The Pigs Are Flying

MITCH PETRUS never saw the cheap shot coming. Trotting off the field early in the fourth quarter of Arkansas's eye-popping 27--10 upset of No. 2 Auburn last Saturday, a Razorbacks' reserve fullback took a forearm to the helmet from an irate lineman. The blow knocked Petrus's helmet off and put him on the ground, but no yellow flag was thrown.

That's because the perp was Petrus's friend Stephen Parker, who starts at left guard ... for Arkansas. Petrus had just killed a Razorbacks drive by being whistled for a personal foul, "so I knocked him down," said a smiling Parker, who explained that he was merely venting "a little rage, a little frustration. I'm sure the coaches felt like doing the same thing, but I got to him first."

Parker's intensity permeated the Razorbacks (4--1, 3--0 in the SEC), who entered the game as 15-point underdogs and left with the SEC West lead. Auburn (5--1, 3--1) wasn't the only undefeated team to fall on Saturday: then No. 15 Clemson erased a 14-point fourth-quarter deficit to beat Wake Forest 27--17 and deny the Demon Deacons their first 6--0 start since 1944, and California, then ranked No. 16, embarrassed 11th-ranked Oregon 45--24. But neither of those results was as stunning as the Tigers' somnambulating performance at home against an unranked team that lost its season opener 50--14 to USC.

After the defeat Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville--who had led his team to 20 victories in its previous 21 games against SEC opponents--felt compelled to reassure his school's faithful, "We're not that bad of a football team." While their national title hopes took it on the chin, the Tigers aren't out of the SEC race yet. They'll have to win out in conference play--an especially daunting task considering that their next opponent is white-hot No. 2 Florida, which beat then No. 9 LSU 23--10 on Saturday--and hope Arkansas loses twice. The Razorbacks still have to play South Carolina, Tennessee and LSU, but the Volunteers come to Fayetteville, and the game against the Bayou Bengals is in Little Rock, where Arkansas has won 19 of its last 20.

Tuberville is right, by the way: Auburn isn't as bad as it looked against the Razorbacks. Arkansas tailbacks Darren McFadden and Felix Jones were simply too good. They ran for a combined 249 yards--averaging 6.1 per carry--and two touchdowns against a defense that had allowed only 88.2 rushing yards per game and hadn't yielded a touchdown on the ground all season. McFadden scored on a 63-yard burst up the middle after sailing through a hole cleared, in part, by the pulling guard Parker, who likes to light up guys on the other team too. It put the Hogs ahead 17--7 with five minutes left in the first half and quieted the crowd of 87,451 at Jordan-Hare Stadium. "We saw some holes in their defense" during film study, McFadden said, "and we went out and exposed those holes."

It was the second straight week in which an opponent had exploited a weakness in the Tigers' defense--only a last-second pass deflection in the end zone by cornerback Patrick Lee preserved Auburn's 24--17 win over South Carolina. Arkansas, meanwhile, hasn't lost since the debacle against USC. For Hogs fans, who haven't had a winning team since 2003, these are heady times.

The upset was the sort of rare, top-shelf win Razorbacks Nation needed to weigh, rank, assign a size. Clay Henry, the publisher of Hawgs Illustrated, said it was the program's finest hour since a 38--28 win at No. 6 Texas in '03. Arkansas coach Houston Nutt allowed, somewhat grudgingly, that it was the "biggest" win in his nine seasons at the school. One elderly gentleman, who sported a cardinal-red blazer and a Razorbacks ball cap while he mingled with the Arkansas players on the field after the game, agreed. "This was our biggest win in a long, long time," declared Jim Lindsey, a running back for the Razorbacks' lone national championship team (1964) and now a member of the university's board of trustees. "A great, great win for Houston."

After the game Nutt vaulted the topiary in the southeast corner of the end zone of Jordan-Hare, then climbed into the stands to high-five band members and Razorbacks fans who'd made the trip. He had reason to be elated: After Arkansas went 4--7 last season, folks in Fayetteville began calling for his head. Now, with Southeast Missouri State, Louisiana-Monroe and SEC also-rans Ole Miss and Mississippi State still on their slate, the Razorbacks should get at least eight wins. This is clearly a team on the rise.

The twin engines powering that ascent are sophomores McFadden, a 6'2" 212-pounder from North Little Rock who rushed for 1,113 yards last season, and Jones, a 6-foot 200-pounder who hails from Tulsa and had 626 yards. Hobbled all season by a toe injury he suffered in a bar fight in July, McFadden is playing with what looks like a clown shoe on his left foot and is still not 100%. Jones has been nursing a bruised kidney since Sept. 16. "When we've got both those guys going full tilt," says Nutt, "it makes a big difference."

The key to stopping McFadden and Jones would seem to be to stack--or, to use Nutt's professorial term, "overpopulate"--the defensive line to take away the run and put the burden on quarterback Mitch Mustain, a true freshman. While Mustain didn't beat Auburn with his arm, he kept the Tigers honest, completing 7 of 10 passes for 87 yards,with one touchdown and no interceptions. The win, Mustain's fourth straight since Nutt made him the starter in the second game, was no less sweet for Gus Malzahn, the team's first-year offensive coordinator. Malzahn was Mustain's coach at Springdale (Ark.) High. After the Bulldogs won the 2005 Class 5A state championship, Nutt hired Malzahn--a fairly transparent effort to improve the Razorbacks' chances in the Mustain recruiting derby. Nutt took heat for bringing in a high school coach to coordinate the offense of an SEC team, but Malzahn has quieted the critics while his creativity has helped the Razorbacks win four of five games. His most inspired moment last Saturday came midway through the third quarter, after a 19-yard punt gave the Razorbacks a first down at the Auburn 35. Malzahn called a play, "Woody," that's a second cousin to the now-outlawed fumblerooski. It requires 6'6", 335-pound right tackle Zac Tubbs to flip-flop with right guard Robert Felton. Crouching behind Tubbs--literally hiding behind him--was 5'7", 156-pound flanker Reggie Fish, who took the handoff from Mustain and darted around left end for a 28-yard gain. Jones scored three plays later, giving the Razorbacks a 24--10 lead.