FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. \u2014 Arkansas coach Ryan Silverfield exited Razorback Stadium confident his program is moving in the right direction after 45-17 loss to No. 2-ranked Georgia.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one wants to hear this, (but) maybe took a little bit of a step today,\u201d said Silverfield, whose Razorbacks scored two of the final three touchdowns in the game amid the 100-degree field heat to make the score more respectable. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe got to see some things, and we\u2019re going to continue to fight, I got to see that fighting mentality. When I got here I said we\u2019re going to fight like Arkansas, and we got to see a little bit of that today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Silverfield said the loss in the first SEC game he\u2019s coached as the Razorbacks head coach is merely a modest beginning in his tenure at Arkansas.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a greater part and start of this story that\u2019s going to end very, very well,\u201d Silverfield said, \u201cand we\u2019re going to keep working and battling.\u201d<\/p>\n
Georgia held the Razorbacks to 17 rushing yards, but Kirby Smart put an asterisk next to that number and complimented alternating Arkansas quarterbacks KJ Jackson (20-27, 212 yards, TD) and AJ Hill (8-14, 76 yards).<\/p>\n
\u201cThey threw for (288 yards, combined), so that\u2019s what you do, you know?\u201d Smart said. \u201cBut teams are going to struggle to run the ball against us. They\u2019re going to have to throw it, and they threw it well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hill is a former Houston County quarterback from Warner Robins who Smart said he\u2019s known for a long time.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe recruited him \u2026,\u201d Smart said before referencing relatives of the Arkansas sophomore quarterback. \u201cTrey Hill, (and) his uncle Derek Hill, I coached him at Valdosta State, so I\u2019ve known AJ since he came to my camp when he was 8, 9, 10 years old. Great kid, great family.\u201d<\/p>\n
Silverfield said his quarterback situation is not settled, but he doesn\u2019t think the Razorbacks\u2019 pass game is too far off regardless of who is under center if the team can eliminate mistakes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I mentioned the six drops which we can\u2019t have, there\u2019s never a good time for them, some of them showed up on third down,\u201d Silverfield said. \u201cSome were misreads; it\u2019s a third-and-6 and we have a tight end sitting over the ball at 8 yards, throw him the football. Some of our things are inexcusable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Silverfield credited UGA\u2019s Gunner Stockton for making big plays for the Bulldogs.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbsolutely crushed us, there were some times when you did get some quarterback pressure in the drop back pass game \u2026. (and) it was like a true load option where he was just running,\u201d Silverfield said of Stockton, who was 10-of-13 passing for 147 yards and a TD and led Georgia rushers with seven carries for a career-high 97 yards.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know what a tremendous athlete he is, we\u2019ve got to be able to set the edge on that and then we have to show up and fill from the safety position \u2026 clearly we didn\u2019t do a good enough job doing that and he hurt us with his legs,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody knows what a great run game Georgia has had, and has, but we knew the quarterback\u2019s effectiveness to run it with his legs and it showed up today.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Arkansas pass rush showed up, too, matching Georgia with three quarterback sacks.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne (sack) was generated pressure, a called fire zone (blitz), and then the other two were the ability to win the one-on-one in a pass rush situation, which we are going to need to continue to do,\u201d Silverfield said, \u201cso I was pleased with that. But you have to be able to tie those in with being able to stop the run.\u201d<\/p>\n
Georgia had eight different players carry the ball for 254 yards.<\/p>\n
Silverfield acknowledged his embattled place in headlines this week, as he was raked over the coals for off-handed remarks he made last season about UGA\u2019s off-field driving-related issues while he was still coaching at Memphis.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn 28 years of this deal (coaching) you fight fights, I\u2019ve been kicked in teeth, I\u2019ve been knocked down before,\u201d Silverfield said. \u201cIf you\u2019re in this thing long enough, you\u2019ve dealt with adversity, and so this is not my first case of adversity. We\u2019ve had some success in the past and that\u2019s one of the reasons I\u2019m here.<\/p>\n
\u201c(But) if you see me tomorrow, you\u2019ll say, \u2018man, he doesn\u2019t look like a guy that\u2019s getting beat up in the media, he doesn\u2019t look like a guy that the house is burning down around him.\u2019 Hell no, I\u2019m going to get off the mat like I do every day win, lose or draw and keep swinging, and adversity is part to it.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. \u2014 Arkansas coach Ryan Silverfield exited Razorback Stadium confident his program is moving in the right…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":854532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[8897,1976,399,681,398,396,397,7702,99],"class_list":["post-854531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-arkansas","tag-college","tag-football","tag-georgia","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-sec","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=854531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/854532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=854531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=854531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=854531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}