FAYETTEVILLE — Tim Cramsey says protecting the quarterback takes everybody, but when the play ends in a sack, he puts the responsibility on one position.

If every sack is the quarterback's fault, then what responsibility does the man with the call sheet have?

"Yeah, we have to go get the ball out of our (quarterback's) hand," Cramsey said on Tuesday. "You know, I will say every sack is a quarterback's fault. You know, we've got to get the ball out of our hands and find the open receiver."

There is some fair criticism to be had for Arkansas QB KJ Jackson for holding onto the ball too long. The Razorbacks have given up 23 sacks through nine games this season, which is tied for No. 105 nationally.

Cramsey went on to explain that protection includes his pass catchers getting open on time, running backs handling their blocking assignments in the backfield and the offensive line holding up long enough to give their quarterback enough time to throw.

When Jackson gets a clean pocket, he is completing 65.5% of his pass attempts for 1,054 yards, and eight touchdowns. But when there's nothing available down field and the play breaks down quicker than a hiccup, it isn't very pretty.

Jackson has faced pressure on 105 dropbacks, according to Pro Football Focus. That gives him a 17.1% pressure to sack ratio, which is actually 13th-highest nationally but lower than fellow SEC passers such as Byrum Brown (Auburn), Arch Manning (Texas), Keelon Russell (Alabama), and Sam Leavitt (LSU).

Those numbers don't tell us who missed an assignment or whether Jackson passed up an opportunity to get rid of the ball. But they do show that several other SEC quarterbacks have seen an equal or greater share of their pressured dropbacks end in sacks.

However, his time to throw rate of 3.30 seconds is one of the worst in the country for quarterbacks with at least 100 dropbacks this season.

The Razorbacks want to move methodically fast once the ball is snapped and that does require Jackson to make reads quickly. But he did assign some blame to the rest of his offense doing their job correctly for the whole operation to work successfully.

"I don't know if I talked about it in here last week, but one of our keys of victory last week was protecting the quarterback," Cramsey continued. "As soon as you say that, all of a sudden everyone thinks the O-line's got to do a good job blocking. But that's everybody. That's receivers getting open in a timely fashion. That's running backs doing their job in a block game. That's O-line giving us the 2.83 seconds we need. That's a quarterback getting the ball out of his hands in that 2.5 seconds that we need.

"That's everybody in the on the field taking a part in that, and that's on the next step. That gets us off course, which happened to us a couple times. You know, we had six sacks, six negative plays, a good portion that in the second half, which got us off course. So, we got to you know got to do a much better job of that."

There were a number of plays when Arkansas was in scoring position that the offense went backward. Of course, we lack the all-22 view here, but it's nearly impossible to blame this sack of Jackson on him when there is literally no one open and the rush was in his face instantly.

Jackson had the middle of the field open for Chris Marshall, who looked like he was going to emerge on a slant just to cut right into double coverage. Even if the play call was to get tight end Jaden Platt open underneath the linebackers, he got lost in the blob of blue in the middle of Auburn's defense.

That was on third-and-five without another receiver remotely close to the sticks. By the time Platt was able to get a release at the second level, Jackson was already taken down for a sack, which was an awful play design all the way around.

The Tim Cramsey experience.

(Genuinely what was the plan here?) pic.twitter.com/BsrLH0xLHT

— Michael Main (@MichaelMain__) November 7, 2026

Then there was this second-and-12 play that Cramsey rolled his left-handed quarterback to his right, stopping his momentum to throw across his body to a covered Ty Lockwood in the middle of the field. The pass fell incomplete, but was uncomfortable from a watchability standpoint as the two boundary receivers disappeared off-screen.

The third down call saw Lockwood engage as a pick for Monte Harrison exactly three yards off the line of scrimmage while needing 12 for the first down. Instead of working Jackson and his receivers closer to a new set of downs on either play, Arkansas opted to send Max Gilbert, who already missed two field goals on the day, to kick for the tie instead of being aggressive to take the lead back.

Jackson can be assigned some blame such as being called for intentional grounding with 18 seconds left in the game instead of throwing it away before the pressure got to him. That resulted in a ten second run-off which allowed desperation to creep in on the final two plays.

For a player already struggling with confidence, throwing him under the bus on a random Tuesday with three games to go in the season doesn't do him or the team any favors. Cramsey’s own explanation makes clear how many things must work before Jackson can deliver the football.

The man calling the plays has a responsibility to help those pieces fit together.

Cramsey says protecting the quarterback takes everybody, and he ought to leave room for himself when assigning the blame.