FAYETTEVILLE -- Arkansas quarterback Casey Dick sat down in front of a crowd of reporters and used the words “dumb” and “stupid” to describe his two biggest mistakes of the day.

A few minutes later, coach Bobby Petrino strolled into the room, took his place behind a microphone and admitted he never saw that one coming.

“That’s a tough game for us,” Petrino said. But his remark was perhaps an understatement after suffering through the worst loss of his career.

Over the past week, the Razorbacks had talked at length about coming out fast against No. 9 Alabama, cutting down on their mistakes and scoring early and often.

They did none of that Saturday afternoon during a 49-14 loss that became a blowout before the end of the first quarter.

“It always seems like we do something at the beginning of the game to mess up the momentum,” Arkansas center Jonathan Luigs said. “... We gave them a lot of gifts and you can’t do that.”

Missed tackles and bad passes hurt the Razorbacks early on. And by the time the final minutes rolled around, Dick was on the bench, Petrino was annoyed and many of the 72,315 fans in Reynolds Razorback Stadium were gone.

Not much seemed to go right for the Hogs (2-1, 0-1 Southeastern Conference) in the first half, despite running 27 more offensive plays and holding the ball for nearly 14 minutes longer than the Crimson Tide (4-0, 1-0).

Dick threw a pair of interceptions for touchdowns, the Razorbacks trailed 21-0 at the end of the first quarter and they went into halftime down 35-7 after coming up short on four straight plays from the Alabama 1.

“We give up two interceptions for touchdowns and then get stopped on the 1-yard line,” Petrino said. “You’re looking at a 21-point swing, which is not good for us.”

Saturday marked Petrino’s most lopsided loss of his career, surpassing the 45-14 defeat he suffered to South Florida while at Louisville on Sept. 24, 2005.

For the third consecutive game, the Razorbacks failed to score in the first quarter and again made things tougher on themselves with a slew of mistakes on offense, defense and special teams.

Arkansas freshman safety Elton Ford was flagged for running into the punter, which gave Alabama a second chance to score on its opening series.

The Razorbacks then couldn’t come up with the tackle needed to stop Crimson Tide running back Glen Coffee from breaking an 87-yard touchdown run on the team’s next possession.

“We had a lot of missed tackles. You can overcome size issues, OK?” Arkansas defensive coordinator Willy Robinson said. “But to not be able to tackle, that takes heart.”

And Arkansas’ hopes of getting things turned around came to an end when Dick threw an interception to Alabama cornerback Javier Arenas, who returned it 63 yards to extend the Crimson Tide’s lead to 21-0 with 53 seconds remaining in the first quarter.

Later, Dick again ended up on the turf after making a failed attempt to tackle Alabama strong safety Justin Woodall from scoring on a 74-yard interception return for a touchdown.

“We can’t give up 14 points off two stupid throws that I make. It’s throws that I haven’t had in awhile,” said Dick, who finished 20-of-39 for 190 yards with one touchdown and three interceptions. “I made two bad decisions and gave up points.”

A year ago, Arkansas trailed at Alabama 21-0 at the end of the first quarter, only to rally in the second half and take a lead before losing 41-38 in the final seconds. There was no comeback this time, though.

The Razorbacks scored their first touchdown when Dick connected with tight end Andrew Davie on a 12-yard touchdown pass on a fourth-and-1 with 10:30 left in the second quarter.

But Arkansas didn’t score again until freshman Tyler Wilson had replaced Dick in the lineup early in the fourth quarter. The Greenwood native rolled to his right and lobbed a 10-yard pass to running back Michael Smith in the end zone.

By then, Dick had been booed by Arkansas fans and Petrino’s worst loss was all but over.