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It’s a different approach with Morris on nearly everything
It’s a new day for Razorback football and the differences in just about everything are obvious and. Chad Morris is confident it’s all going to pay off, too.
Wednesday showed just how different things are around Arkansas football these days.
The Razorbacks practiced outdoors in a misting rain and over 100 people stood around watching it.
“I was a little bit disappointed,” Chad Morris said later. “I was really disappointed. I was hoping it was raining harder.”
With the fancy indoor workout facilities most teams have these days, they choose to work out indoors, out of elements like water coming out of the sky and other things.
Not Morris, who looks at some things with an old-school view. Apparently staying indoors wasn’t considered much … if at all.
“There was no way in the world we were going to stay indoors,” he said. “I was really hoping for an absolute torrential downpour to see how our guys responded.”
In Morris’ view, they may have to play in it so they may as well have some experience in it. You get the idea he doesn’t make excuses and the weather dang sure ain’t going to be one he’ll even consider.
But the main priority in Fayetteville these days is recruiting … always recruiting.
“As of the last count, and I believe it was Monday, we were sitting at about 850 high school coaches that have come on campus this spring, coming in and out,” he said.
No one knows (or if they do they aren’t saying) but it may be a safe bet there haven’t been 850 high school coaches on campus to visit the football offices over the last 10 years combined.
That is a noticeable difference. At almost every practice it’s not uncommon to see school buses from Tyler, Texas, Tennessee or other states.
And coaches are coming just about every day of the week.
“We welcome them every day,” Morris said. “We’ve got a portion of our day set aside that our offensive and defensive staff goes and meets with these high school coaches. We didn’t have a clinic, we we just opened our doors and said, ‘come on, we’re going to talk ball.’
“We’ve got some that come back every day, some that come back once a week. That’s been very beneficial. It’s a little bit more of a personal touch.”
Morris is counting on it paying dividends with good players choosing to be Razorbacks.
“We’ve had some top-tier recruits … we had some here today,” he said. “We’ve had a LOT of people on campus. When you get ’em here — I’ve said it before — we’ve got a beautiful campus, we’ve got something great to sell.”
The sales pitch is to come to the Hogs and be the one that puts them on the map in what Morris is planning to be a return to the world of relevancy in the SEC.
“We tell recruits you can come here and be THE guy, be the reason,” he said. “Some guys like that and some guys don’t. They don’t want to be THE guy. They want to go where someone else has been THE guy and already done it and that’s okay.
“We’re going to get great players here and then when you get ’em here, you’ve got to develop ’em.”
Like I said, things are very, very different.
Oh, and Morris is expecting a big turnout for the Red-White game in Little Rock on April 7.
“Let’s pack that place out,” Morris said. “We’re going to have some phenomenal recruits there that are just going to be in attendance, just like a normal fan.
“Unfortunately we can’t have them on the field and we can’t put them in a certain section. They’re going to be all over the stadium and we have to bring that passion that I’ve seen since the day I walked in here to the spring game on April 7 because that’s going to be a big day for us.”
Don’t expect to see anything approaching the complete package for the Hogs to be on display at War Memorial Stadium.
“Offensively, we’re at about 25 percent install to be honest with you and that’s okay,” he said. “I’m fine with that. It’s not how much we can get in, but how much we can do. I want to get really good at something and these guys are and right now it’s getting an understanding how to play fast and just get the base system down.
“All that other stuff will come. We’ve still got a lot of time ahead of us. We’ve got summer workouts and these will be player-led workouts.”
Playing fast has been the biggest thing Morris and his staff has been pushing during the spring. For Razorback fans, it will appear to be at warp speed.
“We were snapping today with about 27 seconds on the play clock,” he said. “We want to be snapping it with 30 or even 32 seconds on the clock at times.”
He didn’t appear too concerned, though.
“From where we started to where we are right now, I would say we’re right on schedule,” he said. “Again, I knew we had a long way to go. You can talk to me after the 15th practice and I’ll tell you the same thing … we’re not there and we’ve got a long way to go, but we’ve come a long way, too.
“These guys are learning us, learning the staff, they’re learning our expectations and learning what our standard is. It’s about the little things.
“If you can’t take care of the little things how can we expect you to step on the field on third-and-2 and make a stop. We’re getting there. I feel like we’re on track.”
Like we said earlier, things are changing.
