QB Nathan Dick to get second start

• By RANDY ROSETTA
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Nov 28, 2008 - UPDATED: 6:32 a.m.

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Arkansas freshman quarterback Nathan Dick got his chance because big brother Casey Dick suffered a concussion a few weeks ago.

Once the kid brother got his hands on the job, though, he wasn’t about to let it go.

Nathan Dick will make his second straight start vs. LSU today when the Razorbacks (4-7, 1-6 SEC) and Tigers (7-4, 3-4) wrap up their regular seasons at 1:30 p.m. at War Memorial Stadium. And he’ll be hard-pressed to top his starting debut.

In the Hogs’ 31-28 loss at Mississippi State last week, the younger Dick tossed the ball around Scott Field for 333 yards, hitting 25-of-43 passes, including three touchdowns. Before the start, Nathan Dick had played in one game and attempted eight throws.

The 333 yards were the seventh highest total in Arkansas history and only the 13th 300-yard game in program history. He joined Brad Taylor (1981) as the second Razorbacks’ freshman to top the 300-yard plateau.

“He did a good job, he really did — started out real fast,” first-year Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino said. “Really did what he was coached to do. (Mississippi State) threw some stuff at him that they hadn’t shown blitz-wise and he had to make some adjustments at the line of scrimmage that we missed and that caused us to bog down on a couple of drives in the second and third quarter. I like the way he demonstrated leadership. You could see his excitement out on the field, the energy that he gave everybody and the way that he ran the ball. He showed what I thought maybe he would when it was live that he was difficult to tackle and that he had good instincts in the pocket. You have to be happy with that performance first time out.”

By starting against the Bulldogs, Nathan Dick broke his brother’s streak of 28 consecutive starts. Before the head injury against South Carolina, Casey Dick recorded three 300-yard games this fall, including a 385-yard outburst vs. Tulsa that ranks as the second best passing day in Hogs history.

Casey Dick’s 187 completions through 11 games are a single-season school record.

Arkansas running back Michael Smith is expected to miss today’s game with a tender hamstring, leaving a major void in the Razorbacks’ offensive game plan.

Smith has piled up 1,072 rushing yards and eight touchdowns this season on 207 carries. Only Georgia’s Knowshon Moreno has carried the ball more (210) and Moreno (1,244), Alabama’s Glenn Coffee (1,091) and LSU’s Charles Scott (1,081) are the only league backs with more yards on the ground.

More impressively, Smith has accounted for 86.2 percent of the Razorbacks’ rushing total this season. Michigan State’s Javon Ringer is the only back in the country who has been responsible for more of his team’s rushing attack (1,590 of 1,661 yards – 95.7 percent) this season.

Smith is averaging 5.2 yards a carry and the rest of the Hogs just 1.2 a pop.