FAYETTEVILLE — Lost in the warranted criticism of how Arkansas lost Saturday's game against No. 15 Tennessee was the fact that the Razorbacks played their best football game of the season.
Against a team with College Football Playoff aspirations, Arkansas wasn't just competitive — it was winning the football game in the third quarter and still had a chance to do so until there was a minute to go.
While a plethora of mistakes and poor coaching decisions down the stretch marred what could've been seen as a solid performance or a breakthrough win for the Hogs, Saturday was the best they've played all season and something to build on.
The question is whether or not the Hogs, who have now experienced their first heartbreaking loss of the season, continue to stick together this week.
Losing takes a toll on a locker room, especially one with 80 new players in it and a coaching staff that is still trying to get to know each other. It's not easy to keep such a room together when the seas get rough.
The love for everybody in the in the building... everybody loves each other," QB KJ Jackson said Saturday. "I love Cam. Cam loves Quincy. Quincy loves Ben Bogle, and that's why we're not gonna stop working and showing up to work every day. Because at the end of the day, like, we've been we've been grinding together since January, and with the day we're in now, like, the team's going to look completely different, maybe, come January. So we're gonna go to bat for the guys that are in the building right now because we love each other so much. "
If Arkansas plays like it did on Saturday, it will have a chance to win at least a few of its final six games of the season. Winning one or two of them isn't out of the question, beginning with UA's road trip to Nashville to play Vanderbilt on Oct. 17.
The Commodores beat North Carolina State in a wacky ending and battled for four quarters in a 21-15 road loss to Auburn. But Vandy's other four performances haven't been very inspiring. They struggled to pull away in a 35-26 win over Delaware, hung with Georgia for a half before losing 38-14 and were obliterated by Ole Miss at home on Saturday in a 52-17 decision.
This is absolutely a winnable game for Arkansas, provided that the locker room stays together and the incremental improvement and belief Ryan Silverfield constantly preaches comes to fruition.
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