No. 16 Arkansas beat South Carolina 44-30 to improve to 2-0 (1-0 in the SEC).

It was a nice coming of age by many players who have been touted throughout the offseason as difference-makers. That helped offset some brutal news before the game that safety Jalon Catalon will miss the rest of the season after suffering an injury in Week 1.

Here is what I liked most about Arkansas’ win.

The run game

At one point, Arkansas doubled the amount of plays run midway through the second half. It finished with the Hogs still edging the Gamecocks 86-69.

The week-long masterpiece of motivation from Sam Pittman was exhorting your will at the line of scrimmage was apparent on both sides of the ball.

What was incredible is how early and often the Hogs ran the football. At will, Arkansas rushed 65 times for 295 yards and 5 touchdowns. That’s almost what they did to Texas last season in Fayetteville.

The M-O of this team is to play bully ball and keep away from their opponent.

It especially made sense against a South Carolina defense that has struggled to stop the run.

Rocket Sanders was a force, too. The electric sophomore rushed for a career-high 156 yards against the Gamecocks. Sanders can run the ball north and south very well. Plus, he has edge speed that makes him one of the biggest problems moving forward for defenses.

Lastly, KJ Jefferson is an absolute train when he gets moving. He lowered his pads and knocked several defenders backward for more yardage and first downs.

Kendal Briles may have to limit Jefferson’s carries at some point; he already has 38 this season. However, he’s been effective on the ground. It’s hard not to like a dual threat, though.

Drew Sanders 

A gift that keeps giving is the transfer linebacker from Alabama. Sanders had an incredible game against South Carolina, pretty much exactly how coaches drew it up.

His ability to rush the passer and tackle in the open field was needed after losing Hayden Henry and Grant Morgan to graduation.

Sanders finished his day with 11 total tackles, 2 sacks, 3 tackles for a loss, 2 forced fumbles and a pass break-up.

Run defense

The final thing I will praise is the performance of Arkansas’ front seven. If a team wants to win in the toughest conference in America they must stop the run. So far, Arkansas has been very good at it forcing teams to just 76.5 yards per game.

Arkansas gave up 1.4 yards a carry on 29 attempts. Again, that’s a winning brand of football despite giving up 300+ yards through the air.

There wasn’t much to dislike about the victory but here are a few things the Hogs can clean up as they prepare for Bobby Petrino and Missouri State.

Penalties

After having a solid opening weekend last week with just 7 penalties, committing 10 against South Carolina seemed high.

The Gamecocks were able to hang around thanks to a few personal foul penalties. Especially one that didn’t seem too “personal.” Despite that, there’s plenty to clean up in the yellow flag department going into Missouri State prep.

Losing Catalon — again

For the second consecutive week, Arkansas was burned for 300 yards through the air. The injury bug hit early and often last week with star players Catalon and Myles Slusher going down.

Pittman announced that Catalon, the hard-hitting safety, is out for the year. That’s the second consecutive year he’s suffered a season-ending injury. The Hogs’ don’t have another physical playmaker like him.

The secondary, once considered a team strength, is now somewhat of a concern.

Slusher will return this week, which should help mitigate some of the concerns. The Hogs are last in the SEC, allowed 350 passing yards per game.

Conservative play calls

It may be very nit-picky, but the play-calling was very conservative during the third quarter. It was the only quarter the Razorbacks didn’t score in and they seemed to be flustered at times not being able to move the ball.

Briles was able to perform a 180 in the fourth quarter though, scoring 23 points in the final stanza. Like I said, this is a very nitpicky final point when the Razorbacks played very well from start to finish.