Arkansas focus on Commodores’ Cutler

He compared the Vanderbilt quarterback to last year’s Heisman Trophy winner.

“The best thing they have is a tremendous signal-caller (who) has experience, mobility, can run the option and throw the ball,” Nutt said this week. “It is probably one of the strongest arms we’ll face all year long, that’s including (Matt) Leinart.”

The Razorbacks will face Leinart when Arkansas travels to play No. 1 Southern California on Sept. 17 — but Saturday night, their focus will be on Cutler.

With 35 career starts, Cutler is the Southeastern Conference’s most experienced quarterback. He is in the top five on Vanderbilt’s career passing lists for yards, touchdowns, completions and attempts.

Thanks to Cutler, Vanderbilt is starting to shed its reputation as an SEC doormat. The Commodores beat Wake Forest 24-20 Sept. 1 to win their first opener in eight years. Cutler threw for 276 yards and ran for 89 to move to second on the school’s career list for total offense by a quarterback.

Now, Vanderbilt will try for two straight road victories for the first time since beating Mississippi and Duke on consecutive weekends in 1999.

“I’m not even worried about the Southern Cal game, and our players shouldn’t be either,” Nutt said. “We have an awesome respect for Vanderbilt.”

While the Razorbacks try to stop one Vanderbilt quarterback, the Commodores’ defense will have to contend with several running backs. The Razorbacks ran for 483 yards last weekend in a 49-17 season-opening win over Missouri State.

“They had three of them rush over 100 yards, so pick your poison,” Vanderbilt coach Bobby Johnson said.

Felix Jones rushed for 137 yards to earn SEC Freshman of the Week honors, and Peyton Hillis had 135 yards and three touchdowns. De’Arrius Howard ran for 120 yards, and Darren McFadden added 70.

That quartet will face a Vanderbilt defense that allowed 274 yards rushing last week. Johnson thinks the Commodores might have actually spent too much time preparing for Wake Forest.

“Sometimes you almost have too much information,” Johnson said. “We had so many tendencies on Wake Forest with all of last year’s film and I think we were just hunting around and saying, ‘When are they going to run that play we practiced 43 times against?’ and they never did it.

“So maybe with just one game of statistics and tendencies, and we’ll play Arkansas a little more wide open,” Johnson said. “I hope so.”

Vanderbilt and Arkansas are in different divisions in the SEC, and the teams have played only twice since the Razorbacks joined the conference in 1992. Arkansas beat the Commodores in 1994 and 1995, before Nutt arrived.

The teams have met only five times overall, and the Commodores’ previous three games at Arkansas were at Little Rock’s War Memorial Stadium. They will visit Fayetteville for the first time this weekend.

Nutt was asked if he was excited about the novelty of playing Vanderbilt.

“I’d feel better if Jay Cutler wasn’t in the lineup,” he said.