John & Tommy discuss the new officiating twitter account, plus interviews with Logan Booker, Richard Cross, and Billy Liucci!
Burrow one of most important of QBs at Media Days this year
Nine schools are bringing quarterbacks to SEC Media Days this year and they are all important, but what LSU is wanting to do with Joe Burrow this year may make him one of more critical ones.
“This is Joe’s type of offense,” Tigers coach Ed Orgeron said after saying they have installed a spread offense.
You can be excused if you take a skeptical view. A lot of folks are right there with you. We’ve heard it before, right?
“This style of offense is the offense I have been doing since I was 14 or 15,” Burrow said. “No huddle, get the ball out fast. So that is kind of what I was comfortable with, and I had to get comfortable doing the other style of offense last year.”
We lost count of how many times Les Miles promised to open up the offense and have the quarterback do more things, other than to recruit some pretty good dual-threat quarterbacks, then force them into a traditional pro-style offense.
This time, Orgeron claims he means it.
“It’s not a threat, I promise you that” he said. “We are going to run the spread offense. It’s in … it’s in the playbook.”
To be honest, just about everybody has to do that these days or risk losing in the recruiting game. Ask Bret Bielema how falling on your face there catches up to you with the fan base unless you’re winning double-digit games every year.
Shoot, even Jim Harbaugh has gone to it with Michigan and that may be more shocking than LSU spreading it out.
Maybe the biggest key is we’ll apparently see Burrow turned loose more this year because backup Myles Brennan is healthy this year. He wasn’t last year and Orgeron didn’t want to get Burrow hurt.
“We could not run Joe as much as we wanted to last year,” he said. “Myles Brennan was hurt … now Myles Brennan is healthy. We’re going to do a lot more running with joe this year.”
While Orgeron would probably like to see Burrow do something other than try to run over people, though.
“If we let him, he would run into a brick wall,” he said of Burrow’s running style. “He has a linebacker mentality.
And it doesn’t sound like Burrow is changing.
“If you slide, more people get hurt than when they don’t,” was Burrows. “If you don’t slide, you will be really sore, but I don’t think you are going to get really hurt. You see when people slide, and someone will dive into their ankle or twist their ankle or twist their knee so that’s part of it.”
But there’s another solution for him.
“You also want to be smart and get out of bounds if there is a 250-pound linebacker chasing you down who is faster, stronger, and bigger than you, so yeah I will get out of bound in that situation,” Burrow said.
Which may be good news for Orgeron and LSU fans.
That simply proves he’s not insane.
???? Halftime Podcast presented by Jeff’s Clubhouse: Norsworthy, O’Gara
Phil & Tye hit on Greg Sankey’s comments, plus interviews with Brett Norsworthy and Connor O’Gara!
Agim named to watch list for annual Bednarik Award for defensive players
FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas senior defensive lineman McTelvin Agim was named to the Chuck Bednarik Award Watch List on Monday by the Maxwell Football Club.
In its 25th year, the Bednarik Award recognizes the top college defensive player of the year and is named after former Penn and Philadelphia Eagles standout Chuck Bednarik.
It marks back-to-back years the Razorbacks have been represented on the watch list, as De’Jon Harris made last year’s squad.
Agim, a native of Texarkana, Arkansas, put together a strong junior campaign for the Razorbacks, racking up 45 total tackles, 16 unassisted, over 12 starts in 2018. He led the team in tackles for loss last year with 10, making him the first Arkansas defender to reach double-digit TFLs since Deatrich Wise Jr. in 2015.
Nearly half of his tackles for loss were sacks (4.5), as he’ll enter the season as Arkansas’ active career leader in both categories.
Agim also forced a team-best three fumbles in 2018, including two at Colorado State on Sept. 8 to make him the only Razorback on the roster to force multiple fumbles in two separate games heading into the 2019 campaign.
Agim will be one of three representatives at the 2019 SEC Football Media Days on Wednesday at Hoover, Alabama, joining Harris and Devwah Whaley, as well as coach Chad Morris.
Semifinalists for the Bednarik Award will be announced on Oct. 29, while the three finalists for each award will be unveiled Nov. 25.
The winner will be announced as part of the Home Depot College Football Awards Show held on Dec. 12, in Atlanta, Georgia.
Predictions for SEC standings as Media Daze prepares to kick off
As the annual pilgramage of media folks to Hoover begins from all across the South for SEC Media Daze, there are about three things you can count on happening this week:
- Alabama will be picked to win the SEC West
2. Georgia will be picked to win the SEC East
3. Arkansas will be picked dead last in the West
Everything else is wide open with the possible exception nobody representing a school will doubt their program is going to have a losing record.
Well, there is always the annual game of how close the transcription of LSU’s Ed Orgeron talk gets to what he actually said, but it’s doubtful anyone will understand a big part of it. Usually, you can simply recycle the clichés he uses every year.
The prevailing thought among media members across the SEC this summer is that the Razorbacks won’t make a bowl game, but should have a better record.
Don’t be surprised if that’s about the most positive thing you hear over the next few days, not counting comments from Chad Morris and players Devwah Whaley, Sosa Agim and De’Jon Harris.
Many of the Hogs’ fan base have their own doomsday predictions.
While I’m not ready to put this Razorback team in the College Football Playoff, it will be surprising if they don’t rebound better than most predict. That’s just how things have gone with the Hogs for, well, the entire history of the program.
The biggest results usually come when the least is expected.
Here’s my predictions for the annual gathering:
SEC West
1. Alabama
2. LSU
3. Texas A&M
4. Arkansas
5. Auburn
6. Mississippi State
7. Ole Miss
SEC East
1. Florida
2. Georgia
3. Tennessee
4. South Carolina
5. Kentucky
6. Missouri
7. Vanderbilt
SEC Champion: Alabama
The explanation
While I think the Hogs will be drastically improved, there are also going to be some teams in the SEC West that will come down a few notches, despite having a deeper roster.
Auburn is walking a tightrope in maybe the most fragile environment in the division. Plus, they have one of the most brutal early schedules in all of college football.
Oregon, Texas A&M, Florida and Mississippi State are all in the first six games to open the season.
A loyal, hopeful, devoted fan base with a massive inferiority complex to the big elephant up the road. When they lose a game, half are ready to dump the coach.
Let’s face it, Gus Malzahn was one officials’ call away from probably getting fired in 2016 in the LSU game, but it was the Tigers who dumped Les Miles. We’ll never know, but that was the feeling of many.
Mississippi State had four of the first 44 players taken in April’s NFL Draft and lost a fifth-year senior quarterback … from a team that was 7-5 last year in the regular season.
That’s a lot for a team to replace and they are going to a new look offensively in Joe Moorhead’s second season. They want to throw it around a little more.
Ole Miss is debuting a new quarterback with two new coordinators on both sides of the ball, so it won’t be surprising to see them struggle a little early and by the time they get it figured out, well, it might be too late.
Plus, on the Hogs’ schedule, Kentucky and Missouri are the teams from the East and I don’t think either one’s going to be as good as last season. Yes, I know Kelly Bryant is the quarterback for the Tigers, but he’s not Drew Lock, who was the biggest problem for Arkansas in 2016-17.
Finally, last season was a complete train wreck for Morris in his first season. There’s been a lot of addition with, simply, some players not coming back and an influx of talented young players at positions where they can contribute immediately.
The last thing you want from a bad team is a large number of returning starters.
And the guess here is that won’t be a big number.
Loy transfers to third school in three years, walking on at Arkansas
After spending the first two seasons of his collegiate career at Vanderbilt, Sam Loy sat out a year at Colorado and now has announced a transfer to Arkansas, announcing it on Twitter on Friday.
Excited to be back in the SEC as an Arkansas Razorback! Thanks to @coachchadmorris @CoachDaPrato and everyone over @RazorbackFB #Razorbacks pic.twitter.com/4qc8BsQtPI
— Sam Loy (@samloy19) July 12, 2019
Loy is expected to be eligible immediately and will have another year of eligibility for use at Arkansas or if he decides to add a fourth school.
He was the primary punter at Vanderbilt for two years, being named to the SEC’s All-Freshman team in 2016 with a 41.6-yard average with 22 kicks downed inside the 20-yard line. The next season he averaged 40.2 yard per punt.
Loy will join Reid Bauer as the only punters on the roster … both walk-ons. Bauer averaged 38.9 yards per punt last season.
Amer places 28th at World Championships in Korea over weekend
Arkansas diver Maha Amer opened up her busy 2019 FINA World Championships on Friday in Gwangju, Korea with a 28th place finish in the 1-meter springboard competition.
Amer was in 22nd place after her second dive of the day scored 46.80 but slipped to 33rd after her fourth dive.
She bounced back nicely with a 45.60 in her fifth and final dive to put her back into the top 30.
The opening day of the FINA World Championships featured men’s and women’s 1-meter springboard diving as the first of three events for Amer for her native Egypt.
She’ll compete on Wednesday alongside fellow Razorback Brooke Schultz in the 3-meter springboard before wrapping up her week as part of the Egyptian’s 3-meter mixed synchro team.
???? Halftime Pod presented by Jeff’s Clubhouse — w/ Otis Kirk
Phil & Tye hit on the pressure placed on the freshmen WR’s interview Otis Kirk, and more!
Bud Light Morning Rush Podcast: Friday
John & Nick discuss if the team goes 0-8 in conference, Clay Henry, plus actors they want to portray their lives.
ANDY’S NOTES: Uniforms, SEC Media Days in dead days of summer
You know the doldrums of summer have arrived when a new uniform look dominates the news cycle around Arkansas sports for the week.
Yes, the look is a drastic improvement and there are people who have quietly hinted it might be more than a one-time thing, but the talk is uniforms.
That tends to happen following a bad season and last year was that and more.
Some like it, some don’t.
Nobody is saying how frequently we’ll see the Razorbacks in those new uniforms, but some have whispered it may be more than you think.
Don’t throw looking like Oklahoma in there because Jim McKenzie and Barry Switzer took the current look to the Sooners when they went there in 1966. It was at Arkansas first.
With any luck, they’ll throw the anthracite stuff into a big pile and create a bonfire tradition.
Along with everything having the front-facing Hog on it.
What we’ll know from SEC Media Days
While a large number of media people will congregate in Hoover, Ala., next week — primarily to interview each other for four days — fans will start seriously paying attention to the fast-approaching college football season.
Don’t expect the Hogs to get a lot of votes above the bottom in the SEC West.
My pick will continue to be Alabama in the West, Florida in the East. That’s what it has been every single year.
Nine times that’s hit dead on (10 if you count the year the Crimson Tide won the West, but couldn’t go to Atlanta due to NCAA issues). Six more times one of those two teams have been there.
Picking the lottery that well would pay off handsomely.
Preseason picks are just so much babble because nobody can predict injuries or breaks.
Or officials’ calls.
Depth is the key to winning
Winning a title in the SEC is about who has the best first 44 players … not 24.
Arkansas doesn’t happen to have a lot of proven players. They do have a lot of players with potential, but they’ve got to prove they can do it in the SEC.
The good news is three non-conference games in September the Hogs will be favored to win. The league opener against Ole Miss in the second week is a winnable game, despite being on the road.
Traditionally, that hasn’t mattered against the Rebels, which is pretty much the only league team the previous coaching staff could win against consistently.
As I’ve said before, we won’t know anything for sure about this team until October … unless it’s bad.
