Fans may get three spring games rest of this season

After Arkansas’ 45-31 loss to Vanderbilt last Saturday, apparently Chad Morris had finally reached his limit on getting beat by teams that shouldn’t be doing that.

Publicly, he took the blame.

“It’s on me,” he said in the post-mortem after the game.

Before that he had reportedly blistered the team in the dressing room. With no bowl game possible now, Morris may be putting every scholarship and roster spot on the team on the line.

In other words, there could very likely be a four-week audition for scholarships. it very likely could be a case of if you want to play for the Razorbacks, you better earn it over the next four weeks.

That’s not just on the field, either. This next month wouldn’t be a good time to miss classes, workouts, tutoring sessions or anything else. The players might be well-advised to follow the old theory my Marine Corps father preached that “if you’re 15 minutes early, you’re really 15 minutes late.”

Morris has some options open to him now going into the final month of the season in terms of juggling roster spots for the future.

The guess here is these last three games and this week of pure practice is going to more closely resemble a spring practice than anything else. It wouldn’t be completely surprising to see a level of physicalness not normally seen during the regular season.

In 1963, Arkansas had fallen from a 34-10 run over the previous four seasons to a 4-5 record heading into the last game of the season against Texas Tech. On the trip back to Fayetteville from Dallas, seniors approached Frank Broyles and said they wanted to scrimmage the following week in practice.

Though surprised by the request, it was a measure of leadership Broyles agreed to and the Hogs beat Texas Tech the following Saturday to finish the season 5-5.

There will be no magical storybook finish like that for this team, even if they go out and do nothing but line drills and the old Oklahoma drill every day. It’s a different day and age.

But Morris is right about the fact this team has lost four games now to teams they should have beaten.

Colorado State, North Texas (running third in their own division in Conference USA right now), Ole Miss and Vanderbilt are games this team should have won if the players had played up to their ability level.

Instead, we’ve seen the effects of two years of a lack of accountability, an apparent lack of direction and zero player development at many key positions on the field (the offensive line is the first exhibit).

Morris and his staff came in and appeared to have given players the benefit of the doubt. With today’s extremely limited amount of practice time and direct work with the players, there is only so much coaches can do.

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They’ve all been taking the blame for it publicly and likely will continue to do so.

The reason for this mess, though, falls squarely on the players, in my opinion. Players can’t blow off classes, be late to practice, miss tutoring sessions, doze off in meetings and other things and still be a winning football team.

There will now be consequences.

Morris is doing what coaches have done since the beginning of time in this situation. They can’t come in and clean house. They feel every player on the roster has a chance to prove he belongs there.

With no bowl game for 15 additional practices, this staff likely will use these last four weeks as spring practice. The three games against LSU, Mississippi State and Missouri will be the equivalent of spring games that actually count.

Having a scholarship to play football at Arkansas is not a right … it’s a privilege.

The guess here is those that want to stay are going to have to earn that privilege.