Ford on hard work, dad’s coaching, not getting to play title game
Derrian Ford, a four-star 2022 shooting guard recruit from Magnolia, talked with Tye Richardson and Tommy Craft (The Morning Rush) on ESPN Arkansas on Tuesday morning about continuing to work, his dad’s coaching and not getting to play championship game against Little Rock Mills due to the health crisis.
Young on reasons Kansas State shut down workouts after positive results
Kansas State’s two-week break on voluntary workouts is simply a brief pause.
“It sounds like the return date will be July 5,” KStateOnline.com’s Derek Young said Monday afternoon with Derek Ruscin and Zach Arns (Ruscin & Zach(Ruscin & Zach) on ESPN Arkansas.
And, of course, it opens up an entirely new problem that was probably the real reason coaches wanted the players in for voluntary workouts in the first place.
“There was some players going home in this time period,” Young said. “When they return they may be asked to undergo another quarantine-type period.”
That last part was a big reason why schools wanted the players back on campus so they can monitor and have some control. Players have gone to parties, ignored social distancing in some cases and carried on.
It’s a good bet the folks in charge anticipated that, too. The voluntary workouts allowed enough time for the inevitable positive cases to come up, quarantine and go forward.
As we’ve said and numerous administrators have been criticized for being optimistic about, it’s a good bet college football will start on time and play a complete season.
Of course, the numbers at every school may be as high (or higher than Kansas State).
“Not every school is going to be as transparent or giving with this kind of information simply because they don’t have to,” Young said. “Especially when it calls into the condition of student-athletes which is more of nobody’s business.”
All of that leads to wild speculation on social media from people with their sources that may or may not be correct. The guess is, considering testing numbers everywhere show rising numbers in people under the age of 30.
The good news is the under-25 age demographic shows a mortality rate of, well, less than 1%, according to the Center for Disease Control. An overwhelming large percentage of those never show symptoms. Now there are questions if asymptomatic people are, as first reported, actually transmitting the disease.
In Arkansas, 98.7% of those that test positive have lived. Over 93% of people tested are negative.
As always, follow whatever rules are in place and other than that do what you feel is best, but be considerate of others.
And don’t worry. Kansas State reportedly had 14 players test positive and took a two-week break. Others are continuing with quarantine measures.
The number doing the latter of those two steps are probably the minority, by the way.
Opitz on Halftime about next season: ‘This team is going to be special’
Returning Arkansas catcher Casey Opitz Monday afternoon told Phil Elson, Matt Jenkins and Matt Travis (Halftime) on ESPN Arkansas that he’s looking forward to a fun year with a talent-laden roster next season.
Green re-living big plays while playing for Hogs, looking ahead to a coaching career
Former Razorback running back Broderick Green will always have at least a tie for longest run in program history and he talked Monday morning with Tye Richardson and Tommy Craft (The Morning Rush) on ESPN Arkansas.
Green talked about the decision to get into coaching and he is now on the staff at Central Junior High in Springdale.
Will Razorback fans and media finally quit making excuses for coaches’ failures?
Sam Pittman has a long list of possible preseason excuses for his first year as Arkansas football coach, maybe the most obvious being he’s been on the job for half a year and hasn’t coached a practice.
That will change in about three weeks.
Fans and many in the media have spent years coming up with one excuse after another for a dismal football program.
Some, including the top of the entire UA system, were leading the charge along with many media people to try and talk themselves into believing a 6-6 record in 2014 followed by 7-5 was somehow justification to allow an inept athletics director to give a doofus coach a new contract to hamstring an entire program.
Nothing is more dangerous than providing people a good excuse for their own failure.
“We look at what we can do moving forward,” Pittman said in a Zoom press conference last month.
Arkansas football has had that by the bunches from fans and media for several years.
Pittman hasn’t made a single excuse. He knows the situation he walked into and, in fact, he sold the folks doing the hiring he wanted the job and could do it better than anybody else.
Whether he can follow through on that or not won’t be known for awhile, but now the common theme for low expectations is a low talent level.
It’s not that low.
The staff together now would have won at least seven games the last two seasons in my opinion primarily because the head coach started confused and never got much help from an offensive coordinator with no experience and a defensive coordinator that probably retired a few years before and just didn’t tell anybody.
About the only positive is the number of freshmen he kept the redshirt on last season. Add in what Pittman has added with graduate transfers and his first recruiting class and, yes, there’s talent on the roster.
Maybe not enough to sweep through Alabama, Auburn or LSU but enough to get a win over some other teams on the schedule.
Coaching is important. If nothing else, Arkansas fans have seen that over the previous eight seasons, going all the way from 11-2 in 2011 to 4-20 over the past two seasons.
Maybe the most glaring things over the last two seasons has been eight quarterbacks over two years, you can’t get the ball into the hands of your biggest playmakers at the right time and a defense that couldn’t stop far lesser teams.
The problems the last three seasons haven’t been about not having players. Don’t tell me Colorado State, San Jose or Western Kentucky had better players top to bottom. Coaching cost them multiple SEC games over two years.
Now Pittman just has to show he can put together a staff that can coach teams to win.
If he can’t, well, there shouldn’t be excuses and there probably won’t be from Pittman.
And, hopefully, nobody else.
Neighbors on music choices, television shows, ‘AAU Summer League Bingo’ cards
It’s summer and Hogs women’s basketball coach Mike Neighbors is working on his music list, television shows but broke down what qualifies for the “AAU Summer League Bingo” cards he and some buddies do every year.
While staying negative through several tests, Neighbors on Friday told Derek Ruscin and Zach Arns (Ruscin & Zach) on ESPN Arkansas about what he’s been doing to stay busy.
Pagnozzi on ESPN special about McGwire’s record-setting 1998 season
Former Arkansas and major league Tom Pagnozzi was with St. Louis for much of the 1998 season when Mark McGwire was chasing Roger Marris’ record and he talked about that and other baseball issues Friday afternoon with Derek Ruscin and Zach Arns (Ruscin & Zach) on ESPN Arkansas.
