It all comes down to two early departures and an injury.

When Alex Collins and Denver Kirkland left early, it forced Arkansas to flip Dan Skipper to left tackle, forced an underseasoned guy in at RT, and forced a true freshman with little FB experience to play at RG. We've since seen that guard develop into a All-SEC caliber lineman, but it was raw meat to wolves, especially since Skipper was ill prepared to protect a QB's blind side against the SEC's top pass rushers, as well.

Because of this, we were heavily penalized all along the OL, and Skipper would get our QBs blasted on a regular basis; this meant that Austin Allen in particular got the unholy hell beat out of him, and injuries visibly wore at his effectiveness as his two seasons as the starter wore on.

Collins departure forced the early play of Raleigh William III-- who played very well, but who should have shared his workload as a freshman and sophomore-- instead, he ended up with a severe neck injury that threw backfield development into chaos.

You take a team supposedly built around the premise of controlling the ball through the run game, and a physical offensive line, and take both away, and its going to be a severe problem.

This post was edited on 12/12/18 at 4:11 pm