FAYETTEVILLE — Ryan Mallett has the Heisman hype and maybe the biggest arm in college football.
Greg McElroy has a national championship ring, an unbeaten record and a supporting cast that includes reigning Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram.
The quarterbacks meet Saturday when No. 10 Arkansas hosts No. 1 Alabama at Reynolds Razorback Stadium in college football’s biggest game of the week.
While Mallett directs an Arkansas passing game that is the best in the SEC and ranks third in the nation at 368 yards per game, McElroy oversees a Crimson Tide offense that averages 542 yards per game, best in the SEC. McElroy’s quarterback efficiency rating of 200.03 also leads the nation.
Mallett and McElory aren’t going head-to-head, but comparisons will be drawn no matter whose team wins.
McElroy admitted Monday to being a little frustrated last season when the buildup for the Arkansas game revolved around the Crimson Tide dealing with Mallett.
“Last year I was playing the whole season with a chip on my shoulder,” he said, “the fact that Ryan had garnered so much respect, and he and I had started the same number of games in the SEC at that point.
“I have a tremendous amount of respect for him.Obviously he’s a great player and he’s done great things for Arkansas, and all the respect he’s garnered from the media and the players and his peers are well-deserved. Hopefully our defense has a great week in order to contain him.”
McElroy has been an ideal fit for Nick Saban’s system. He’s heady, under control, isn’t a big risk-taker and has a firm grasp on Alabama’s schemes and its adaptations at the line of scrimmage. In a way, he was the prototypical Alabama quarterback last season: A savvy leader for a unit that was a great complement to the Crimson Tide’s dominating defense.
This year, he’s picked it up a notch.
“He knows how to take care of the ball,” Arkansas Coach Bobby Petrino said. “He knows how to make big plays. He executes their offense exactly the way they want him to.”
McElroy also wins, repeatedly. The senior from Southlake (Texas) Carroll High is 17-0 as a college starter after going 16-0 as a high school senior. His last loss as a starter came as an eighth-grader.
“He’s a proven winner,” Petrino said.
McElroy also hasn’t rested on his laurels after leading Alabama to the SEC and BCS championships with a 14-0 record last season.
“He just seems a lot more comfortable with the offense this year,” Alabama startingguard Barrett Jones said. “One thing we’ve noticed, he’s getting the ball out of his hand a little faster, trying to make it a little easier on us.”
Arkansas did a solid job against the Crimson Tide’s running game last season, holding Mark Ingram to 50 yards and 2.9 yards per carry, although it gave up a 52-yard run by Trent Richardson.
But with the Razorbacks jamming up the box, McElroy passed for a career-best 291 yards and three touchdowns in a 35-7 victory.
“The beauty of our offense is we have a pick-your-poison mentality,” McElroy said. “If you want to stuff the box, we’re going to exploit you with the pass. And if you want to drop back in coverage, we’re going to try to burn you with the run. That’s the great thing about having talented players all around me.”
McElroy’s completion percentage is also high at 71.7 percent, having completed 43 of 60 passes for 705 yards with 6 touchdowns and 1 interception.
“I really wanted to focus on having a high completion percentage, and we’ve been able to execute that pretty well up to this point,” McElroy said. “Through SEC play, it’s going to be more difficult, of course, but I feel we’ve got the capabilities.”
Sports, Pages 19 on 09/22/2010