Tye & Tommy on the AR coaches deferring bonuses, Pitt ranked 14th SEC coaches, Eric Hansen joins and more!
Holt on how financial impact of virus could cause non-conference issues
Democrat-Gazette writer Bob Holt on Thursday afternoon got a question from Matt Jenkins on Halftime along with Phil Elson and Matt Jenkins he didn’t know the answer to, so he will probably be asking.
Niesen on strange opening day for baseball, football uncertainty this year
Joan Niesen talked with Phil Elson, Matt Jenkins and Matt Travis (Halftime) Thursday afternoon on ESPN Arkansas about how weird it feels starting baseball in July and questions about football.
Burks named to watch list for ‘Hornung Award’ for most versatile player
FAYETTEVILLE — Sophomore Treylon Burks has been named as one of the 50 multi-talented student-athletes on the Paul Hornung Award watch list, according to an announcement Thursday.
Burks earned SEC All-Freshman status as a wide receiver and second-team honors as a returner. He started nine of the 11 games he played in and led the Razorbacks with 475 receiving yards, catching 29 passes for a team-best 16.4 yards per reception.
The Warren native also added punt and kick return duties to his list of responsibilities, returning 10 punts for 130 yards and 10 kicks for 226 yards for a team-best average of 22.6 yards. He ended his first season on the Hill second on the team with 866 all-purpose yards, trailing only Rakeem Boyd’s 1,293 yards.
Burks is just one of nine sophomores on the preseason list and one of eight players from the Southeastern Conference, which leads all conferences on the list.
In the first 10 years of the award an amazing six winners have been selected in the first round of the NFL Draft not including last year’s winner Lynn Bowden Jr. from Kentucky, who was a third round selection by the Las Vegas Raiders.
The Paul Hornung Award, now in its 11th season, is given annually to the most versatile player in major college football by the Louisville Sports Commission and football legend and Louisville native Paul Hornung.
The winner and his family will be honored at the annual Paul Hornung Award dinner at the Galt House Hotel in downtown Louisville on March 2021.
Burks joins teammates Rakeem Boyd and A.J. Reed on award preseason watch lists, Boyd was named to the Doak Walker Award list and Reed was named as one of 30 kickers to the Lou Groza Award list on Wednesday.
Information from Razorback Sports Communications is included in this story.
THE MORNING RUSH: Murphy thinks Irish will try to keep game with Hogs
The Irish will want to keep their game with Arkansas even if it has to be juggled a little, Tom Murphy of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette said Thursday morning on ESPN Arkansas with Tye Richardson and Tommy Craft (The Morning Rush).
RECRUITING THURSDAY: Davenport on Hogs landing second-rated kicker
The last time Arkansas had a side-winding blonde kicker it worked out pretty well and that’s what new special teams coach Scott Fountain is looking for with Cameron Little.
When Frank Broyles landed Steve Little out of Shawnee Mission, Kansas, back in 1974, the Razorbacks were set for four seasons with an All-American.
Cameron Little is rated the second-best kicker in the country at KohlsKicking.com, where he would be a 5-start recruit. The main national services don’t pay that much attention.
“You just don’t put out scholarship offers to kickers very often,” Davenport told Tye Richardson and Tommy Craft (The Morning Rush) on ESPN Arkansas Thursday morning. “They like him tremendously.”
Davenport said kicking in the SEC is a major attraction for Little.
“He REALLY likes coach Scott Fountain’s resume and what he did at Georgia with (Rodrigo) Blankenship and some other kickers,” Davenport said.
Busch Light Apple Morning Rush Podcast — ND AD comments, Richard Davenport, Trivia Thursday
Tye & Tommy on what Notre Dame’s AD had to say, going 0-fer in 2020, Richard Davenport and Trivia Thursday!
Notre Dame AD’s comments about spring ‘out of context,’ says O’Malley
Notre Dame athletics director Jack Swarbrick made some news lately when he mentioned something about playing football in the spring and, of course, many of the knee-jerk media pounced.
No, we’re not going to have football in the spring. At least not anything that amounts to more than keeping score in some spring games.
“It’s actually a secondary thought for him,” IrishIllustrated.com’s Tim O’Malley told Derek Ruscin and Zach Arns (Ruscin & Zach) Wednesday afternoon on ESPN Arkansas. “People might have taken it a little out of context. What he wants to do is push it back four weeks.”
Well, that does sorta mess up a lot of travel plans for Arkansas fans (and media) who have been anxiously looking forward to going to South Bend.
O’Malley said Swarbrick is looking at a start somewhere Sept. 26-Oct. 4.
“He really doesn’t believe they are going to play more than 10 games,” he said. “[Notre Dame] has six games they will definitely play, plus Navy and they haven’t touched Arkansas yet.”
The Irish also have a game with Western Michigan, but they would juggle the game with the Hogs before worrying about that game. They’ve had three games cancelled by the Big 10 and Pac 12 decisions.
“He is really focused on that moreso than going to the spring,” O’Malley said. “He said as recently as a week ago he hadn’t personally thought about the spring much but knows it’s a viable option.”
The reason for the concern is professional leagues starting back plus more students coming back to campus and spreading the virus.
“He just wants more information,” O’Malley said.
The schedules will be juggled, make no mistake about that.
For some of us old-timers, we remember when college football seasons were 10 games long and didn’t start until the third Saturday in September. High school started after Labor Day. Football players reported a couple of weeks before that.
Shoot, some teams in the Big 10 were still playing nine games a season before the 11th game came into play in 1970. Arkansas’ first extra game was Stanford and Jim Plunkett at War Memorial.
This year there will be schedules that may not be decided until a few weeks before games are played. Let’s face it, fans attending isn’t a big concern right now.
It’s about the television networks, especially ESPN.
Which is one of the reasons we won’t see spring football games passing as regular season affairs. They don’t have enough channels to air everything they would have to air, most of the marquee players wouldn’t play and it would be more chaos than now.
Player safety is the major reason teams can’t play spring seasons. The recovery period for injuries is too long and you have the 2021 season coming in a hurry.
“How many guys are going to be hurt at the end of May that are asked to then go play training came in August?” O’Malley said about the biggest problem facing college teams moving the season to the spring.
“Look, the offensive line is supposed to be Notre Dame’s strongest position,” he said. “This past spring they would have rolled just two linemen out there if they played college football in the spring.”
No coach is going to risk getting his best players injured.
There’s no idea what the magic number of games to be played before college coaches look at redshirting a whole bunch of their better players that will be playing in 2021.
Forget about the marquee players. Unless they need more game tape to improve a draft position they might not even want to risk a drastically-reduced season.
How it all plays out is anybody’s guess at this point.
Dawson still confident college football will have some kind of season
Recruiting writer Dudley Dawson of WholeHogSports.com is getting better after strokes and told Phil Elson, Matt Jenkins and Matt Travis (Halftime) on ESPN Arkansas Wednesday he thinks there will be football, but has no idea how it will look.
