The Continuing Story of the 2007 Capital One Bowl: Part 2; Gus Malzahn's Passing Problem and his 2006 Arkansas Offense

On January 2, 2007 Bret Bielema and Gus Malzahn met each other in the Capital One Bowl between Wisconsin and Arkansas. These two coaches would go on to become controversial champions of two opposing styles of offense: the pro-style vs. the spread. This is a narrative look back at that fateful game. If you missed part one I recommend that you read it here: An opening battle in the war for college football's offensive soul: Houston Nutt Can't Run and Bret Bielema Loves Fullbacks

Nutt v. Malzahn ; Dick v. Mustain

On Arkansas’s third drive of that Capital One Bowl, they did something odd: they switched quarterbacks. Not only did the team switch quarterbacks, but it was part of their pre-established gameplan to switch quarterbacks.

Arkansas was doing fine up to that point behind the rushing attack of all-time great SEC runners Darren “DMac” McFadden and Felix “the Cat” Jones, and sophomore QB Casey Dick hadn’t really done anything egregiously wrong so far. On the previous two drives, he had only thrown four times: the first time he missed his receiver Robert Johnson, who couldn’t shake his man on a deep post, the second was a completion on a timing route for a first down, the third was a throw-away on a busted play, and the fourth was a pass deflected by Wisconsin’s middle linebacker Mark Zalewski in the red zone. He didn’t even have to throw on the second drive: that possession lasted one play as Felix Jones ran it 76 yards for a touchdown.

But Arkansas had come into their bowl expecting to continue a season-long quarterback competition in the middle of the game. The game’s ABC commentators assured viewers during the opening drive that Arkansas’s lauded freshman Mitch Mustain would play and would likely appear by the third drive of the game. The reasons given for this decision is that a determination would be made about which of the two would finish based on how they performed in the early going. Why would they do this? What was going on at Arkansas that paralyzed the coaching staff on making a decision at football’s most important position?

In Arkansas, the saga of the Springdale Five has become an old story. Here’s a quick step-by-step recap of what went down prior to that 2006 season:

1: In 2005 Houston Nutt’s Razorbacks are terrible--just dreadful. In the middle of the season, they pick up their first SEC win against the equally garbage Ole Miss. Afterwards, Nutt goes on to be his own hype man while speaking to Razorback broadcaster Chuck Barrett on post-game radio: “That was a called play, and I called it, Chuck! I called some good plays today, brother!” Despite this eloquent argument, fans are sick of him, his hands-on style as a head coach, and his old-school, pro-style offense. Nutt does not even have an offensive coordinator, and to many observers the offense is the team’s biggest problem.

2: The boosters want a new offense with a new coordinator and it looks like the floundering Nutt will be forced to acquiesce after going 4-7 and missing a bowl for two years in a row.

3: In Springdale, Arkansas: high school coach Gus Malzahn is having a huge year and he is also coaching several serious college prospects. These players are dubbed the “Springdale Five.” Everyone really wants to be sure that Arkansas keeps these in-state recruits--especially receiver Damian Williams and the country’s best quarterback prospect Mitch Mustain. A lot of people also like the fancy offense Malzahn has them running.

4: Eventually, a deal is made between the University of Arkansas, Houston Nutt, Gus Malzahn, and the Springdale Five: Malzahn will become the new offensive coordinator at Arkansas and his players will come with him.

The result of this sequence of events could only have been as volatile as it ended up being: 2006 Arkansas’s head coach was a pro-style, controlling Nutt whose influence over the offense was being attacked by outside forces while his new offensive coordinator wanted a new spread offense that would fundamentally change the team’s identity--just as Holtz had morphed the 1977 Razorbacks into something Nutt had no place in. Unfortunately for him, the next two years would confirm the negative perception of his abilities, starting with an immediate turnaround orchestrated by the new OC he was reluctant to take on.

It would be easy to forget that a team that ended up losing four games in a season at one point had a real shot at a national championship, but the 2006 Arkansas Razorbacks were one such team: they got destroyed in their season opener against #6 USC, but things went relatively well after that. The success of the Razorbacks at the time didn’t seem to have much to do with anybody’s passing abilities. Though the two biggest gets from the Springdale deal were wide receiver Damian Williams and quarterback Mitch Mustain, the 2006 Malzahn offense struggled to pass in almost every game.

In that game against USC the Hogs started senior quarterback Robert Johnson, and the results were atrocious: 12 completions on 25 attempts with 2 interceptions. Johnson’s quarterback rating in that game was a truly terrible 21.5.

The freshman Mustain got a shot in that game too: he attempted 6 passes and completed 4 for 47 yards, but he too threw an interception.

To be fair to Arkansas’s quarterbacks, the personnel wasn’t there for a robust passing game. The team’s first and most important receiver was the junior Marcus Monk. From 2008 to 2009 Monk was bounced around the NFL as a rookie but never made a roster. The team’s next best option was Cedric Washington, a former quarterback recruit who became an unspectacular role player for the receiving corps. There was of course the four-star recruit Damian Williams, but he was a raw freshman; Williams would see playing time, but there’s a possibility that his usage was limited as a result of the alleged infighting between the head coach and the new architect of his offense. If we flash forward to 2019, Arkansas’s newest, innovative offensive mind has almost completely replaced the receivers Bielema recruited for his pro-style Hogs; Malzahn never got that opportunity.

What Malzahn did do is develop the most potent rushing attack Arkansas had ever seen. He accomplished this by utilizing his two biggest weapons in ways that would mitigate the team’s weaknesses. Though Darren McFadden is the team’s most famous name, his counterpart Felix Jones was arguably more integral to the team’s success. Malzahn’s favorite play call for Jones was to line him up as a wide receiver and have him run an end-around. That 76 yard touchdown run against Wisconsin in the first quarter of the Capital One Bowl was one such play.

There were some distinct advantages to using Felix in this way. Compared to McFadden, Felix was fast and shifty. When lined up wide, he would use that speed to completely burn his man pre-snap, and when Felix was there the end-around was not guaranteed: Felix caught 15 passes in 2006 and scored 2 receiving touchdowns. Besides, nobody else Arkansas had at the position was going to be much better in that respect. When using these formations, Malzahn had his two best players lined up while not telegraphing too much about what part of the field the ball was destined for. Felix was a godsend to Malzahn that year: he could have a threat at wide receiver without actually having one.

Furthermore, Malzahn could also have a threat at quarterback while not actually having one. Malzahn had a powerful runner in Darren McFadden and the most famous innovation introduced to that 2006 team was McFadden in the wildcat. In this formation McFadden would line up to take the snap directly in a kind of empty shotgun (because why do you need a back to flank you if you’re the back?). The concept had been in existence, but nobody had seen it be utilized so potently. This formation has become more common in college football today, but many RBs are not particularly well-suited for this formation for one reason: they’re not actually a passing threat. McFadden and Malzahn, on the other hand, actually found instances in which McFadden could be a credible passing threat: McFadden threw 9 times for 7 completions and 3 touchdowns in 2006

Of course, no matter how great and multi-purpose your runningbacks are, every team still needs a quarterback. In Arkansas’s biggest win of the year they faced the #2 Auburn Tigers, and Mustain had become Arkansas’s starter. Mustain’s opportunities were limited: he threw 10 times for 7 completions with 1 touchdown. Mustain didn’t really need to throw though, because DMac and Felix combined for 249 yards and 2 touchdowns.

But later in the year sophomore Casey Dick replaced Mustain early in the South Carolina game and the team didn’t look back. In that game Mustain threw the ball one time: an interception. Nutt quickly pulled the young quarterback and put the sophomore Casey Dick in his place. After Johnson and Mustain both got looks for the spot, Dick would become the team’s third starter following the win against South Carolina. Why did it happen though? The team hadn’t lost once while Mustain was a starter, though he wasn’t setting the world on fire with his performance either.

Well, here’s where things allegedly get real petty: remember Nutt getting so excited that he “called that play” to win against Ole Miss? Well, Mustain heard that comment. A book on the 2005 Springdale team was being written by one Kurt Voigt, and in that book Mustain gave an interview where he apparently called Nutt a “dork” for that Ole Miss post-game interview. Mustain allegedly had a meeting to head things off and told Nutt that the comment was going to come to light. According to Nutt, that was about a week or two before the South Carolina game. Then South Carolina rolls around; Mitch Mustain starts; he passes once; it’s an interception; Mustain is done. The next time he’d be seen passing the ball? The 2007 Capital One Bowl.

But regardless of why, Casey Dick takes over for the next two games and they win. Dick passes a lot more than Mustain too. In that South Carolina game he threw for 228 yards.

Here’s another thing, we know now that Malzahn isn’t exactly known for quarterbacks anyway. He got his start playing wide receiver at Arkansas, and he only coached high school before being promoted to Arkansas’s OC and wide receivers coach. In 2013, Malzahn’s peak success, he was running a converted DB at quarterback in a blazingly fast option offense. Malzahn has since come under criticism for seemingly failing to develop QB prospects like Jarrett Stidham to their full potential. Perhaps Mustain and his tendency to throw as many interceptions as touchdowns was indicative of a real struggle that Mustain and Malzahn were having in adjusting to the college passing game. The former QB and QB coach Houston Nutt must have had some amount of disdain for this high school coach who usurped him and couldn't even fix their passing game.

Regardless, with Dick at QB things looked like they were running smoothly and it seemed Arkansas could have a shot at the BCS championship. They had clinched the SEC West and were guaranteed a spot in the SEC Championship Game. The game against USC was a quality loss: they would finish the year as Pac-12 and Rose Bowl champions behind an 11-2 record. USC would defeat Michigan in the Rose Bowl the day that Malzahn’s Arkansas and Bielema’s Wisconsin met. Arkansas’s schedule was seen as strong enough to net them a national championship berth even with one loss. By comparison, their bowl opponent Wisconsin only faced one ranked opponent in Michigan--an opponent which handed the Badgers their only loss.

So Dick seemed like he wasn’t a bad replacement for the hyped freshman Mitch Mustain. Furthermore, Nutt was something of a folk hero in Arkansas for his Little Rock record, and the team's final regular season game against LSU would be played there. At the time, much of the state thought that Nutt had a good luck charm in the capital’s War Memorial Stadium. He had a 20-1 record there. The mystique was added to by the fact that Nutt was from Little Rock and that he coached famous games like the Miracle on Markham: the game where quarterback Matt Jones connected with his wide receiver DeCori Birmingham on a last-second TD pass to upset the #17 LSU Tigers.

So on November 24, 2006 in Little Rock Arkansas, with Casey Dick leading one of the most exciting teams the state had ever seen and led by a coach who was thought to have a magical connection to the stadium itself, the Arkansas Razorbacks had their national championship dreams crushed by LSU in a 31-26 loss. Nutt's Little Rock record became 20-2. The magic was lost.

It wasn’t Malzahn’s innovative RB pair that lost the game. McFadden and Jones combined for a Herculean 319 yards and 3 touchdowns.

Casey Dick, however, threw the ball 17 times. He completed only 3 passes and threw 1 interception. In his third game starting for the Hogs after Mustain was unceremoniously yanked, Dick had the worst performance by an Arkansas QB yet in 2006.

The SEC Championship game didn’t go much better. Dick threw 2 interceptions and the Hogs lost 38-28. As of 2019, Arkansas has never won an SEC Championship.

In the 2007 Capital One Bowl, the Hogs trailed the Wisconsin Badgers 17 to 7 going into halftime. Casey Dick is back at the helm after Mustain's short trial earlier in the game. On one of his trademark end-around runs Felix Jones put the Razorbacks in plausible scoring distance with only seconds to go in the half. With 9 seconds to go Arkansas lines up to pass and put themselves within scoring distance. Bielema’s defense knows that Arkansas only has one real receiving threat and so they’ve been making sure to have a safety over the top of Marcus Monk all day. They’ve successfully bottled him up in the first half and he’s been effectively taken out of the game.

Casey Dick drops back. Marcus Monk shoots down the field on a deep route to Dick’s right. Wisconsin brings a delayed blitz up the middle. Dick looks to his left and sees nothing except for a blitzer running free. He panics. He defaults to the year’s number one receiver, Marcus Monk, who is double covered. Wisconsin corner Zach Hampton jumps Casey's forty yard pass and intercepts it on the goal line with 4 seconds left in the half.

Next time! Trench Warfare: John Stocco and Barry Alvarez's monstrous Wisconsin O-Line