Hogs’ roster turnover means we’ll have more questions than answers

You might want to make sure you have a roster handy for Arkansas’ football games this fall … and certainly for spring practice that starts in just a few weeks.

With the leading receiver from last year gone along with the likely departure of the leading passer and most of the offensive line, some fans are concerned.

Exactly why anybody cares about a large number of returning players from a 2-10 team is beyond me. It was Bear Bryant who said when his Alabama teams took a little downturn in the late 1960’s when someone asked him about a lack of returning starters, “last thing I want is a bunch of guys coming back off a bad team.”

Chad Morris won’t say that publicly or probably privately.

You can be certain, though, there aren’t any players that had eligibility left not here that he and his staff really wanted to come back. My guess is these players transferring he might actually help them find new teams.

The best teams in college football run players off all the time. Alabama does it routinely. According to some people around the Crimson Tide regularly if a player isn’t ready to compete for a starting spot in two years he quietly leaves. If he’s not contributing in his first year there often isn’t a second, barring an injury.

Welcome to another wrinkle in the new way of college football today.

Some schools sign players to four-year scholarship guarantees, but that’s more for the protection of the player in the event of injury. But even those guaranteed deals are subject to performing on the field and if they can’t, the coaches are very good at helping a player find a new place to go.

It’s the college version of what professional teams do in managing the salary cap.

This is not a referendum on whether that’s right or wrong, but it is the way things works these days.

Morris has come and players who may be great individuals are moving along. The official term now is “moving to the next phase of their life,” which is a polite way of saying they’ve probably been shoved out the door.

There are exceptions, of course, but that’s usually the case.

You could tell at times through an excruciating first season that Morris wasn’t getting the buy-in from players he was expecting or wanting. His emotions covered the gamut from being obviously ticked-off to downright furious and, finally, a sense of it’ll get cleaned out.

If he’s not there yet, Morris is close to getting players out that aren’t interested in doing it the way he wants it done.

With La’Michael Pettway’s announcement Tuesday he’s leaving the program, the numbers are down to where Morris can sign 29 new players this cycle.

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Last year, the percentage of players on the team that were Morris’ players was small. This season will have over half of them being brought in by Morris.

He has a vision that many coaches that have been doing it a long time believe will be successful. Defensive coordinator John Chavis is one. It’s why he signed up to be in Fayetteville and, make no mistake about it, his extension in December was HIS option.

If he didn’t like the direction things were headed, well, there would be a new person in that position.

What all of this means is this year’s team is going to be incredibly young, inexperienced and that might not be all that bad.

Talent beats experience nearly every single team.

At least that’s what Morris is likely hoping. He better be.

Because the downside to having your guys is there aren’t any excuses, not that Morris a single time made any for last year’s disaster.

After two years of hearing a coach tearfully proclaim how close his team was (exactly what they were close to was not clear because winning games didn’t appear to be in the same area code), there were no excuses or reasons given last year with the exception they got beat.

The coaches took most of the heat, putting the blame on themselves. That’s another new way of doing things in the world of college football. Publicly it’s never the players’ fault.

Privately, though, it’s a different story.

Morris pointed out early the players he felt weren’t all in on his program. He pretty much said that after the debacle against North Texas and again later.

It apparently continued through the end of the season and the holidays.

But now the herd is thinned out about as much as it will be for this season.

With another signing day coming up in about three weeks, the final pieces to this year’s team will come into focus a little bit.

But there will still be more questions than answers.

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And that might not change until the fall.