Arkansas reminds me a lot of A&M teams from years ago that were athletic and fast all over the field. The Razorbacks are relentless and force tremendous pressure on the ball, never allowing the opponent to get comfortable and develop a rhythm. Although A&M had some success early in the match, creating a few good scoring chances, the tide turned after Arkansas took a 1-0 lead on a terrific corner set piece. The rest of the match A&M struggled to control possession and find enough passing lanes to build an effective attack even though we took a lot of shots (most of them ineffective from distance). Arkansas suffocated A&M and once they had a 3-1 lead it was over. The pigs are a better team and were certainly better coached tonight as well. I think they are the best team in the league and should advance far in the NCAA tourney.

• I was perplexed with some of the lineup changes tonight, especially not starting Katie Smith, who was coming off a strong effort against Auburn. She did come in and played well however. She needs to start. Asdis has been playing well lately as well and she did not play a lot of minutes. I think you probably need to have Watt, Ziemer, and Asdis on the field together.
• Obviously we are all concerned about Hutton's injury but it seems she will be okay (thank goodness) after taking a knee to her head. Unfortunately her play before the injury was poor. I don't understand her positioning or anticipation for balls coming into the 6 yard area. She is also slow to react at times and that results in just throwing up a hand hoping the ball might hit it (like the 3rd goal tonight) or just not attacking the ball (like the 2nd goal tonight). I don't know if the options on the bench are any better however, so from this point forward GK is a real long term concern for me.
• I don't understand why we continued to attack Arkansas through the center of the field and taking shots from distance when going wide and crossing into the box created all of our best chances to score. We have to keep getting it wide to Lopez and let her do her thing. The offense is really struggling to score and we don't have a goal in the run of play in a long time (PK and own goals don't count). That's hard to believe when you have players like Watt and Ziemer up top.
• The breakdowns on defense and set pieces were troubling. A couple of goals were scored by poor marking (1st and 2nd goal) and just not accounting for Arkansas players making runs at goal. Alston had another good game for the most part but the loss of Sample really hurt.
• The midfield continues to struggle and we lost a lot of balls in the air tonight as well. I don't think there are any answers here until next year unfortunately. We really need McCain to start playing at a high level again to be successful.

Some fans have been asking if A&M's talent level has dropped off in the past few years and if recruiting is not going as well as maybe the ratings had predicted for some of these players. There may be some truth to that and I've probably been guilty of overestimating some of the kids coming into the program. Right now when you watch A&M play you don't see a lot of difference makers on the field any more, and the lack of speed and quickness in the middle of the field is evident even against lesser opponents. Yes, there is some talent and some flashy play at times, but it's not consistent and the overall play is slipping in the program. That's why recruiting is so important, so hopefully the promising 2020 class can provide some of these better athletes. I really like what Coach Hale has done with the Arkansas program, building it with good athletes and then coaching them to play with a ferocious tenacity along with many good set piece plays. I think the Razorbacks are here to stay long term.

For A&M, there is not much chance of being seeded in the tournament but playing a first round game at home is still possible. At least we will make the tourney because at one point I was worried about it. But that is a far cry from expectations set by SEC coaches, which picked the Aggies to win the league. I'll have more thoughts on the trajectory of the program after the season.

HiddenAg2 said:

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Arkansas reminds me a lot of A&M teams from years ago that were athletic and fast all over the field. The Razorbacks are relentless and force tremendous pressure on the ball, never allowing the opponent to get comfortable and develop a rhythm.

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I thought the same thing. I enjoyed their play, tough and agressive. We would benefit if we could get back to that style of play.
I thought our first half was about as good as we have played all season. It was nice to see the team come out with some intenisty and move the ball around with some success.
We just make too many errors and are not good enough in many facets of the game.

Yep, sucks being one of the most consistently successful programs in the country.

I wish we could miss the tournament a few times just to mix things up a bit.