John & Tommy discuss the best football position groups the last few years, interview Hutch, and more!
Hogs also gaining momentum recruiting Tennessee, adding LB
All of the talk of Chad Morris’ recruiting focus is Texas, but he’s fully aware of Tennessee and grabbed another player from there Tuesday morning.
Memphis Whitehaven four-star linebacker Martavius French announced his commitment to Arkansas with a video on Twitter:
Thanking God for every moment of this opportunity ??….COMMITTED pic.twitter.com/aEfMFsTJjv
— F R E N C H I E?? (@ypcjuice2) July 23, 2019
It’s the fourth Tennessee four-star player Morris and his staff have picked up. Before Morris arrived in December 2017, the Razorbacks had signed 15 players from Tennessee in the last 19 recruiting classes.
Morris and his staff have now signed seven players total in what will be their third recruiting class.
According to the 247Sports composite ratings, French (6-2, 240) is a four-star player and the No. 14 inside linebacker in the 2020 class.
Leading the recruiting effort was defensive coordinator John Chavis along with defensive line coach Kenny Ingram and assistant director of football operations SJ Tuohy.
After the announcement was made it didn’t take long for another commitment from the 2020 class to send his welcome:
Yessirrr! Welcome to the family!#DiamondGangXX @ypcjuice2 https://t.co/Oq10HyaiUQ
— Chandler Morris (@Chandleram4) July 23, 2019
Arkansas now has 14 players committed with three of them four-stars, according to the composite rankings, which is from all the major recruiting services.
???? Halftime Pod presented by Jeff’s Clubhouse — w/ RJ Hawk
Phil & Tye hit on Jerry Jones’ influence with the football program, interview RJ Hawk, and more!
Talent beats the daylights out of lesser talented experience every time
Every single year at this time we hear all about how many returning starters and lettermen a team has coming back and that is, to an large extent, what some use to predict what’s going to happen.
For predicting the top of the heap, well, that’s a sound theory.
If you’re coming off a 2-10 season, having a lot of starters coming back would be the biggest nightmare Arkansas fans could hear.
The good news is there’s not a lot.
At SEC Media Days in 2008, the prevailing thought among the experts was Alabama was going to be a littler better than Nick Saban’s 2007 debut of 7-6 … but not a lot.
For Crimson Tide fans, that’s bad enough, but just seven years before they were 3-8 and a mere three years previously they were 4-9.
I picked the Tide to win the SEC West on an Alabama radio show and they were aghast. Calling me crazy was one of the milder comments.
My reasons were simple. They had an unbelievable cast of incoming freshmen and some sophomores that looked very, very good but struggled to get the grasp of a new coaching staff.
“Talent will beat the daylights out of less talented experience,” I said at the time.
The Tide won the West, but lost to Florida in the SEC Championship.
Fast-forward to 2016 and Urban Meyer at the Big 10 media gathering.
“I’ll take talent over experience every time,” he said. “I don’t recruit players to redshirt ’em.”
Chad Morris isn’t recruiting players for them to sit on the sidelines for a year. Maybe there were a couple last year, but not anymore.
That’s why there’s reason for optimism this year for all but the Hogs’ Lunatic Fringe of the fan base. There won’t be many guys back off last year’s team … and that’s the biggest reason for optimism.
For a young team, the schedule sets up about as well as it can. Three non-conference opponents they should be able to handle, an SEC matchup in the second week against an Ole Miss team that hasn’t got any more experience and may not be as good defensively as last season.
It’s not out of the realm of possibility for the Hogs to be 4-0 headed to Arlington to play a Texas A&M team coming off an opening lineup that includes a road game at Clemson and a home matchup against Auburn the week before.
If the Aggies are 4-0 at that point, well, all bets are off, but here’s a guess they won’t be.
Arkansas’ youngsters might not realize they aren’t supposed to be any good.
The upperclassmen coming back appeared to have changed their attitude in the spring. The guess here is that he won’t say it, but Morris invited any of them that weren’t buying into the new way 100 percent, they were welcome to leave.
Some did. A few didn’t.
You need every position to be outstanding to win a title, but you can win some games if you have playmakers at the skill position.
Right now, Morris and his staff need wins. They needed new faces to get those.
Now they have them.
And it’s better to have good youngsters than bad old-timers.
???? Halftime Pod presented by Jeff’s Clubhouse — w/ Steve Sullivan
Phil & Tye hit on Arkansas being picked last in the SEC West again, interview Steve Sullivan, and more!
Razorbacks to open 2019 season at end of August in Barnhill Arena
FAYETTEVILLE — Featuring 13 home matches at Barnhill Arena, fourth-year head coach Jason Watson has released the Razorbacks’ schedule for the upcoming year.
The Hogs will open the 2019 slate with the Arkansas Classic beginning Aug. 30.
- Season and home opener: Aug. 30 vs Northwestern State
- SEC opener: Wednesday, Sept. 25 at LSU
- SEC home opener: Friday, Oct. 4 vs Texas A&M
- Six opponents that participated in the 2018 NCAA Volleyball Tournament
- 30 regular season matches | 13 home – 11 away – six neutral
- Four first-time opponents: Arkansas – Pine Bluff, Princeton, San Diego State and West Virginia
For the eighth time in ten years, Arkansas will kick off the fall with a home tournament. This year’s classic includes Southland Conference opponent Northwestern State, as well as the Sun Belt’s Little Rock Trojans and Montana State from the Big Sky Conference.
“Our home schedule begins with a competitive home tournament,” Watson stated. “Opening home is a great way for us to prepare for the season.”
The Razorbacks will be playing with some new flare under their feet, as a newly designed volleyball court will be revealed at the home opener in late August.
“The Arkansas classic will be a great chance for Razorback fans to see our new court design among all the exciting things happening in Barnhill,” said Watson. “I greatly appreciate the cooperation of both our graphics and facilities departments for making our new court come to life.”
After opening the season at home at the Arkansas Classic, the Razorbacks will hit the road for a busy September, making stops for invitationals in San Diego, Calif. (Sept. 5-7), College Park, Md. (Sept. 13-14) and Athens, Ga. (Sept. 19-20).
Under Watson, Arkansas is 16-6 against non-conference opponents over the last two seasons. The Hogs will look to capitalize on a heavy road non-conference schedule, taking advantage of facing diverse opponents early in the season.
“We have been able to put together a schedule that exposes to a lot of different conferences and style of play. Traveling to different coasts and seeing such different opponents is meant to challenge us, and it will,” Watson said. “I am especially excited to play Little Rock and Arkansas-Pine Bluff.
“This is a unique opportunity for each program. It’s a blend of teams that are competitive within their respective conferences.”
This year’s home schedule features nine conference matches, including a four-match home stand during November, including NCAA Tournament team, Tennessee. Arkansas will face Texas A&M on Oct. 4 for its SEC home opener.
“The SEC is a conference that is growing in its competitive depth. It’s an exciting conference. Our athletes are committed to making the 2019 season a season where we add to that depth.”
Arkansas is coming of a season in which it posted an 11-17 overall record, a step back from the 2017 campaign. Earlier this summer, the Razorbacks were picked to finish ninth in the SEC in the preseason coaches’ poll.
The 2019 postseason begins on Dec 5. with the first and second rounds of the NCAA Tournament with the regional round set for Dec. 13-14 at four non-predetermined sites. The national semifinals and championship matches will be played Dec. 19 and 21 at the PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburg, Pa.
Harris named to watch list for national award to best linebacker
FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas’ De’Jon Harris has been named to the Butkus Award watch list, which honors the nation’s best linebackers.
Harris is the fifth Razorback placed on a preseason watch list this summer, joining McTelvin Agim (Bednarik), Rakeem Boyd (Doak Walker) and Devwah Whaley (Doak Walker) and Cheyenne O’Grady (Mackey).
It’s the second-straight year Harris has received watch list honors for the Butkus Award.
From Harvey, Louisiana, Harris led all conference defenders in total tackles and solo stops during the regular season last year, posting 118 and 62, respectively.
It marked back-to-back years Harris has paced the Razorbacks in total tackles, recording 115 the year before. He was the first Arkansas defender since Jerry Franklin (2010-11) to hit 100 tackles in consecutive seasons.
Seven of his 12 games resulted in double-digit tackle performances last season, the most in the SEC, including five during conference action. He finished the year needing 15 tackles to crack the top 10 for most stops in a single season by an Arkansas defender.
Harris also recorded nine tackles for loss, including two sacks, with five pass breakups, a fumble forced and a fumble recovered last season.
Harris’ performance in 2018 landed him on the Associated Press All-SEC second team. He’ll enter his senior campaign as the SEC active career tackles leader with 270, needing 60 stops to move into 10th on the career tackles list Arkansas.
He was also named to the Preseason All-SEC second team last week by the media covering the conference, with Agim landing on the third team.
Semifinalists for the Butkus Award will be named on Nov. 4, finalists on Nov. 25 and winners on or before Dec. 10.
Harris and the Razorbacks will open the 2019 campaign on Saturday, Aug. 31, against Portland State at 3 p.m. at Razorback Stadium.
Bud Light Morning Rush Podcast: Monday
John & Tommy discuss the QB situation, Pat Fitzgerald on cell phones, Tom Murphy and more!
Accountability, attitude clearly different for Hogs with ‘every’ thing
It wasn’t really surprising when the SEC sent out a press release Friday on the media’s voting at SEC Media Days that put Arkansas squarely on the bottom of the West.
That was pretty much the prevailing view everybody has, including a large segment of the Razorbacks’ fan base more afraid of being let down than having a positive view.
“I’m not going to put a number on it,” Chad Morris said Wednesday when asked point-blank at one point about wins-and-losses.
If he had, it likely would have been the biggest newsmaker to come out of the four days of mostly boredom where the press spends a large amount of time, well, interviewing each other.
But you get the idea Morris feels like they’ve turned the corner in building the “culture,” which may have been the most often-repeated phrase from every coach over the four days.
“Inside our program and talking to our seniors and our leaders, and they want to leave their legacy,” he said. “Getting this program into the post season is definitely a goal of ours, and it’s something we have talked about. We started talking about it 235 days ago, but it was going to take a lot.”
What Morris inherited was a group of players that had little direction, motivation or accountability. When the head coach has a private room in the back of a club down on Dickson Street to sleep off social hour, well, it filters down.
Morris has taken steps in all three of those areas.
“How far do you really want to go with this?” he talked at Media Days about asking everybody in the program. “I’m asking for our football program and our staff to be consistent and to be the best they can be each and every day.”
Like coaches winning the championships these days, Morris has his own process that he’s banking on getting the Hogs back to a level of success. Don’t forget last year, but don’t particularly use it as a baseline going forward.
Morris is changing just about everything.
“It doesn’t happen overnight,” he said Wednesday.
When you’re competing for (and winning) championships, it’s more about that culture word we keep hearing these days. What it means, simply, is the players take accountability for themselves and the other players.
It’s exactly how John McDonnell used to explain piling up all those championships. If there was an issue with an athlete, he often found out about it after it was resolved by the athletes themselves with the leaders taking charge.
There was none of that the last few years at Arkansas. It wouldn’t be surprising if some of the upperclassmen weren’t teaching the exact wrong things.
“The process has gone from being a coach-led team to a player-led culture following three steps we always talk about: I know it. I do it. And I own it,” he said of what he expectins each player to be saying to himself.
The little things usually make the difference in college sports these days. The Razorbacks found themselves falling farther and farther behind, starting over a decade ago. Coaches still trying to make what worked 20-30 years ago in an ever-changing modern world was a path heading downhill and picking up speed.
One coach thought he couldn’t be fired. The other didn’t care with the amount of money he was owed. He didn’t demand the ridiculous buyout after a less-than-mediocre .500 season, but he wasn’t going to turn it down, either.
The result was a snowball rolling down a mountain for a decade and Morris inherited it.
At that point, well, it may have just been better to go ahead and get to the bottom so you could start back up, which may explain last season.
It was a year of cleaning house. The direction it goes this season will say more than last year.
Attitude is a big part of it.
“Our vision is Every,” Morris told the gaggle at Media Days. “The word Every. Every matters. Every rep. Every day of those 235 days, that day one really does matter. What we did on that first day matters and what this year looks like. Everything matters and everything counts.”
He said it last year. It comes back to the accountability thing we mentioned earlier.
The players likely know he means it now.
???? Halftime Pod presented by Jeff’s Clubhouse — w/ Aaron Torres
Phil & Tye touch on Mitch Petrus’ passing, interview Aaron Torres, plus FOMO Friday!
