Winners and Losers: Arkansas

Ty Davis-Price shines and Jay Ward saves the day

The Golden Boot stays in Baton Rouge for another year.

After being away for the past 21 days, the LSU football team (3-3) returned both to the field and the win column holding on to a 27-24 win over the Arkansas Razorbacks (3-4). It wasn’t the prettiest game, and the play certainly mirrored the sloppy, rainy weather conditions, but for an LSU team that’s had a whole lot of bad happen this year a win sure does feel good.

Winner: TJ Finley

I don’t think anyone would call Finley’s performance a great one, but he went on the road in less than ideal weather conditions and engineered a 10-play, 67-yard game-winning drive. Finley completed 65 percent of his passes, threw a pair of touchdowns and didn’t turn the ball over. The kid got it done.

Winner: Tyrion Davis-Price

After being held to literally zero yards in LSU’s humiliating 48-11 loss to Auburn, Ty Davis-Price was the go-to option for the LSU offense. Davis-Price grinded out 104 yards and helped spearhead a Tiger offense that held the ball for 41 minutes.

Loser: Penalties

Nine penalties for 70 yards, and some were absolute killers for LSU. Elias Ricks was ejected for targeting in the first half, and Ricks’ absence was compounded when Derek Stingley Jr. left the game after taking a knee to the head on a punt return. And in the second half, holds on Chasen Hines and Liam Shanahan negated gains of 22 and 35 yards respectively.

Winner: Third Down Defense

The Hogs didn’t convert a single third down today. LSU had to defend ten different third down attempts and stopped Arkansas all ten times. As for the other plays well…

Loser: Big Plays

Arkansas had six “big” passing plays today. On those six plays, Arkansas picked up 15, 29, 50, 50, 51 and 65 yards. That’s 260 yards, or a cool 43 yards a play. Put another way, nearly 60 percent of Arkansas’s 443 yards came on six plays. If you want to add in Arkansas’s four big rushing plays—runs of 10 or more yards— it’s up to 73 percent of the total offense. When LSU whiffed, they failed spectacularly.

Winner: Zach Von Rosenberg

Seven punts, nearly 50 yards a punt, a long of 61, and five punts downed inside the 20. Ray Guy Award Committee are you paying attention?

Winner: Jay Ward

After spending most of the morning getting picked on, Ward saved the day with two massive plays on Arkansas’s final drive. Ward surrendered a 51-yard completion to T.J. Hammonds and then was flagged for a pass interference (where, rather rudely, three different officials threw a flag at him) before ultimately being moved inside to the nickel position. But when it looked like Arkansas was driving down the field to either force overtime or win in regulation, Ward forced an incompletion on a third and three, dislodging the ball from Trelon Smith and then blocked AJ Reed’s game-tying field goal attempt.