Arkansas vs. Louisiana Tech: Star comparison, PFF grades, season stats

The Arkansas Razorbacks (5-5, 3-4 SEC) will look to secure bowl eligibility Saturday against Louisiana Tech (4-6, 3-4 CUSA) at Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville.

Hailing from Ruston, Louisiana, the Bulldogs will bring the nation’s No. 12 total defense with them to Fayetteville fresh off an upset win over Western Kentucky, which was leading the Conference USA standings prior to last Saturday.

“We’re catching them when I think they’re playing their best football,” Arkansas head coach Sam Pittman said Monday. “They deliver some problems. The structure of their defense. They’re a 3-3-5 but it’s different because they have a robber, a rover — a guy basically who’s hard to get to to block. Who is a really, really good player. The (Kolbe) Fields kid.

“So offensively, they’re running the ball a lot better than they have all year. Not throwing it quite as much as what they did earlier in the year. Bu the transfer from Coffeyville (Omiri Wiggins) is a hard runner. Their line is playing well. They’ve got a lot of speed at wideout. So I think they’re going to come in with a lot of confidence, obviously, after their win last week. We’re excited to have them here and on senior day for us. But we know that was a big win for them last week and they’ll come in with a lot of confidence I’m sure.”

Arkansas is statistically better than the Bulldogs in generally every major offensive category, but the Louisiana Tech defense is stingy. Former Razorback Zach Zimos has logged nearly 500 snaps on the year at linebacker, which is a position he switched to after being a safety with the Razorbacks.

“He’d hit you,” Pittman said. “When he hit you, you got stuck. Certainly playing a different position than we had him here. But I like Zach, I always have. I’m happy for him. I think he’s one of the leaders over there. He’s played a lot of ball. I’m just really happy for him and he’s doing a good job. He’ll hit you, now, so we’ll have to figure that out.”

The Razorbacks will be trying to bounce back from a 20-10 loss to Texas that set them back to a .500 record on the season. A win over the Bulldogs would make Arkansas bowl eligible after the Hogs missed the postseason last year.

“This game, winning, if we can win, it will allow us to play not just another one but another one after that,” Pittman said. “And we just have to continue to improve. So I think that’s what we’ll talk about a little bit more than even what Louisiana Tech has been able to do lately.”

HawgBeat has also compared both teams’ grades from Pro Football Focus, which is a football analytics website that provides grades for each individual player and full teams after analyzing each game for all Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) teams. Grades are given from 0-100, with the higher the grade signifying better performance.

Here’s a look at how both teams stack up based on stats from this year and high school star ratings:

Offense

Louisiana Tech || Arkansas

Scoring: 21.9 (109th) | 30.7 (45th)

Total yards: 344.4 (104th) | 458.3 (11th)

Passing: 232.2 (61st) | 278.0 (20th)

Rushing: 112.2 (115th) | 180.3 (80th)

Third downs: 41.7% (57th) | 47.3% (15th)

Sacks allowed/game: 3.3 (122nd) | 3.1 (117th)

Turnovers: 19 (118th) | 17 (98th)

Defense

Louisiana Tech || Arkansas

Scoring: 21.1 (35th) | 25.7 (75th)

Total yards: 302.3 (12th) | 380.2 (80th)

Passing: 187.3 (26th) | 257.2 (116th)

Rushing: 115.0 (29th) | 123.0 (38th)

Third downs: 36.0% (57th) | 37.0% (59th)

Sacks/game: 1.8 (78th) | 2.1 (57th)

Turnovers forced: 13 (68th) | 12 (85th)