There’s never a perfect team in college football. Every team has weaknesses that they need to address throughout the season, especially after Week 1. The same goes for the Arkansas Razorbacks.

Despite the talk of Arkansas’ gritty attitude against Auburn and their impressive first-half performance, they did show several areas where they need to improve in the 45-21 loss.

Third-down conversions

This was a particularly disappointing statistic for the Hogs. Out of 12 attempts, the Hogs converted just two of them, one of which was due to a facemask penalty by Auburn.

Twice the Hogs failed to convert on third downs that were in Auburn territory. Those failed conversions forced Arkansas to punt rather than attempt for more points. What made their third-down failures even worse was the success of Auburn on third-downs – the Tigers went 9-for-14.

As improved as the offense looked in the first half, they’ll need to prove they can rise up to the challenge in those pivotal third-down situations in order to lead this team to victories.

Too many missed tackles

Throughout Saturday’s game, too many times the Arkansas defense had a chance to wrap up an Auburn rusher or receiver in the open field and failed to do so.

One specific instance that comes to mind is on Auburn’s first touchdown. Melvin Ray catches a 12-yard pass from Jeremy Johnson near the far sideline, but a missed tackle by junior safety Rohan Gaines turns the 12-yard reception into a 50-yard touchdown for the Tigers. It was a scene that became all too familiar on Saturday.

Even on the non-scoring plays, it seemed like usually it took a few hits for Arkansas to bring down guys like Cameron Artis-Payne and Duke Williams. Yes, those are big, physical guys in their own right, but if the Hogs want to compete this year, they need to shore up their tackling or their defense will continue to give up big plays.

60 minutes of good football

It’s been said before, but Saturday was truly a story of two halves for the Razorbacks. The stats are indicative of that – 51 total yards and no first downs in the second half after a first half of 267 yards and three touchdowns.

Credit Auburn for their second-half adjustments. They took away the run game early in the second half, forcing Arkansas to rely on the passing game for production and that’s not usually a situation in which their offense thrives in. Nicholls State is obviously far less talented than Auburn, but a consistently strong Hogs squad for an entire 60 minutes would please both the fans and coaches come this Saturday.

Limiting dropped passes

The Razorback wide receivers dropped a total of three passes against Auburn, including a deep ball to Keon Hatcher that would have been an easy touchdown for the Hogs. It’s tough to predict these kinds of issues for receivers. Head coach Bret Bielema had said he was very excited about the talent and depth at wide receiver this year heading into last week’s game, but the receivers were largely disappointing.

Whether it was first-game jitters or the intimidation of the crowd, the receivers need to be more reliable. Quarterback Brandon Allen is a decent quarterback, but if his receivers can’t help him out on catching his best-thrown passes, they won’t be doing him any favors against those stingy SEC defenses.