FAYETTEVILLE - Bewildered. Confused. Those are just two of the descriptions of Bret Bielema that came to mind during his postgame press conference after Arkansas’ embarrassing loss to TCU on Saturday. The head Hog focused on the fact that his team will have a week off before playing Texas A&M in just under two weeks at AT&T Stadium in Arlington.
“Just didn’t have a connection, had some dropped balls, had some guys that needed to correct. So as coaches, first, I’ve got to own every minute of that film. As coaches we’ve
really got to self-assess what we’re asking our guys to do, especially in the second half offensively and figure out what we can do better, because obviously it didn’t work.” Bielema said in his opening statement. “So we’ve got a bye week. We’ll really take self-inventory. I think the biggest thing is we’ve got to be the most-improved football team in the country from this next week until we play Texas A&M. Their team is very similar to the one we just played, and get a lot better at the details, especially in the critical moments.”
One of the areas of focus were the two missed field goals by kicker Cole Hedlund.
“We may either just go for it all the time, or I’ll put in a guy — again, what you see in practice is what you believe is going to happen. We have a kicker that was
kicking over 95-percent all the way through fall camp and the first two weeks of the season, and then to go out there and miss two chip shots, especially the second one.” the Coach explained. “The reason I wanted to go for it, was it was right in the middle of the field. It was basically a PAT, and it was a perfect protection and perfect snap, it’s inexcusable. So we’ve got to find the other option in that regard because we’re not going to go down that path again. So that one we’ll move forward on.”
While Bielema was quick to cast shade on Hedlund, he was more reserved in his assessment of quarterback Austin Allen, whose struggles continued on Saturday.
““You know, I don’t want to be too judgmental until I see the film, but there were definitely some good plays where he scrapped a lot, made some good plays, but I think there were
probably some decisions I bet he wishes he had back, as well as some throws. But I really can’t assess that right now, other than we just didn’t have success.” Bielema noted.
The quarterback told the media that after an exceptional week, the loss was not anywhere near what he expected to see.
““Thought we had a really good week of practice. Everyone was locked in.” Austin said. “How we practiced Tuesday and how crisp the locker room was Thursday and Friday, I didn’t think that was how it was going to go. The defense played a heck of a game. They kept us in there. We’ve got to finish. It’s just what we have to do.”
Bielema admitted that the Razorbacks fell flat following the opening touchdown.
“Yeah, I think when you continually go out there. We scored. We answered the score. Really didn’t get anything going the rest of the day. I think that gets very frustrating. As
coaches you feel it, as players you feel it, and I told the guys at halftime, to win this game, somebody in this room is going to have to rise up and do something they’ve never done
before.” Bielema stated. “It’s not superhuman, but it’s just they’ve got to make a third-down catch, break a tackle, make a block. Just do something that’s going to separate themselves in the game and give everybody a chance to win it.”
FINAL STATS - No. 23 TCU 28, Arkansas 7
(Video Courtesy: HitThatLine.Com/ESPN 95.3 FM)
