Arkansas Football: What’s slowing down the Razorback offense?

Arkansas football: Schematic ways to address current weaknesses

It’s been clear that Coach Briles’s plan thus far when teams do this is to move receivers, shift formations, and try to move people around enough to find weaknesses & leverage the pre-snap shift of the receivers.

I think this is correct! The more movement you have offensively, the more likely you are to catch a defender in a weak spot or force them to make a difficult open-field tackle.

Another way to beat this is to motion running backs out wide, matched up with inside linebackers, and get them involved in the passing game. Especially Sanders and AJ Green. I like their athleticism and that matchup against most inside linebackers.

This will also force them to get out of man-to-man and play zone. If they get into zone coverage on the backend, keeping the box loaded is much more difficult than not leaving holes all over the field. Motioning the running back and removing an inside linebacker also puts us in the position to utilize Briles’s beloved QB Draw with one less linebacker to worry about.

Lastly, get Trey Knox involved more in the passing game. If the scheme is based around big-bodied guys who can go get jump balls, let’s utilize Knox more in that role. Whether he is lined up on a corner, safety, or linebacker – I believe he wins those battles 7 out of 10 times and can become that jump ball threat for us.

So what is the moral of the story? It is a helpless feeling when you spend multiple years and entire offseasons developing a scheme that is severely struggling due to a large portion of the vertical passing plan not panning out as expected.

Nobody wants to adjust the scheme four or five weeks into the season. Sometimes things work in practice that don’t end up working in the game. Unfortunately, all success in the passing game through the spring and fall has to be taken with a grain of salt due to our struggling secondary.

This offense is trying to find itself. It feels close. There are glimpses, and there are possessions, even quarters that show a GREAT offensive team – which makes it even more frustrating – just no consistency.

And don’t get me started on the Hornsby experiment. The gadget plays with him are not working, and surely, if he was a good enough receiver to earn playing time – he would be out there.

Briles will figure it out. He is one of the country’s best offensive minds, and his offensive numbers annually prove that. I’m glad he’s on our sideline.