With Arkansas now four practices into fall camp, you get the idea even Chad Morris and the coaches don’t really know what they don’t know right now.
You can go ahead and read that again. The first time I heard John Mackovic say that when he took over at Texas in 1992 I kinda had to stop and think about it for a second or two.
It’s not uncommon for new coaches to be that way. In the Razorbacks’ case, Morris and his staff has a few spring practices to evaluate. They spent most of their time since getting here hitting the recruiting trail and the results of that are starting to show.
Now comes the season.
Don’t worry about Morris not understanding what he has to do to keep his job and it’s not just recruiting. In fact, not winning games with maybe the best recruiting class in the last couple of decades could be a bigger problem than not recruiting.
Right now — at least in the limited action we see in the first 20 minutes — everybody’s just trying to figure out what they don’t know.
It’s a lot of basic drills, running some of the offense and just trying to get a read on what guys do well and what they can’t do. In case you’re wondering, they’re watching a lot of film at night of the practices for that evaluation.
Saturday’s scrimmage is closed to just about everybody other than probably a handful of high school coaches and players. It’s not a scrimmage to get ready for a game … they have time before the Sept. 1 opener against Eastern Illinois.
No, the scrimmage Saturday is for evaluation in a different setting.
Tuesday’s de-briefing pretty much confirmed this is all about evaluation.
“We did some situational stuff today, and we’ll continue to add some situational things,” Morris said about the Hogs going into full pads Wednesday. “We’ll get out there and see what our young guys have got.
“There’ll be a few periods where we’ll be live, but a lot of it is just learning how to practice in full pads.”
In case you’re wondering that’s almost the normal approach when a completely new staff takes over. Considering the way the offseason conditioning program went with players’ bodies changing, they aren’t going as much off last year’s film as what they see with their own eyes in the spring and now fall.
The guess here is they aren’t even starting to put together a game plan for the season opener. They likely are putting together a working list for a starting lineup, but even that will have a lot of flexibility at most positions.
It’s the nature when change is made.
But don’t lose the faith. That’s worked out well in Razorbacks history at least once.
When Ken Hatfield took over for Lou Holtz for the 1984 season, it was a complete change in just about everything. It was a new attitude, a new direction.
As one longtime observer said, “we’re replaced nonsense with sense.” That was a direct slap at Holtz and all of the shenanigans he had going on.
No one expected a lot from that 1984 team. Brad Taylor was the No. 1 quarterback and he’d never run a wishbone offense in his life. He was a passer, but he was game and finished up his career running the option and taking the hits.
Hatfield and his staff came in from Air Force. They didn’t complain about what many in the media said was a group without a lot of talent. They had better players than they had at Air Force and learned that complaining was a waste of time.
Those old enough tend to forget that because that team went on to a 7-4-1 record.
The similarities are there at the same point in time.
Few give this Razorback team much credit for having players. It’s a change in system as radical as what Hatfield brought in.
The change in attitude has gone from a coaching staff that appeared completely content to waddle around being mediocre and making excuses to a staff that’s all about being positive and glad to be coaching better players than they had last year in many cases, but knowing that winning games is the main priority.
Morris is showing he can get the Hogs competitive in the recruiting game.
Now he just has to show he can be competitive on the field.
Because without those wins, he knows — more than anyone else — he would just be putting together some good recruits for the next coach.
He’s just gotta figure out what he doesn’t know and he’s gotta do it fast.
Which is pretty much the way he does everything.
