Morris would enjoy being in woods on this rare off weekend in season

With Arkansas having an off week, it gives Chad Morris and his staff a chance to hit the recruiting trail even harder than they have been, but he admits a break would be nice.

“I’d love to be sitting in the woods somewhere,” he said on the SEC Teleconference on Wednesday, which is the only media availability with him this week. “I’d love to get away from it.”

As the high school season winds towards the playoffs, using the new recruiting helicopter to bounce around to different games.

“It allows you to get into some of the smaller areas and schools,” Morris said. “Also, the appearance of it. Just being different. In recruiting, it’s all about being on the cutting edge and being different.”

The helicopter is something Arkansas hasn’t employed before. It is a show when it lands at a high school field on a Friday night.

“It’s similar to a plane, but not going nearly as fast,” Morris said. “Just the ability to maneuver is what’s unique about that.”

With a bye week, the coaching staff that has been recruiting at a pace not seen with the Razorbacks in a few decades will keep going.

“We’ll get away,” Morris said Wednesday. “Our coaching staff will get out of the office. We’ll be out recruiting Thursday night, Friday. We may watch some games.”

He also talked about part of the frustration he had in the 45-31 loss to Vanderbilt last week. In the post-mortem afterwards, he was as exasperated publicly as he’s been since taking over last December.

“The biggest thing, just disappointed in our performance,” Morris said. “We’ve shown a steady track of improvement this year. We didn’t show that on Saturday. We weren’t on the same track that we’ve been on. That was what was frustrating.”

It’s led to some workouts getting back to the basics and the coaching staff looking at players for development purposes.

“Our starters have gotten some good work in then we pull them out and get a lot of good individual,” he said. “It’s kind of a fall camp mentality mindset for these redshirt guys and younger guys.”

And, like we said, getting back to the basics.

“We’ll do some live work, some scrimmaging,” Morris said. “We’ll continue that process through the rest of the season now that there’s not going to be any bowl practice.”

With just three games left following the bye week against LSU, Mississippi State and Missouri, players who have only gotten into one game this year can play in all three and still have a redshirt available.

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“Well, we have a few guys that still have a game, possibly two games,” Morris said. “We’d like to see them get some experience. Isaiah Nichols has another game. Noah Gatlin has another game.”

There are others, of course. John Stephen Jones at quarterback only played against North Texas and there are others.

As Morris said, with no bowl prospects, it’s a chance to find out over the next few weeks about the players he has before spring practice.

“We’ve got a chance to come in this week to focus on ourselves,” Morris said. “We can really dive into the attention to some of our younger players and get them some work.”

Morris’ injury updates

• Dre Greenlaw: “He hasn’t practiced this week. We anticipate him being back next week.”

• Jared Cornelius: “Questionable still. He hasn’t practiced this week.”

• Kevin Richardson: “Same.”

• Devwah Whaley: “Still questionable. We’ll wait and see on him. He ran a little bit yesterday.”