Arkansas Head coach @BretBielema on the atmosphere around the program after a win: “I knew what I was getting into coming here, I freely took the opportunity. The people that didn’t willingly go into it were the fans. People who were part of this process, not by their own choice. It’s fun to see, when I fly back on that plane, and watch my coaches and our players and have an understanding of what you really just really saw was the result of what we have done. Our fifth Arkansas edge is to earn everything. You could see it in our players’ eyes, they really felt they earned that, what they had done and what they accomplished.”
Bielema on how the team responded to turnovers on Saturday: “Sunday, we went through all our MVPs, and I said the two things that showed me where this team is at, and where we can go, has nothing to do with the X’s and O’s, it has nothing to do with the play call, it all has to do with your responses to scenarios. If you think about the punt and how it happened after a three-and-out on the opening drive against Texas Tech, and two batted-down balls by a first time player this season, Tevin Mitchel, it was a great learning experience for all of us. It bounced, it happened, there’s corrections that we did and we handled it a lot better going forward. Bottom line, our defense goes out and gives up a score. Well what does our offense do? They come out and score right away. They don’t hesitate, they don’t hit a blitz, they just score. Now what are we going to do? We take a situation and at the end of the half we’re in the red zone, we talk all the time about how the red zone points are premium. Then we turn the ball over, the field looks like a morgue. I’ve been on our coaches about snapping our guys out of it. There was about a two second hesitation and I walk over to that sideline and all of a sudden my coaches saying, ‘This ain’t happening. We’re in control of this game. Our defense is going to get the ball back.’ They’re literally spitting it out and then Martrell Spaight gets an interception.”
Bielema on Arkansas’ passing game: “I’ve been referring to it as the best kept secret in Fayetteville. Statistically, I always look for efficiency. I don’t really care about numbers. I love the fact that we ran the ball 68 times, but if we didn’t run the ball 68 times efficiently, we wouldn’t have won the game. To me the efficiency is the equation, and our passing efficiency is very, very good. The third down play with Jonathan Williams on the sideline was the fourth option. To this point, in my opinion, the best play Brandon Allen has made as a college football player, since I’ve been here, was the third down where the play broke down, he scrambled around and ran in the end zone. That was a passing play that broke down.”
Bielema on Henre’ Toliver: “He was a kid we liked on film but when he came to camp, we loved him. He took coaching, played with an intensity, he lit up right away when we coached him. There’s certain things you can always watch and evaluate on film, you can see great players but you don’t see how well they can take coaching. Toliver came into camp and was lights out.”
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