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Too early to be concerned about Razorbacks’ struggling spring offense?
In the early periods of Wednesday’s spring practice, something just didn’t look right with Arkansas’ offense.
Apparently that continued through the rest of the day, which was extremely windy, but nobody was blaming that.
“We just weren’t ready to go today,” offensive tackle Colton Jackson said later. “They just basically manhandled us.”
On the seventh day of practice, you normally could shrug it off as one of those days, but the belt the coaches hand out to the side of the ball that performs best that day hasn’t landed in the offense’s room yet.
The defense forced four fumbles on the day. Apparently the awarding of the belt wasn’t a tough decision.
“We didn’t get a lot going today,” running back Chase Hayden said.
Jackson said it wasn’t as much of a physical difference as what was happening above the shoulder pads.
“It was just guys making mental mistakes,” he said. “Not being where they were supposed to be. Not making the right reads. Not knowing which guys to block. It wasn’t physical at all, it was all mental mistakes.”
For Jackson’s it’s about accountability.
“It’s just something you have to take personal pride in,” he said. “After practice looking at what you messed up on, working on that, getting in the film room and seeing what you messed up on and be sure you don’t make them again.”
Part of it may be where the offense is on putting things in.
“We’re trying to install more each day,” Jackson said. “But we can’t do that until everybody gets what we’ve already installed. So, if you can’t do the basics you can’t install more.”
The other side knows what’s coming, too, and they aren’t playing it simple.
“Our defense is over there scheming up our plays and scheming up everything we have,” he said, “because we only have five plays in. If the guys get the basics of what we have in, we can move on and establish more of our offense. We can be more versatile out there and the defense wouldn’t be able to run the perfect blitzes on everything we’re doing.
“Guys gotta take it on themselves to get in the film room, do extra, study the playbook … just stuff like that.”
Chad Morris has said since the first spring practice this was about getting back to the basics. When that happens the defense is usually ahead of the offense early and that’s really exactly where this team is.
A former championship defensive coordinator broke it down pretty simple one time decades ago.
“You can talk about these schemes all you want,” he said. “But the bottom line on defense is when the ball is snapped, you see who’s got the ball and put him on the ground as fast as possible.”
John Chavis is making the offense’s life complicated with a heavy dose of different things with every practice.
“They sent a lot of blitzes we weren’t really prepared for,” running back Chase Hayden said.
The running back situation where injuries have hit an area that wasn’t incredibly deep after two of the top ones have been out.
First it was Rakeem Boyd, who was ruled out of all spring recovering from shoulder surgery. Then Devwah Whaley and converted cornerback Jordon Curtis have missed the last two practices.
The defense is also obviously stepping things up more than a notch or two.
“Chief’s whole emphasis is cranking the lawnmower,” defensive tackle T.J. Smith said Wednesday. “Getting the ball out, so that’s what guys have been doing.”
In other words, they’re cranking the mower and the offense has been the grass.
“We haven’t lost the belt,” Smith said with a big grin.
With eight practices left (and that includes the Red-White Game on April 6) there’s now a break on workouts until March 26.
Jackson said the offense knows what they have to do.
“We’ve got to come back after spring break and not let that happen again,” he said.
It’s probably too early to start worrying about the offense, but some concern might not necessarily be a bad thing for fans.
There are, as always, some explanations.
Turnovers in Saturday’s scrimmage were primarily by backups and the defense is obviously taking advantage of the learning curve with a lot of new faces on the offensive side of things.
But that’s all part of getting back to the basics.
At least that’s the hope, which isn’t always the best plan of action going forward.
For now, though, that may be as good as it’s going to get for at least a couple of weeks.
SPRING PRACTICE: Faces of spring from Wednesday’s sunny practice
Wednesday morning it rained, but it was bright and sunny when Arkansas took the field for the seventh practice of the spring and here’s a look at some of the faces during the drills.
PHOTOS BY ANDY HODGES | HITTHATLINE.COM
Hogs’ Jackson on how defense dominating offense first half of spring
At almost the halfway point of spring practice after the final workout before spring break, offensive lineman Colton Jackson talked about why the defense is dominating because of familiarity with the limited number of plays in the offense now.
Hayden on offense’s turnovers handing daily belt to defense again
Razorbacks running back Chase Hayden talked with the media after practice Wednesday about the turnovers and offense continuing to have problems during spring practice drills.
Curl on having more success creating turnovers with Hogs’ defense
Arkansas defensive back Kamren Curl talked Wednesday afternoon about how the defense’s approach is starting to pay dividends creating turnovers.
Smith on working with new defensive line coach, aggressive approach
Razorbacks defensive lineman T.J. Smith talked after Wednesday’s practice about how much he’s enjoying working with new defensive line coach Kenny Ingram and a different, more aggressive approach on the line.
McClellion with belt after defense wins again in Wednesday practice
Arkansas defensive back talked with the media after they once again won the belt over the offense in practice Wednesday.
Razorbacks’ rally falls short in 2-1 midweek home loss to Tulsa
FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas dropped its third-s traight game on Wednesday, falling to Tulsa, 2-1, getting the winning run on base in the seventh, but leaving a pair of runners stranded.
Arkansas (19-6, 1-2) jumped out to a one-run lead in the first inning, with the night’s lone RBI coming from starting catcher, freshman Taylor Greene.
The offensive fire in the first inning looked to be the start of an exciting evening, but the Razorbacks just couldn’t maintain their momentum in the following innings.
Tulsa (14-8, 0-0) responded with a run of its own in the top of the second to tie the game, a solo home run far over the left-field wall. The home run was the fourth given up by sophomore Mary Haff this season.
The Golden Hurricane took the lead in the fifth inning off back-to-back base hits from Alexis Perry and Rylie Spell, with Spell’s double bringing in Perry for the winning run.
Now trailing, 2-1, Arkansas would look to Autumn Storms for help in the circle. Storms entered and pitched two innings, giving up no additional runs and only one hit, dishing out 15 strikes in 19 pitches.
Diaz went 2-for-4 at the plate for Arkansas and was the lone Hog to cross the plate, off Greene’s bat in the first. It was Diaz’ 45th multi-hit game in the cardinal and white.
The Razorbacks’ will be back in action on Friday as they pick back up in SEC play, hosting South Carolina beginning on Friday at 6:00 pm (CT). Two of the three games during the conference series will be broadcast on SEC Network +: Friday (March 15) and Sunday (March 17).
Strong pitching leads Hogs to run-rule win over Western Illinois
FAYETTEVILLE — Pitching led the way once again for 10th-ranked Arkansas on Wednesday as five Hog hurlers combined for only four hits allowed and 10 strikeouts in an 11-1 eight-inning victory over Western Illinois at Baum-Walker Stadium.
Prior to the game, both head coaches from Arkansas and Western Illinois agreed to put a run-rule in place if either team had a 10-run lead after seven innings were played.
The Razorbacks reached that limit in the bottom of the eighth as pinch hitter Matt Goodheart singled home the winning run in his only plate appearance of the day.
Redshirt sophomore right-hander Marshall Denton made his first start of his career and worked three scoreless innings, giving up only two hits, no walks, and tallying three strikeouts.
Freshmen Evan Taylor and Elijah Trest followed, then Zebulon Vermillion and Liam Henry finished the final two innings.
Denton has only given up one earned run in his 10 innings this season and struck out 15. Wednesday’s three-inning outing was his second-longest of his career and the strikeout total was the second-most as well.
The combo of Denton followed by Taylor was practically untouchable. Taylor, making his fifth appearance of the year, threw two hitless innings, allowing only one walk and he struck out a season-high four. Taylor has yet to give up a run in his 5.1 innings this year and has only walk three.
Offensively, Casey Martin, Trevor Ezell, Dominic Fletcher and Jacob Nesbit all turned in multi-hit games. Fletcher drove in a team-best three RBIs, one off a sacrifice fly in the fourth and the other two off a hard-hit double to straightaway centerfield, making it 9-1 Razorbacks.
It was Fletcher’s second multi-hit performance in four games and first three-RBI game of the season. He’s also reached base in seven-straight games dating back to the series finale against Stony Brook on March 2.
Arkansas (14-2) was well on its way to logging its third-consecutive shutout before the Leathernecks scored its lone run in the sixth inning. It snapped a streak of 23-consecutive scoreless innings thrown by the Razorback pitching staff going back to its 11-0 shutout of Louisiana Tech last Sunday.
Not only have the runs been at a premium, but the strikeout-to-walk ratio continues to climb as the team heads into conference play against Missouri this weekend.
After 16 games, Arkansas pitchers have racked up 183 strikeouts to 45 walks, good for a 4.07 strikeout-to-walk ratio.
Wednesday’s game against Western Illinois marked the ninth time in the last 10 games that Hog pitchers have struck out 10 or more and ninth time they’ve walked two or less.
Razorback quotables
“I thought that Marshall Denton did a great job getting us off to a good start on a windy day. He didn’t give them anything, no walks, just kept throwing strikes and we fielded the ball and got back in the dugout. Pretty much everyone we put out there did their job. I think we walked them one time on the day and gave up four or five hits, but we were never really in any danger of giving up a big inning, so that was good.” — Coach Dave Van Horn on Marshall Denton’s start and the rest of the pitching staff
I feel like everybody’s healthy. That’s always a big concern. We’ve played 16 games and the competition is varied. I thought for the most part, you take away maybe four or five innings throughout the first 16 games, we’ve played pretty solid defense and made some really good plays in the field. We’ve thrown a lot of strikes. We don’t walk a lot of people. I think anytime you’re coaching a team in baseball and you feel like the team is going to make the other team beat you, because we haven’t been beating ourselves too much. That’s how you knock off some wins..” — Van Horn on the way the team is playing heading into conference play
“It’s going to be awesome. I’m expecting a big crowd on Friday night opening weekend of SEC play. Both teams are going to be amped up to play since we’re finally going into conference play. The hard part of the season starts now, so I’m ready to go. Just ready to touch the rubber on 6:30 Friday night.” — Isaiah Campbell on getting the ball on Friday night against Missouri
Up Next
Arkansas opens SEC play this weekend against Missouri with a three-game set starting on Friday at Baum-Walker Stadium.
First pitch is slated for 6:30 p.m. and will be televised on SEC Network+.
???? Wednesday Halftime Pod — featuring Bill King of Nashville Sports Radio
Phil Elson & Tye Richardson hit on financial athletic support for Arkansas, interview Bill King of Nashville Sports Radio, plus What If’s in Arkansas sports history!
