Arkansas Football: 3 takeaways from huge win over No. 23 Cincinnati

Arkansas football picked up a huge ranked win over Cincinnati to start the season. What’d we learn from this close affair?

Sam Pittman and Arkansas football opened the season against the No. 23 team in the nation as the Razorbacks hosted Cincinnati on Saturday afternoon.

Everyone expected a great game and that’s exactly what we got.

Arkansas jumped out to a 14-0 lead and that’s where it stood at halftime. Cincinnati perked up in the third quarter, scoring 17 points, but Arkansas scored 10 of its own, so it was still a seven-point lead for the Razorbacks heading into the fourth. A huge touchdown pass to Trey Knox from KJ Jefferson put the game on ice and Arkansas heads into Week 2 with a 1-0 record.

What’d we learn from this huge ranked win?

3. The defense stood tall

Not often do you see a team give up over 400 yards of total offense and 24 points and make the statement that the defense stood tall, but the Razorbacks didn’t get gashed which is a win.

A year ago, Cincinnati had a really solid offense and the Bearcats expected to have one again this year, but the Arkansas defense did enough to make them uncomfortable all game long. The Bearcats got their yards through the air, but Ben Bryant still didn’t look great and the Razorbacks picked him off and had a huge strip-sack on him in the fourth quarter which led to a touchdown.

Not only did the Razorbacks force two huge turnovers, but they held the Cincinnati run game to just 3.6 yards per carry and that was supposed to be a strength of the team.

Overall great effort from the Arkansas defense.