Nick Saban stumbled over his words. Even more than an hour after the highlight had occurred, Alabama’s head coach wiped his brow and tried to contextualize what Arkansas quarterback KJ Jefferson did on a pass play in the fourth quarter.

The Razorbacks were driving downfield and approaching the redzone. Jefferson was finding a rhythm after a slow start and leading a comeback in Bryant-Denny Stadium. On second-and-10, UA defensive back Terrion Arnold crept toward the line of scrimmage and jumped the snap, getting a free shot at Jefferson. The crowd roared, anticipating another sack. Then, physics took over.

Jefferson, listed at 6-foot-3, 247-pounds, ate the hit from Arnold (6-foot, 196 pounds) and started spinning to shake Arnold off. They appeared to be in a three-second dance routine near midfield before Jefferson discarded Arnold and flung it to running back Var’Keys Gumms. The 25-yard gain was the longest play of the day for the Razorbacks, who eventually fell to the No. 11 Tide (5-1, 4-0 SEC) 24-21.

“That quarterback is a handful,” Saban said postgame. “When a quarterback can take a major college football player and sling him off like a gnat on a fly’s ass. I mean, a fly on a, a gnat on a cow’s ass, I mean that was one of the most impressive plays I’ve ever seen a player make.

“But we said one guy gets a guy, you gotta hold on, you gotta hang on and wee gotta clean him up. We didn’t clean him up. We made a couple mental errors on defense on some of those drives that let them get back in the game too.”

Jefferson capped that drive with a well-placed 14-yard touchdown pass near the right pylon. It cut Alabama’s lead to three points and forced Alabama’s offense to manage a putaway drive later in the final frame.

Overall, Jefferson threw for 150 yards on 14-of-24 completions with two touchdowns. He also managed 26 yards rushing on 14 attempts, the net gains pulled down by the 38 yards he lost on four sacks.

Like Alabama’s pass rush discussed throughout the week, the key to limiting Jefferson was stuffing his rushing lanes and collapsing the pocket. The Tide utilized its depth along the trenches, and kept sending bodies toward Jefferson. Trezmen Marshall, Justin Eboigbe, Dallas Turner, Jah-Marien Latham and Arnold all recorded at least half a sack.

“(Jefferson) finally had big success on a run, and that, it gets you motivated,” Arkansas head coach Sam Pittman said. “Gets him motivated and he was dead to rights on that one and then came out of, made a big play and went down and scored off of it later on. It was just two teams fighting their butt off there today.”

Nick Alvarez is a reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @nick_a_alvarez or email him at [email protected].