FAYETTEVILLE - Arkansas finally got a 100-yard rusher on Saturday, but the Razorbacks still left Auburn with the same nagging problem that has followed them all season: the ground game keeps flashing, then disappearing.
Cam Settles was the bright spot in Arkansas’ 26-23 road loss, piling up 100 yards on 16 carries and averaging 6.3 yards a pop. He became the first Arkansas back to crack the century mark this season.
But even that milestone came with a catch. The Razorbacks’ rushing output was heavily tilted by a pair of explosives, and outside of those bursts the production was thin.
Of Arkansas’ 172 rushing yards, 111 came on just two plays. Sutton Smith ripped off a 65-yard run in the second quarter to set up a Braylen Russell touchdown at the goal line, and Settles broke loose for 46 yards in the third quarter to help set up a field goal that put Arkansas ahead 13-9.
Strip away the six sacks Auburn recorded and the 42 yards lost on those plays, and Arkansas managed only 103 rushing yards on its other 36 carries. That works out to 2.9 yards per carry. With sack yardage included, the Razorbacks finished at 3.9 yards per carry for the game.
“The run game showed proof of life today,” head coach Ryan Silverfield said, “But then those TFLs in the second half showed that we were boom or bust, and so we’ve got to get those cleaned up.”
Arkansas was hit with 12 tackles for loss, and eight of them came after halftime. That second-half surge from Auburn undercut the few times the Razorbacks were able to get traction on the ground.
“The two long runs were huge,” Silverfield said. “Wish Sutton had gotten in the end zone and finished, and certainly wish Cam Settles had, too.”
The backfield rotation remained as unsettled as the production. Smith, who had Arkansas’ longest run of the season, finished with only three carries.
Russell handled 10 carries for 27 yards. Markeylin Batton, who had not played all season, got into the first half and logged four carries for nine yards.
“He had been injured a little bit throughout the weeks, in preseason, some of those things,” Silverfield said of Batton. “We know that he’s got a different speed than some of our running backs. I love our running back room, but Batton’s got different gear, and so I think we got to see it on one of the speed options.
“He has the ability to do some of those things, and then we’ve got to figure out what that role looks like moving forward. Again, the combination of having a variety of different running backs.
Sutton got the least amount of carries but had the most explosive run. So, it’s just trying to find that fine balance between all those running backs.”
Jasper Parker, who has been Arkansas’ RB4 this year and has 11 carries for 51 yards, did not get a carry against Auburn. In all, five different running backs and quarterback KJ Jackson have run the ball for Arkansas this season, leaving the Hogs with six ball carriers and no clear-cut No. 1 option.
Jackson had helped spark the run game against Vanderbilt and Missouri, but he was barely a factor in that area against Auburn. He had three carries, not counting sacks, for 15 yards. One came on a scramble drill, but Arkansas did not lean on designed quarterback runs the way it had earlier in the season.
“When we looked at what Auburn was doing defensively, we didn’t feel like there’s as many things that we could take advantage with the quarterback-run game,” Silverfield said. “We had done some of the quarterback-run game and had been effective, but not to the point where we felt more comfortable. Sometimes just being creative with some other things and doing some different stuff, obviously.”
Nine games into the season, Arkansas still hasn’t settled on a reliable rushing identity or a true lead back. Settles now leads the team with 314 rushing yards, and there’s a real chance the Razorbacks won’t have a 400-yard rusher by the end of the year.
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