Following an open date, Tennessee looks to get back in the win column with a road trip to Arkansas. The Razorbacks have been better than anyone expected making this a more difficult match up that anyone anticipated. What’s key for the Vols to end a three game slide? Here are four, in our weekly Cheat Sheet.

Manage the pace —Kendall Briles and the Razorbacks want to play fast. Tennessee’s defense has struggled with up tempo offenses getting caught multiple times with too many players on the field trying to substitute personnel for specific down and distances or offensive personnel. Briles loves to play fast. He knows Tennessee has had to burn more timeouts defensively than offensively this season. The Vols communication on the sidelines must be on point and decisions have to be decisive and quick in order to make substitutions and to no get caught either not ready at the snap or with the wrong personnel on the field. It’s definitely an area of the game Arkansas will try to attack.

2. Be patient offensively —Razorback defensive coordinator Barry Odom has shown the ability to confuse quarterbacks by dropping 8 into coverage and disguising things. It worked brilliantly against Ole Miss who threw 7 interceptions. Arkansas is second in the SEC in interceptions on the year and first in overall turnovers with 13 forced takeaways.

Odom wants to bait quarterbacks into mistakes and wants to see in play callers will take what’s given to them and be committed to driving the length of the field. Kentucky played Tennessee with the same strategy and it worked as the Vols threw three interceptions in the second quarter that led to 17 points.

How patient will Jarrett Guarantano be? A year ago in a match up with Odom it was a deep ball jump ball fest as JG had a huge day. Odom’s style with this defense is different as they are trying to keep the ball in front of them. The longest passing play the Razorbacks have given up is 35 yards. They have given up just 12 completions of 20 yards or more. Tennessee’s defense has give up 20 completions of 20+ yards. The Vols can take a shot or two, but Arkansas is going to dare the Vols to do so. Guarantano can’t get baited into bad decisions and Jim Chaney must be patient.

3. Get the ‘hogs on the ground —As I noted in the 3-2-1 on Monday, the Razorbacks are getting better on the ground. Feleipe Franks is using his legs effectively and Arkansas’ run game production is improving weekly.

“If you look at Arkansas’ run game, I think they did a really good job last week of getting the ball on the perimeter. Some of that was designed quarterback reads. I think Kendal Briles has done a really nice job of mixing the RPO’s. The wide receivers have plus splits, so they’ve been able to get the ball out on the perimeter. It’s not been as congested there. I feel like they block really well up front. They’ve used two tight ends, whether it’s counter schemes, running it the same side or the other side with stretch schemes, inside zones and split zones. The other night, they probably got lots of yardage on Feleipe (Franks) just scrambling. He probably scrambled for 50 yards. They’ve really done a nice job up front. Their wide receivers have blocked well on the perimeter.”

The Razorbacks by the numbers are fully committed to running the football. Tennessee’s defensive front seven will have to play better than it did against Alabama and as an entire defense they must tackle better. Pruitt said they missed 23 tackles against the Tide.

4. Show up for 60 minutes — Playing a complete game has been a problem for this team. They had multiple chances to put South Carolina away early in the second half and couldn’t. Theo Jackson’s interception in the redzone prevented Missouri from getting back into the game as the defense gave up plenty of yards in the second half. Everyone knows what happened in the third quarters against Georgia, Kentucky, and Alabama to make the fourth quarter stress free for those three teams. Arkansas has shown they will be there for a four quarter fight and Tennessee hasn’t figured things out in the second half especially the last three games.

Can the Vols put a clean four quarter game together? If they can, it will be a good night for the orange in the Ozarks.