FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Last week, a dominating special teams performance helped South Carolina control the tempo and take a run-first Georgia State team out of its comfort zone.
This week, a run-first Arkansas team racked up the plays and flipped the script. The Razorbacks ran 85 plays and ran out with a 44-30 win at home to hand South Carolina its first loss of 2022.
No. 16 Arkansas (2-0, 1-0 SEC) raced out to a 21-3 lead behind three touchdown drives combining for 199 yards on the way to 462 total yards of offense.
The Gamecocks (1-1, 0-1 SEC) did trim the deficit as low as five points in the third quarter when Spencer Rattler completed a 63-yard touchdown pass to Antwane Wells Jr. on third-and-15 and even had the ball with an opportunity to take the lead, but the comeback never materialized further.
Sam Pittman’s team led right from the jump when Rocket Sanders rushed in from one yard one to cap off a 13-play, 63-yard scoring drive for the Razorbacks. Arkansas ran the ball on 11 of those 13 plays, a trend that continued all day with 64 rushes for 300 yards.
A screen-pass-loaded drive helped South Carolina shave three points off the deficit and register some first-quarter road points, something it failed to do on three occasions last season. But from there it was more of the same, with mounting defensive injuries becoming a story of the day for South Carolina.
Darius Rush and Alex Huntley both returned to action after going into the medical tent early, but others were not as lucky. Standout starting nickel Cam Smith left the field in the first half and did not appear in the game again, and starting edge rusher Jordan Strachan left the game just minutes after recording his first sack of the season in the third quarter. Starting linebacker Mo Kaba also went down in the second quarter, joining starting safety RJ Roderick who was not on the travel roster after a pectoral injury against Georgia State.
Two more Arkansas rushing touchdowns — another one from Sanders and a second one from Rashad Dubinion — made it 21-3 midway through the second quarter. To that point, the Gamecocks had minus-10 yards of offense in the second quarter and only got a momentary reprieve when MarShawn Lloyd scored his third touchdown in two games to cut it to 21-9.
Wells’ long touchdown jaunt represented the high point of the day for South Carolina and created a crack in the door for a road upset, but the Razorbacks returned to their bread and butter and wore down a depleted team.
Arkansas ran the ball on 10 of the next 11 snaps, culminating in a Jefferson touchdown from one yard out to restore the two-possession cushion. The teams traded a pair of fourth-quarter touchdowns, with South Carolina twice finding the end zone on up-tempo drives led by explosive plays from JuJu McDowell and Jaheim Bell. Each player ended up scoring from a yard out, but Jefferson and AJ Green erased them with rushing scores of their own.
The Razorbacks added the exclamation point when Spencer Rattler took a safety with an intentional grounding in his own end zone on the Gamecocks' final possession of the day.
South Carolina is now 1-5 on the road under Shane Beamer and 1-10 in its last 11 road SEC contests overall. It will return to the friendly confines of Williams-Brice Stadium next week, but there will be no rest for the weary with the No. 2 Georgia Bulldogs coming into town.
