Spotlight #1: Arkansas DE Jake Bequette
Spotlight #2: Arkansas WR Joe Adams
1st quarter
12:18: Bequette pancaked on a bull rush.
11:41: Bequette blocked off the play for a big gain to his side.
10:30: Bequette with a sack. Unblocked, missed assignment by the line.
9:50: Bequette with a pressure, forces a hurried throw and an incompletion.
2nd quarter
13:23: Jonathan Banks with a strip sack in the red zone, returned 52 yards by big defensive tackle Fletcher Cox.
6:32: Adams with his first catch of the game, a check down in the flat, surrounded by 2 guys who bottle the play up immediately for a loss and a fumble, recovered by Arkansas. Loss of 13.
5:01: Fletcher Cox with a blocked field goal. The junior defensive tackle has 9.5 tackles for loss and 4 sacks on the season at 6-4 300 and would be one of the top defensive tackles in this weak draft class should he declare early.
2:40: Greg Childs has been hurt, but he was once a potential 2nd day pick. Here he has 3 consecutive catches before leaving the field. All 3 were impressive. The 2nd was a nice pluck against tough coverage and on the 3rd he caught it short and laid out for extra yards.
2:16: Joe Adams with a catch along the sideline for 8 yards.
2:04: Joe Adams burns a safety deep for a 32 yard touchdown, nice catch in the end zone. The safety was playing deep, but took one misstep up and Adams burned him. Still a nice over the shoulder catch by Adams as he didn’t have a ton of separation. He wasn’t completely wide open, but overall a great play that shows his speed and pass catching abilities.
1:00: Joe Adams showing nice abilities in the open field for a 29 yard gain after a dump off, but called back after a facemask penalty by a teammate.
3rd quarter
5:30: Joe Adams, who was taken out of the game earlier after being hit in the eye with the ball on a low bounce, doesn’t have his helmet on on the sideline. He doesn’t look like he’s coming back in up 31-10. I’ll be focusing a little bit on Jarius Wright for the remainder of the game. Wright has 7 catches for 90 yards to this point.
4:18: Wright with a reception for about 7 or 8 short of the first down sticks.
3:06: Greg Childs looking a little slow still trying to catch up to a deep ball in the end zone. He’s still not 100%.
1:16: Tramain Thomas almost got his 5th pick of the year, but bobbles and drops it.
4th quarter
11:42: Bequette with a good pass rush move, could have gotten pressure had it not been a screen play.
10:25: Bequette just misses a sack, forces the quarterback up where he’s sack by a rusher from the other side.
8:44: Bequette with a sack fumble. He was unblocked as Arkansas’ blitz on 4th and 9 just confused Mississippi State’s offensive line.
0:00: Bequette has really been coming on in recent weeks, especially as a pass rusher and he continued that tonight. Bequette, who had 7 sacks and 8.5 tackles for loss in 2010, is now had 8 sacks and 8.5 tackles for loss on the season in 2011, despite missing 3 games with injury. He now has 7 sacks and 7.5 tackles for loss in his last 5 games, playing Mississippi, Vanderbilt, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Mississippi State.
Bequette also held up well against the run for the most part. Arkansas held Mississippi State and Vick Ballard to 84 yards on 32 carries. Ballard rushed for 54 yards on 13 carries, in what wasn’t his best game of the season. He still looks like a mid rounder. Bequette has good size at 6-5 270, runs a 40 in the 4.7s, has a good motor and has really come on in these last few games. He’s a 3 year starter, a 4 year contributor, and an all-around high character guy. He looks like he could end up in day 2 of the NFL Draft if he keeps this up.
Offensively, Arkansas has 3 great wide receivers. Joe Adams is the speedy one. Jarius Wright is the possession receiver. Greg Childs is the biggest of the 3, but he hasn’t been healthy this season. Let’s start with Adams. Adams only played 2 and a half quarters, leaving with an eye injury that probably won’t cost him any games moving forward. He might have come back in this one had Arkansas not been blowing Mississippi State out.
Adams had 3 catches for 29 yards, including an impressive deep touchdown. On the season, Adams now had 46 catches for 595 yards and 3 touchdowns on the season, as well as 3 punt return touchdowns. He has three years of good production and is amazing in space, as he showed in this one on a 29 yard gain on a dump off, in which he reversed field and turned nothing into yards. It was called back by penalty, but it still showed his ability in space.
He should run in the 4.3s, and combine that with his ability in space, his special teams ability, and his 3 years of production, he could be a day 2 pick as a speed receiver/special teamer. NFL teams are always looking for the next DeSean Jackson or Mike Wallace and they may see Adams as potentially that guy.
Jarius Wright could also be a day 2 pick. He’s not very big (5-10 180) or fast (4.4/4.5), but he is very productive and he has great chemistry with Tyler Wilson. He has 3 years of good production and is currently Arkansas’ all time leading receiver. This season, he has 61 catches for 1002 yards and 10 touchdowns in 10 games. He looks like a slot receiver or a possession #2 receiver at the next level.
Childs had 48 catches for 897 yards and 7 touchdowns in 2009 and then had an awesome 2010, with 46 catches for 659 yards and 6 touchdowns in just 8 games, missing the last 5 with injury. That injury was a torn patellar tendon and it has slowed him this season as well. He’s missed 4 games, in 3 different stints, but even when he’s played, he hasn’t looked right and he hasn’t been on the field very much. He had a very good 3 catch stretch in this game that showed what he can do when he’s right, but on the season, he has 13 catches for 152 yards and no scores. Once a potential day 2 pick, the 6-3 215 pound Childs looks like a mid-late round flier.
The guy throwing to all of these receivers was Tyler Wilson. Wilson is having a fantastic season in his first season as a starter, completing 63.1% of his passes for 8.4 YPA and 21 touchdowns to 5 picks. He’s clearly got a great arm and is showing good leadership and intelligence, running Bobby Petrino’s Pro Style offense.
There were times in this one when his awesome receiving corps really helped him out, catching not the most accurate passes, so it’ll be interesting to see what he does next season, assuming he comes back (he most likely will as he only has a year of starting experience), without Childs, Wright, and Adams. If he plays well next year, he could be an early draft pick, competing with the likes of Aaron Murray, Tyler Bray, Robert Griffin (should he return), to be the first quarterback off the board.
On the Mississippi State side, they have two stud juniors on their defense, Jonathan Banks and Fletcher Cox. Both had a big part in a big fumble recovery for Mississippi State. Banks, a cornerback, forced it on a blitz and Cox recovered it, looking very good in the process returning it 52 yards. He certainly didn’t look like a 6-4 300 pound defensive tackle on that one. Cox has 44 tackles, 10.5 for loss, and 4 sacks on the season. Banks has 12 picks in 3 seasons, including 5 this year. At 6-2 185 pound cornerback also has 3 sacks and a punt return touchdown on the season. Both would likely be 2nd round picks if they declared this year, but could be 1st round picks if they returned for their senior seasons.
Football Fan Spot 