’re def­i­nitely not sat­is­fied with where we are right now. We’re not happy at all,” Bequette said. “We’re happy to be 7–1. It’s a great posi­tion. It looks good on paper, but we know we’re capa­ble of much bet­ter on defense and offense. When we put a com­plete game together, it’s going to be some­thing sweet.”

The Razor­backs (3–1 in the South­east­ern Con­fer­ence) are 7–1 for only the third time since mov­ing to the SEC and first since 2006. They now pre­pare to start a three-game home­s­tand against No. 10 South Car­olina, off to its best start under coach Bobby Petrino.

“The thing I am happy about is we are going home 7–1,” Petrino said. “You know, it has been a tough go for our foot­ball team.”

Arkansas trailed 21–7 in the first half and never led Van­der­bilt until Zach Hockner’s third field goal, a 42-yarder, with 6:53 left. The best offense in the SEC was held to 388 yards, and Arkansas gave up 462 yards to the Com­modores. Defen­sive coor­di­na­tor Willy Robin­son called the Razor­backs’ defen­sive play erratic.

“We couldn’t get any­thing stopped in the first half, and again it came back in the sec­ond half where we did,” Robin­son said. “We couldn’t cre­ate a pass-rush with four guys. We had to sit down and cre­ate pres­sure. Hon­estly, we’re still searching.”

Arkansas had two sacks and forced three turnovers, turn­ing those into 10 points thanks to Franklin’s fum­ble return. Tyler Wil­son threw for 316 yards and a TD. Backup quar­ter­back Bran­don Mitchell also ran for a TD.

Wil­son set a school record for con­sec­u­tive passes with­out an inter­cep­tion, a streak now at 176 and count­ing despite going against a Van­der­bilt defense that came in lead­ing the SEC and tied for first nation­ally with 15 inter­cep­tions. His streak con­tin­ues only because the Com­modores couldn’t hold onto a hand­ful of balls they got their hands on.

The junior showed off his strength and resiliency as he took a beat­ing from the Com­modores, who sacked him three times and hit him repeat­edly. Tim Fugger’s sec­ond sack took Wil­son to the ground so hard fans went “Oh!” watch­ing the replay.

But Wil­son helped start the lat­est come­back to go with those against Texas A&M and last week against Mis­sis­sippi. He found Jar­ius Wright for a 30-yard com­ple­tion on fourth-and-10 with the clock run­ning down, then tossed a per­fect pass to him in the end zone for an 11-yard TD on the next play to trim Vandy’s lead to 21–14 at halftime.

“If you learn any­thing from the World Series, it’s that you just hang in there and keep going,” Petrino said.

Wright fin­ished with 135 yards on 10 catches, not count­ing the 2-point con­ver­sion catch that tied the game at 28.

“You can’t get frus­trated win­ning,” Wright said. “You can get frus­trated by not start­ing out like you expect your team to do. We know how good we are. We expect to start faster. We expect to play way bet­ter than we played. We did get the win. You can never be mad get­ting the win.”

Still, the Razor­backs couldn’t stop Van­der­bilt from dri­ving from its own 10 start­ing with 3:03 left down to the Arkansas 10 in the final sec­onds. Jor­dan Rodgers, who threw for a TD and ran for two oth­ers, missed tight end Bran­don Bar­den in the end zone before throw­ing the ball away on third down. Carey Spear’s 27-yard field goal to force over­time was wide right with 8 sec­onds left.

“We’re lucky they missed the kick,” Bequette said. “I felt like our chances were good in over­time, but I’m glad we didn’t have to do that.”

BetLM's sports betting news features unique sports betting articles as well as current sports news compiled from leading wire services. This arti­cle was dis­trib­uted by X2 news wire and aggre­ga­tion ser­vice, For more news see: No. 8 Arkansas ral­lies again, tops Vandy .

Stay cur­rent with live CFB lines and all of the lat­est CFB bet­ting reports. Along with NCAA foot­ball bet­ting lines, we offer play­ers wager­ing on the reg­u­lar sea­son and Col­lege Bowls, first quar­ter and half-time lines and tons of CFB prop bets every week­end. Lines­Maker also deliv­ers in game bet­ting for NCAA foot­ball games so the bet­ting does not end when the action begins. When bet­tors search for NCAA foot­ball lines and any other sports bet­ting lines, Lines­Maker is one of the most trusted sources for online sports betting.

Started in 1999, Lines­Maker has a a long record as one of the Internet’s sig­na­ture des­ti­na­tions for pro­vid­ing sports bet­ting lines together with a secure, depend­able and easy to nav­i­gate online bet­ting website.

Related Posts:

• NIU Ral­lies by Arkansas State in GoDaddy
• Heat and Celtics Pre­pare to Meet Again in Postseason
• Arkansas Adjusts to Smith’s Coach­ing Style
• Rangers Tops in AL, but Rays Not Far Behind
• Nadal Tops Fer­rer for 7th Barcelona Title

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•