Arkansas coach Chad Morris announced Monday that redshirt freshman John Stephen Jones will start at quarterback Saturday with true freshman K.J. Jefferson also playing.
Chavis takes full responsibility for problems on Razorbacks’ defense
Razorbacks defensive coordinator John Chavis talked Monday about how this staff inherited something “already broken” and they haven’t gotten it fixed fast enough.
Craddock on decision for starting quarterback, facing Storey
Arkansas offensive coordinator Joe Craddock talked Monday about the decision to start John Stephen Jones at quarterback and facing former quarterback Ty Storey.
Hogs set to open season against Rice on Tuesday night
• Listen: ESPN Arkansas 95.3 in the River Valley, 96.3 in Hot Springs and 104.3 in Harrison-Mountain Home and HitThatLine.com
• Who: Rice Owls
• What: 2019-20 Season Opener – Arkansas Home Opener – Eric Musselman debut as Arkansas head coach
• When: Tuesday – Nov. 5, 2019 – 7 p.m.
• Where: Bud Walton Arena – Fayetteville, Ark.
FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas will open the 2019-20 season and the Eric Musselman era on Tuesday when the Razorbacks host one of their oldest rivals, Rice.
Tip-off at Bud Walton Arena is set for 7 p.m. and the game.
Versus Rice
• Rice is one of Arkansas’ oldest rivals. In fact, the Owls are one of three teams on this year’s schedule that Arkansas played in its first season of basketball (1923-24) along with Texas A&M and TCU.
• The Arkansas and Rice rivalry dates back to the Razorbacks’ first season of basketball, 1923-24. The two squads played twice that year — both at Rice and it was Arkansas’ second-to-last series of the year.
• Arkansas owns a 102-41 advantage in the series, including a 54-11 mark in games played in Fayetteville.
• Arkansas has won 15 straight in the series and 40 of the last 43. Rice is one of three teams Arkansas has beaten at least 100 times along with TCU (104) and Texas A&M (103).
• With 143 games played, Rice is Arkansas’ fourth-most common opponent. The leaders being Texas A&M (158; 102-56), Texas (155; 87-68), SMU (155; 96-59), Rice (143; 102-41), Baylor (143; 95-48) and TCU (142; 104-38).
• However, the Razorbacks and Owls have only played once since Arkansas left the Southwest Conference to join the SEC for the 1991-92 season. That lone meeting was on Dec. 17, 2005 in Little Rock, a game Arkansas won 80-61.
Arkansas in openers
• Arkansas opens its 97th season of basketball in 2019-20 and the first under head coach Eric Musselman.
• Arkansas is 77-19 all-time in season openers and has opened the year in the win column in 45 of the last 48 seasons.
• The Razorbacks have won 44 straight home openers, including a 26-0 record in openers inside Bud Walton Arena.
• The Razorbacks had a streak of 23 consecutive season openers end last year with an overtime loss to Texas in the ESPN Armed Forces Classic in El Paso.
• Eric Musselman is 4-0 in both home and season openers. Over the last three seasons, his season opener was also his home opener. In his first year as a collegiate head coach, Nevada opened the season with a win in Hawaii and returned to Reno to win its home opener.
November to remember
• For the first time ever, Arkansas will play seven games in the month of November this season. Also, Nov. 5 is the earliest Arkansas has opened a season.
• Arkansas has played as many as six times in the month on 10 occasions.
• Arkansas is 119-40 (.748) all-time in the month of November.
• Arkansas did not play in the month of November until the 1969-70 season and only played seven total games in the month over the next 10 years.
• Arkansas has played at least once in November dating back to the 1993-94 championship season when they beat Murray State, 93-62, on Nov. 29.
Isaiah Joe on Jerry West Shooting Guard of the Year watch list
• Arkansas sophomore Isaiah Joe was named to the 2020 Jerry West Shooting Guard of the Year Award watch list, the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame announced today.
• FANS CAN VOTE FOR THEIR FAVORITE PLAYER AT: http://www.hoophallawards.com/men/vote.php
Was O’Grady’s suspension for challenging Morris on Jefferson?
More and more the questions surrounding Saturday’s suspension of senior tight end C.J. O’Grady are getting directed at Chad Morris and his handling of the whole quarterback drama.
Did O’Grady go to Morris on Monday and relay the players’ position that freshman K.J. Jefferson should be starting?
Did the players find out Wednesday that Morris, who appears more and more paralyzed by indecision trying to coach at this level, decided to start Ben Hicks over Jefferson?
Did O’Grady go to Morris on behalf of the players, express disagreement with that decision and get suspended before the Mississippi State game?
With one coach in his second season getting fired Sunday, does Morris even get the opportunity to be embarrassed by one of the quarterbacks he ran off beating the Hogs on Saturday when Ty Storey comes to town with Western Kentucky?
Florida State went ahead and fired Willie Taggart on Sunday after a 9-12 start. Morris, is 4-17 in his second year at Arkansas and making no signs of figuring it out.
Former and current SEC coaches were asking the question Sunday, “is Morris the dumbest coach in the league?” over his handling of the whole mess.
It all comes back to Jefferson, who clearly was the best quarterback on the team when he stepped on the field in August camp, but has spent most of the season running the scout team for the defense.
When he came into a game that was out of hand in the first quarter against the Bulldogs on Saturday, the team clearly was energized more than it’s been nearly the entire season.
Have players been seeing Jefferson’s ability since August and finally pushed the issue now that Morris can’t use the “saving him” argument?
Did Morris respond like a high school coach and kick O’Grady off the team for the homecoming game? Did he actually try to prove a point by kicking a fifth-year senior off the team for THAT game?
With all these questions hanging out there, Morris proceeded in the post-mortem to make about as offensive of a comment an Arkansas coach could make about Jefferson:
“We kept it as simple as possible with him.”
For the Razorbacks, who have historically not had a large percentage of African-American players at the quarterback position, that comment was jaw-dropping.
The fact that Morris wasn’t trying to insult anybody just shows how in over his head he is as a head coach of an SEC program desperately trying to find a positive direction in today’s world of getting good players.
It’s not like he doesn’t take enough time. For a coach who has little regard for media deadlines and can’t seem to get anything on time, you’d think he would have a little better grasp of what to say.
Jefferson got a spark from the fans and the players. But you get the idea the players have known about him all along.
“We were as excited as the fans,” captain and senior linebacker De’Jon Harris said later.
“He has looked great in practice,” said wide receiver Mike Woods. “He looked good out there today … the same way he has been looking in practice.”
Have the players been pushing for him to play all along?
Did Morris duck and dodge THEIR questions like he does the media?
Did Morris lose this team back in September? That’s when the whispers started that he wasn’t playing the best players … the ones many thought gave the team the best chance to win.
He can’t use the excuse he knows who to play to win games because he hasn’t won enough games in two years to qualify for even a postseason trip to Shreveport.
No matter how far down the program was when he inherited it, things weren’t that bad.
But now we get down to maybe the most important question of all that can directly affect Razorback football and, effectively, an entire state.
With Florida State knocking over the first domino, how long can Hunter Yurachek wait to make a decision?
A choice, by the way, that could have a direct impact on HIS future.
And at 4-17, can anybody really afford to wait?
Is Morris proving he has no clue how to win games or coach in SEC?
If there were any holdovers wondering whether Chad Morris didn’t have a clue what’s wrong with Arkansas football or how to fix it, we found out Saturday it’s probably both.
The result in a 54-24 loss to Mississippi State left Morris and the players baffled.
“This was probably one of our worst tackling games we’ve had,” linebacker De’Jon Harris said later. “And we’ve been poor basically all year, really.”
A player sums it up better than the coach.
“It was a collection of things,” Morris said later.
The Bulldogs, who came stumbling into the game after getting thumped around lately, ran for 460 yards on a Razorback defense that really didn’t seem particularly interested in tackling the SEC’s leader rusher, Kylin Hill, who had 234 yards and averaged 11.1 yards per attempt.
Think about that a second. Hill averaged more than a first down everytime he ran the ball.
State also had another running back, Nick Gi son, ring up 129 yards, averaging 10.8 per attempt.
“I just did not think we showed up today,” Harris said. “I don’t know what’s going on.”
When you have a defensive coordinator making $1.5 million a year like John Chavis, giving up 640 yards and 54 points to the second-worst team in the SEC is not a good look.
The fact that you’re supposed to be an offensive whiz and sticking with a quarterback that, bless his heart, couldn’t play dead in a cowboy movie while sitting two players who have shown they can at least move the ball has gotten past ridiculous.
Morris is proving he doesn’t have a clue how to win in the SEC or put together an offense that can even move the ball.
Add to that a complete inability to develop anybody in two seasons to play quarterback and a lack of guts to actually play through mistakes for results and, well, you wonder how thin the ice is under Morris’ feet.
On top of all that, tight end C.J. O’Grady was suspended for the game, which has becoming disturbing trend under two coaching staffs, which kinda narrows down who’s got the problem.
“We’ll meet tomorrow,” was all Morris would say about it.
HawgBeat.com reported it may be the end of the road for O’Grady:
The suspension stems from the fifth-year senior missing multiple meetings the week leading up to Saturday’s game, according to sources. Barring an unforeseen development, his career with the Razorbacks is likely over.
If you’re looking for clues Morris has lost the players, take all of that however you will, but it’s not a good sign.
Especially when you look at how poorly this entire team has been responding.
In the first quarterback against the Bulldogs, the Hogs had the ball for just 2:51. They got one first down, coming on a 22-yard run by Rakeem Boyd.
Morris sticking with Hicks at quarterback after that made no sense. The Hogs’ only scores came on a 52-yard run by Boyd, then getting a 40-yard field goal after recovering a fumble on a punt, which pointed out another problem.
Jordan Silver had recovered the fumble on the State 23-yard line. The offense gained one yard and had an interception overturned on replay. Connor Limpert salvaged a 40-yard field goal to make it 24-10.
Morris tried to tell everyone the problem in the first half wasn’t all on Hicks.
“We dropped too many footballs,” Morris said. “[Hicks] was putting the ball where it needed to be early and we dropped balls and couldn’t get the chains moving.”
No, this was a complete inability by Hicks to provide any spark for the offense.
In the second half, Morris finally went with John Stephen Jones in the third quarter and K.J. Jefferson in the fourth period.
Both managed to move the team better.
But it was Jefferson’s scoring drive that gave a shot of electricity to a crowd that started small and dwindled as the set sat.
He started with a 21-yard run on first down, flattening a Mississippi State defensive back. Then he thew a jump ball to Treylon Burks down the right sideline for 32 yards that set up a 5-yard run by Jefferson.
Jones had delivered a scoring pass on a fourth-and-8 from the Bulldogs’ 11 that dropped in perfectly to Mike Woods in the back of the end zone.
“It was a helluva throw,” Boyd said later.
Morris still wouldn’t name a starter for next week, either. Or rule anybody out.
“We’ll get back in here tomorrow and go through that,” Morris said.
So, in effect, he said he has no clue what to do.
Get ready for an interesting week.
Morris extremely disappointed in Hogs in another blowout loss
Arkansas coach Chad Morris used the word “disappointment” several times referring to the 54-24 loss to Mississippi State on homecoming Saturday.
Agim, Boyd on loss to Mississippi State, not making plays they need
Arkansas defensive lineman McTelvin Agim and running back Rakeem Boyd talked after another blowout loss, this time to the Bulldogs on homecoming Saturday.
Woods, Harris recapping disappointing loss to Mississippi State
Razorbacks wide receiver Mike Woods and linebacker De’Jon Harris talked after the 54-24 loss to Mississippi State on Saturday.
GAME THREAD: Jefferson FINALLY gets in, sparks Hogs to quick score
Freshman quarterback K.J. Jefferson got in the game and immediately ripped off a big run, then threw a jump ball that Treylon Burks came down with and scored to cut State’s lead to 48-24 with 9:47 to play.
