Notre Dame, up 42-13, easily converts fake punt vs. Arkansas
By Jacob Moss
Published:
Things have quickly gone from bad to worse for Arkansas and its embattled head coach, Sam Pittman, following their brutal upset loss to the Memphis Tigers last weekend. On Saturday, the No. 22 Notre Dame Fighting Irish dominated the Razorbacks in their own stadium.
The Irish offense quickly found its stride against a leaky Arkansas defense, jumping out to a monster 42-13 lead heading into halftime.
The Razorbacks desperately needed a stop coming out of the half to build some sort of momentum, and they actually got one, forcing the Irish into their first punting situation on their first drive of the third quarter.
Unfortunately for Arkansas, though, Irish head coach Marcus Freeman had no intention of taking his foot off the gas and called up a risky fake punt that Notre Dame’s special teams squad executed to perfection.
The call came from Notre Dame’s own 25-yard-line. Freeman gambled, and Arkansas did what it did all afternoon — let the Irish run wild.
If there were any concerns about the Irish potentially overlooking their SEC opponents for Week 5, they were dismissed rather quickly on Saturday. Notre Dame imposed its will on the Razorbacks all afternoon, and the fake punt perfectly summed up how things went for the Hogs.
The writing has been on the wall for a while for Pittman, but we could finally be seeing the final chapter of his stint in Fayetteville being written in real time.
