Arkansas Football: 3 overreactions to Week 5 upset of Mississippi State

1. Arkansas isn’t far off from being a contender

Leading Georgia at halftime? Beating No. 16 Mississippi State on the road while holding a Mike Leach offense to just 14 points? For any other team, I’d call this a borderline contender. But we have to remember where Arkansas came from.

The Razorbacks hired Chad Morris to turn the program around after Bret Bielema and he failed to get a single SEC victory. And now Sam Pittman is in charge and it only took him two conference games to surpass Morris’ SEC win total. He is turning the program around, that much is obvious, but the Razorbacks are nowhere near contention yet.

Keeping things close for the better part of three quarters against Georgia was a big win for a rebuilding program and taking down a hot Mississippi State team was, too, but there’s still plenty of work to be done.

The defense is looking solid but the offense needs to catch up. Feleipe Franks had a strong second game under center, but he’s obviously not the long-term answer as a senior. Rakeem Boyd has struggled and the offense is just searching for answers.

It may only be a couple of years before Arkansas is truly fighting for SEC titles, but to say it’s not far off is just not realistic.