Hill confident country, Arkansas ‘will figure it out’ dealing with crisis
U.S. Rep. French Hill (R-Little Rock) is upbeat and positive about how the country and state of Arkansas will be responding to the ongoing global pandemic that has slowed down everything.
“We’ll figure it out,” he told Tye Richardson and Tommy Craft on ESPN Arkansas’ statewide Morning Rush on Wednesday morning.
In some places across the country where the number of cases is relatively low per capita (and Arkansas is one of those compared to major metro areas) starting to re-open things is the hot topic these days.
“Potentially we could start to see that in businesses in May,” Hill said. “It’ll ultimately be up the governor working with businesses. It’ll be different across the country. Asa Hutchinson is doing good job pacing it and he’ll encourage it to head upward.”
Hill also understands the importance of sports to much more than just the fans.
“Sports is a major driver of economic activity,” he said. “Just think of the high school and the competitive level before you even head off to college … the soccer tournaments, tennis tournaments, basketball tournaments.
“These are big businesses in our towns.”
Hill said he feels like they will get it worked out soon.
“We’ve got to figure out a way to do that in a safe way from a public hygiene point of view,” he said. “I bet we figure it out. This is America.
“We’re innovative. We have ingenuity. We’re going to get our kids out safely to play college sports and high school sports. We’re going to figure out a way to let people watch that in a safe way.”
He’s positive, probably based on the information he’s getting on the accelerated pace the entire medical and research industries have attacked the health crisis.
“I’m convinced we will,” he said about getting things back. “That’s the way we are. We’ve got to have more testing, more therapeutics and treatment and we’re going to bring this country back.”
Bud Light Seltzer Morning Rush Podcast — Hog bball roster, Rotnei Clarke joins and more!
Tye & Tommy on what the Razorback roster looks like next season, Rotnei Clarke joins, plus What’s Your Beef Wed!
Clarke on getting family back to USA when COVID19 problem arose in Italy
Former Arkansas player Rotnei Clarke joined The Morning Rush on Wednesday morning to talk about acting quickly to get his family out of Italy and back to the United States, then joining them later as the crisis increased in Europe.
Voting continues in Round 2 of the greatest Razorback football game of all time bracket
The opening round of voting for the greatest Razorback football game of all-time bracket went great! But it’s time to continue the bracket! Today, we open up 2nd round voting in the Houston Nutt Region! Make sure to submit your votes below!
Click here to view the full bracket!
Tomorrow (Thursday), we will have we will conclude 2nd round voting with the Hatfield Region! Get out there and vote on what you think the Greatest Razorback Football Game of All Time!
Musselman’s offers for in-state players building foundation for future
In a day and age where we have nothing else to discuss, it’s national signing day for college basketball Wednesday and Eric Musselman made his fifth offer for an in-state 2022 player Tuesday.
For a guy that studies everything it’s probably a safe bet he’s aware of Arkansas’ basketball history the biggest success has come with a generous sprinkling of home-grown players.
You can go back to the 1970’s when Eddie Sutton managed to get Marvin Delph out of Conway, Ron Brewer from Fort Smith and Sidney Moncrief out of Little Rock to catapult the program into the national spotlight.
Check some of the best players lists that’s been popular while everything in the world of sports has been shut down and there’s a pretty good representation of in-state players on the list.
Musselman offered Morrilton small forward Joseph Pinion, who is 6-6, 180 and has garnered some pretty high-level interest from the likes of Kansas, Baylor and Oklahoma among some other smaller schools.
Four others inside the state have gotten offers for 2022, too. Guard Nick Smith of Sylvan Hills, guard Derrian Ford of Magnolia, guard Javion Guy-King of Little Rock Mills, and center Kelel Ware of North Little Rock were already holding offers.
Don’t ask me how many he can actually sign here. The scholarship distribution for basketball is subject to a lot of changes based on who’s leaving and who’s coming. Of course there are some that get moved along, but that’s not really anything new.
But Musselman does know the public relations benefits of signing kids from within the state. Nobody can keep them all, so don’t be surprised if one or two go somewhere else.
You don’t get the signature, though, if you don’t make the offer.
Voting continues in Round 2 of the greatest Razorback football game of all time bracket
The opening round of voting for the greatest Razorback football game of all-time bracket went great! But it’s time to continue the bracket! Today, we open up 2nd round voting in the Paul Eells Region! Make sure to submit your votes below!
It’s time for Round 2 of the Greatest @RazorbackFB Game of All Time Bracket! Today, we open up 2nd round voting of the Paul Eells Region! Click the link below to vote now!https://t.co/zoSn8yNjnB
— ESPN Arkansas & HitThatLine.com (@HitThatLineAR) April 14, 2020
Click here to view the full bracket!
Tomorrow (Wednesday), we will have opening round voting for the Nutt Region! Get out there and vote on what you think the Greatest Razorback Football Game of All Time!
Razorbacks’ long dry run of failure on punt returns should end with Burks
It didn’t really dawn on me until one of Andrew Hutchinson’s stat stories at HawgBeat.com got my attention earlier that Arkansas hasn’t had a punt return touchdown since 2011.
Well, technically it was early 2012 when Joe Adams returned a punt against Kansas State in the Cotton Bowl following the 2011 season.
You would think over eight seasons the Razorbacks could have gotten one into the end zone completely by accident. I mean, they let North Texas bring one back in 2018 by faking a fair catch.
That’s one of the examples of the breakdowns in nearly a decade of futility when you really don’t have a special teams coach.
For all of last season the media was not allowed to take pictures or film special teams drills in the first period of practices. The guess was it wasn’t to hide the intricate nature of the jump pass fake punt that blew up spectacularly against Auburn.
I say all that to point out part of what was, in my opinion, the failure of the previous two staffs to really understand what they were doing. Special teams is a full third of the game and I’ve never seen a championship team that was horrible in every phase of special teams.
There’s no home cooking in saying Treylon Burks is going to end that run of failure for the Hogs.
In his first season in Fayetteville, Burks returned a dozen punts for 130 yards, which is a little over a first down on every return. He had a long return of 32 yards against Texas A&M where all the folks in Warren were assuming he was headed to the end zone.
The talented freshman has a unique way of catching the ball over his head instead of like using a basket, size 4XL hands and the speed. He had several returns that could have been big with one block.
Burks has a way of making at least one person miss.
With a full-time special teams coach now in Scott Fountain and it will be interesting to see where the improvements are in that area this year.
One thing that’s for certain is he’s had plenty of time to look at every special teams play from the last several seasons if he wanted to, not just last year.
It’s probably a good guess Burks not getting into the end zone jumped out.
And it’s a stat that probably will change.
