3 things Arkansas football needs to work on before SEC play

Through two weeks, Arkansas has shown us they can dominate opponents and beat themselves. It's shown flashes of greatness and flashbacks to the Chad Morris era. The Razorbacks have a consistency problem, which isn't a recipe for success in the SEC.

Thankfully, there are a few things that could help Arkansas going forward into conference play. Right now, the biggest problems are on defense. Getting to the opposing quarterback and finishing tackles will limit big plays and help make the defense more consistent. On the other side of the ball, QB play has to be better. Taylen Green was 11/26 from the pocket, which won't win in the SEC, even with his amazing running abilities.

3 Things Arkansas football needs to work on

1. Hitting check downs and not forcing throws

One of the reasons Taylen Green is the starting quarterback for the Razorbacks is his explosive playmaking abilities. The most obvious example is what he can do with his legs. He's deceptively fast and can improvise in the passing game by either taking off with the football or running from pressure for some backyard football type of plays.

There's one more thing that makes him explosive; he almost always takes the deep option. The problem with that is he takes more chances than he has to. More than once this season, Green has thrown a pass that was either wildly inaccurate or highly contested deep down the field with his check-down receivers open.

Take Luke Hasz, for example. Before his injury, the star tight end was on his way to being one of the best in his position as a freshman last season. However, through three games, Hasz has only recorded five receptions for 88 yards. As a tight end, a significant portion of his opportunities will be when he's a check-down option. Another popular check-down option is the running backs, who cumulatively have 12 receptions for an additional 88 yards.

One thing that could help is making his reads fast. Former Georgia QB Aaron Murray harped on Green during the UAB broadcast and his podcast before game day. The former Boise State transfer has incredible talent. But his throws are often contested because he makes reads late. But, specifically for check-downs, he moves through his progressions too slowly.

2. QB Pressure

If you want to talk about talent, the defensive line is loaded with studs, but for some reason, they've been unproductive as a unit. Arkansas's starting DL has a combined 38 of the team's 183 tackles, which isn't horrible considering the average amount of times opponents throw against the Hogs. But that brings up another point. The DL has been horrible at creating pressure on the QB.

Of Arkansas's five sacks, only one came from the DL. Eric Gregory brought down UAPB's QB to end the Golden Lion's first drive, but the position group has been relatively quiet since then.

Many fans want to blame star defensive end, Landon Jackson, even going as far as posting 'missing' ads on X (formerly Twitter) like The Wu-Pig Podcast post below. And to be fair to them, Jackson has only recorded eight tackles through the first three games. On the other hand, Jackson has been double-teamed all season because the rest of the DL isn't winning their one-on-one battles. If one person could step up, it could unleash the beast we all know Jackson could be.

3. Tackling

This is almost self-explanatory. The Hogs had a hard time finishing tackles on Saturday. During the post-game press conference, Sam Pittman talked about how practice wasn't as physical last week and blamed it on, so many guys in no-contact jerseys.

"I just think that we had, we had five guys on defense in green (no-contact) jerseys this week," Pittman said. "We had two on offense, and we practiced them. Green means you can’t hit them. So the physicality of the practices wasn’t what it should’ve been because of the green jerseys."

While that may be true, there were a few instances where physicality had nothing to do with it. Instead, a lack of awareness and a sense of urgency played a part. On UAB's first touchdown, Jaheim Singletary is late to the play contain, and Kameran Shanks beats him to the edge.

The Blazer's final score of the night was another instance where the Razorbacks' failure to finish tackles wasn't due to a lack of physicality. Instead of going for the tackle, safety Jayden Johnson tries to strip the ball a few yards from the end zone.

Now, if TJ Metcalf gives more help than throwing a shoulder into Dallas Payne, it's probably not a touchdown, but that's beside the point. In the midweek press conference, Metcalf explained that Arkansas's defensive staff had emphasized forcing turnovers. The unintended consequence is what you see in the clip above.