Upon Further Review: Texas Tech worn down by Collins, Williams
The overwhelming storyline from Saturday’s beatdown that the Arkansas Razorbacks unleashed onto Texas Tech was the dominant, physical running game displayed by the Hogs.
It was clear that over time, the physical nature of both the Hogs’ offensive line and their primary backs – Alex Collins and Jonathan Williams – significantly wore down the Red Raiders’ defensive front seven. So much so that Arkansas ended up with 438 rushing yards for the game and even ran the ball on their final 29 plays.
There’s no question the run of the game came on Collins’ 84-yard touchdown run, but before we review that breakaway run, let’s look at the drive prior where the Hogs ran 13 plays (all running plays) for 82 yards and took up 6:43 of the clock.
As you can see from this video, this drive was an absolute clinic by Arkansas’ offensive line and running backs.
You’ll notice on the third play, one of the main reasons why Arkansas’ physicality played such a big role on Saturday: yards after contact. Williams takes the handoff and sees a running lane thanks to a great blitz pickup by the left side of Arkansas’ offensive line. The first missed tackle comes just two yards past the line of scrimmage as the Texas Tech defender attempts to bring Williams down at his legs, which he shakes off immediately. Following the missed tackle, Williams plows right into another Texas Tech defender as well as one of his lineman. Again, you see the inability by Texas Tech to stop Williams at initial contact, resulting in a nine yard run and a first down.
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Play after play, Arkansas continued to pound the front seven of Texas Tech on this drive. On the sixth play, it’s the defensive line that gets embarrassed. Go back and watch Mitch Smothers and Sebastian Tretola. The two juniors have their way with the nose tackle, pushing up back nearly eight yards with no chance in sight to break free and make a play. The result? Another gashing eight yard run straight up the middle for Collins.
As play-by-play announcer Mike Patrick aptly put it, the Arkansas running display was a “punishment” laid upon Texas Tech. The drive concluded with a Jonathan Williams nine-yard run for a score to put the Hogs up 14 points late in the fourth quarter.
Moving on to Collins’ 84-yard run, keep in mind this is on the very next drive. The first play on the drive was just a one-yard scamper by Collins, but on the next play, it was as if Texas Tech had enough of dealing with the sophomore standout.
Initially, Collins doesn’t have much room to operate, surrounded by several defenders, but to the offensive line’s credit they still maintain quite a pocket for him find his way to the second level. After that, it’s simply just lazy tackling by the Texas Tech linebackers and secondary – a product of the smash-mouth football they had to endure for nearly two-thirds of the game.
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It was Collins’ 84-yard touchdown run that was the epitome of the beating Texas Tech took from Collins, Williams and the Hogs’ offensive line. The constant barrage of gashing it up the middle for 5-8 yards finally broke open the flood gates in the fourth quarter with Collins’ big play as the culmination of an incredible afternoon for the Hogs.