FAYETTEVILLE — An old coaching adage summarizes: if you are playing two quarterbacks, you probably do not have one good one.
Mississippi State coach Mike Leach knows the same thing applies to kickers after his two combined to miss three field goals in a 31-28 loss to Arkansas on Saturday at Reynolds Razorback Stadium.
The Hogs scored the game winner with 21 seconds left when Dominque Johnson scored on a 4-yard run, then added the two-point run on almost the same play in the same gap over right guard. The Hogs survived when Nolan McCord’s 40-yard field goal try was wide left on the game’s final play.
Leach, in a shameful moment that highlights his often-crazy moods, aired his frustration afterward with an invitation for any students with kicking ability to come to an open tryout Monday. It tarnished an otherwise brilliant game by both teams and placed blame on players.
Arkansas coach Sam Pittman isn’t doing that. Special teams coordinator Scott Fountain landed the nation’s No. 1 kicker last year.
Freshman Cam Little nailed three straight for the Hogs, all of them career longs outdoors. He was good from 46, 48 and 51 yards before missing a 42-yarder with 7:27 left.
After the Little miss, the Bulldogs drove 76 yards on 9 plays to take a 28-23 lead with 2:22 left. Pittman called a timeout on the play before the touchdown to preserve enough time for a winning drive.
Quarterback KJ Jefferson led the Hogs 75 yards in 10 plays. The big play was a fourth-and-1 holding call when the Bulldogs tackled Treylon Burks trying to run an out route.
Jefferson said he saw Burks go down and tossed the ball in his area hoping to draw the penalty. The Bulldogs got a similar break in the second quarter when a pass interference penalty wiping out a Simeon Blair interception led to their first points of the game with seven seconds left.
Of the biggest of 21 penalties called in the game by official Jason Autrey’s crew, Burks said, “I knew I had him beat and his way was to grab me. I went with the grab.”
The game turned on State’s three missed field goals. Brandon Ruiz missed from 23 and 46 yards before McCord’s miss at the end.
Of those, McCord’s was the most awful. He hit a low hook that sent the south end zone of the stadium into frenzy and the Hogs celebrating bowl eligibility with mad dashes all across the field.
They celebrated again in the locker room when Pittman introduced them to “Larry the bowling ball,” rolling it through the middle of the dancing players.
Both teams entered with 5-3 records. Mississippi State still has a sure victory in two weeks with a home game against Tennessee State.
It was a sweet victory for Jefferson against a home-state school. He completed 19 of 23 passes for 191 yards, ran for 14 yards and the Hogs did not have a turnover. The Sardis, Miss., product came close to an end of game drive one month ago against Ole Miss, but was incomplete on a two-point pass in the 52-51 loss.
Jefferson completed 6 of 7 passes on the winning drive against the Bulldogs, the only incompletion on a throwaway. Johnson was the target on a short pass to open the drive and followed with an 11-yard burst for the initial first down.
“I was confident after we got the first first down that we were going to score,” Pittman said. “The biggest point was when to call a timeout because of what we went through against Missouri last year.”
The Hogs left too much time on the clock last year in Columbia, Mo., after taking the lead and lost on a field goal to end the game. MSU quarterback Will Rogers completed three straight passes to put the ball at the UA 22 before a timeout with two seconds left with a chance to send the game to overtime.
Johnson, tried briefly at tight end during August practices, made his first trip to the interview room after rushing 17 times for 107 yards. The Hogs made 202 yards on the ground against a State defense ranked fifth in the country with a per-game yield of 89.4 yards.
“We had a mindset of running it against the (fifth) best defense,” Johnson said.
Pittman and the others who spoke afterward took turns praising the 240-pound sophomore from Crowley, Texas.
“He showed up and balled out like a senior for his team,” Burks said.
Linebacker Grant Morgan said, “He did to them what he does (to us) every day in practice. I’d give the kid 100 carries. He’s an SEC back and works every single day.”
Morgan’s interception in the first half was the only turnover of the game. It didn’t lead to points because of a personal foul by Blair on the return followed by one of the few three-and-outs on the day. It was part of an eight-penalty first half by the Hogs.
“We had really emphasized that this week,” Pittman said. “That’s coaching and it’s on me. We did a little better in the second half (with three penalties).”
It was one of the few negatives that Pittman mentioned in an all-smiles postgame. He expressed love for many of his players.
“We beat a really good football team and (MSU) played a great game,” he said. “They are well coached, very physical and deserved a No. 17 ranking in the (College Football Playoff) rankings.
“We were fortunate to be coming off a bye because they do so much with the blitz and movement.”
Pittman made references about what it might be like to win the Super Bowl or play for a national championship in describing his feelings.
“We were very, very fortunate to win, but we deserved to win,” he said.
Morgan, the sixth-year senior, was the best at putting the magnitude of the victory into perspective. He knows the abyss the program was falling through when Pittman arrived and the heights that could be within reach.
“I’ve got mixed emotions,” he said. “I don’t think the young guys know how big. I know how far we’ve come.
“The young guys don’t know that now we have three big games to keep climbing to (better) bowls. It’s awesome to see where we came from.”
Morgan also did a nice job of explaining the easy decision to give Johnson the ball twice on the goal line. Johnson also scored on a 1-yard run in the first quarter.
Just after Johnson said he copies the running style of former Seattle running back Marshawn Lynch, Morgan recalled the Seahawks decision to throw from point-blank range in a Super Bowl loss.
“I was sitting with Bumper (Pool) and Hayden (Henry) and we said, if we get to the 3, we are not going Seattle,” Morgan said. “We are going (to) Marshawn.”
Pittman enjoyed bragging on his kicker, even with a fourth-quarter miss. He reminded that fans didn’t like his decision to call on Little ahead of his 51-yard make for the 16-14 lead.
“I got booed, but we went up by two (points),” Pittman said. “I am at practice. I felt like he could make it from 51. We wanted the lead.”
There will be no kicker tryouts at Arkansas on Monday.
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