By Otis Kirk
Special to the News-Times
FAYETTEVILLE - Arkansas will go into Saturday's Mississippi State game minus the speculation about who will be the starting quarterback as was the case last week against LSU.
Senior Austin Allen will start his second game in a row since returning from shoulder surgery.
He completed 13-of-23 passes for 140 yards before giving way to Cole Kelley the last two series of the game.
With Kelley suspended indefinitely from the program for his arrest on suspicion of driving while intoxicated and reckless driving, former Charleston standout Ty Storey, a third-year sophomore, will serve as the backup to Allen. Storey has completed 1-of-4 passes for three yards at Arkansas.
Arkansas coach Bret Bielema talked about his confidence level of playing Storey if Allen were to get hurt.
"Really good," Bielema said Wednesday. "Here is the honest truth. We started fall camp with him and Cole Kelley dead even. Every practice, every throw, every read, percentages of completions everything was dead even. And then Ty actually took a little bit of a lead. Two weeks out from the game, Ty was going to be our No. 2 guy. For the last (preseason) week it kind of swung the other way. We went with that for the beginning of the season and never really varied.
"But even when Austin went down and we were going to put Cole into that position, I brought them both in and explained where we’re going and told them at the conclusion of fall and going into spring ball we would have open competition for the quarterback regardless what happened in Austin’s absence.
"And I think Ty has bought into that. He had an exceptional day yesterday. I would say over the last two weeks, he has really had his uptick from anywhere during the course of the season. If his chance comes on Saturday … we actually… Cole we didn’t know if he was going to be able to go last Saturday until game time.
"Obviously he went and we put him in there, but we were totally prepared to put a package in there with Ty Storey kind of handling the same things. So I’m confident. I know Ty is confident and I know the guys around him will be confident and moving forward."
On Tuesday night wide receiver Deon Stewart hinted the Hogs will throw the deep ball more. Bielema was asked about that on Wednesday if it was a possibility?
"Well it’s one thing to throw the deep throw, but we’ve got to complete them, right?" Bielema said. "So Deon, I would say in the last month, has probably grown as much as any player in our program during the course of the season, which you love.
"Because he’s a young player, a second-year player for us, much like a group that is young, talented and continues to get better. But it’s one thing to run a deep route. They’ve got to catch it. They’ve got to hold the line.
"Also with Austin coming back in the lineup, one of the harder throws to probably have consistently completed, even just versus air let alone throw the defense in there, is the deep ball. The timing of it, the throwing of it.
"Obviously when you are playing outdoors, but the wind or no wind. It’s big. I really like the growth that Deon had. We haven’t necessarily thrown more deep balls, but maybe more just with an emphasis with him in the route and that kind of goes forward.
"But the timing is huge. We went from an offense that was going to have several multiple seniors starting to now the only guy that I believe offensively will start as a senior for us is Austin Allen.
"So it’s just a lot of players that haven’t played a lot of football together getting used to each other."
Mississippi State may have the best quarterback in the SEC in Nick Fitzgerald.
He's currently second on the team with 867 yards rushing on 137 carries and a team-high 13 touchdowns on the ground. He has completed 146-of-258 passes for 1,617 yards and 13 touchdowns, but has thrown 10 interceptions.
Bielema talked about the type passing game the Bulldogs utilize as far as possibly throwing shorter routes this season.
"It’s a little bit game to game," Bielema said. "I think Alabama changed up what they did a little bit from previous games. I think, also as you know sometimes as you get deeper into this SEC schedule, injuries, guys projected at wide receiver and tight end for them, wide receiver particularly, there have been some guys with injury issues.
"I don’t know if that has an effect on it as well as just kind of whatever the defense gives you."
Arkansas will host Mississippi State at 11 a.m. on Saturday in Reynolds Razorback Stadium. The game will be televised on CBS.