Arkansas coach Chad Morris talked with the media Monday about the one-score loss to the Tigers last Saturday and what he’s expecting in this week’s game against Mississippi State.
Chavis on two big plays against LSU being costly
Razorbacks defensive coordinator John Chavis talked Monday about two defensive breakdowns leading to problems in last week’s game against the Tigers and facing Mississippi State this weekend.
???? Monday Halftime Pod — featuring Kevin McPherson
Phil & Tye talk about the LSU loss, 3 up 3 down and interview Kevin McPherson!
Razorbacks meet Virginia Tech in second round of NCAA
FAYETTEVILLE — Fresh of the heels of its 5-1 victory over Little Rock in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, the Razorback soccer team finally received its opponent for the Round of 32 as it will face Virginia Tech from the ACC.
The Razorbacks and Hokies will face off on Friday at 1 p.m. in Chapel Hill, N.C. at WakeMed Soccer Park.
NCAA Tournament Second Round Match Info
Opponent: Virginia Tech Hokies (10-7-3, 5-5-0 ACC)
Date: Friday, Nov. 16
Location: WakeMed Soccer Park (Cary, N.C.)
First Kick: 1 p.m.
The winner between Arkansas and Virginia Tech will move to face the winner of one-seed North Carolina and Kansas on Sunday also in Chapel Hill at Noon. Details on television or streaming are still being determined.
Arkansas (14-4-4) is back in the second round of the NCAA Tournament after an offensive explosion last week against Sun Belt-champion Little Rock. It’s the fourth time in school history that Arkansas has been one of the final 32 teams in the national tournament and a win on Friday would mark the first time since 2013 that it has reached the Sweet 16.
Virginia Tech (10-7-3) reached the second round after defeating Texas, 1-0, in Austin last week. The Hokies went 5-5-0 in ACC play this year, finishing eighth in the league and received an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament.
Bud Light Morning Rush Podcast: Monday
John & Tommy discuss the LSU loss, interview Tom Murphy, and more!
Now what direction does Morris go with worst team in Hogs’ history?
With just two games left on the schedule, Chad Morris has an opportunity to start getting some answers about players without worrying about burning a redshirt year for some freshmen.
Particularly at quarterback.
Maybe the plan all along was to put a redshirt on Connor Noland and John Stephen Jones. Unlike many, I don’t think the offensive problems on this team are around the quarterback position.
Let’s face it, for the first few games of this season, the offensive line was a game of musical chairs. If there was a position on this team the former coaching staff let go down the drain, that was it … which is surprising because that was what Bret Bielema came in bragging about being his strong point.
Strange how that always works out, huh?
Bielema was surprised to find an Arkansas team in 2013 that was seriously lacking in numbers of quality at wide receiver, especially considering that was the strength of Bobby Petrino’s successes in 2010-11.
This Razorback team has problems in other areas, too, but the complete chaos in the offensive line is what happens when you hire the NFL equivalent of a grad assistant to be the offensive line coach in the SEC.
In my opinion, the two most critical areas on any team are the cornerbacks and offensive tackles. My ranking on those two varies from game to game and it’s something I got from former Raiders owner Al Davis, who first told me that in 1982.
“If you’re great at those spots — and I don’t mean just good — you can fill in everywhere else a lot easier,” he said.
When he got talked into changing his philosophy later, the Raiders dropped off and have never recovered.
For this Razorback team, the offensive tackles and cornerbacks haven’t even been what I would call good the last couple of years. Bielema talked a lot of about being better closer to the ball, meaning center and guards before tackles.
As for the cornerbacks, well, let’s just say the Hogs have made a lot of average quarterbacks look like All-American candidates this season. Kamren Curl got turned every which way but loose by LSU’s Justin Jefferson on Saturday night.
Jefferson finished with 117 yards on six catches and a touchdown where Curl was the closest defender and was barely in the picture when Jefferson scored.
It’s an area Morris and his staff are recruiting hard to fix. Out of the 23 commitments they have lined up for what could be a banner 2019 class, right now they have three offensive tackles and three defensive backs (if you put Rison’s Malik Chavis in that category … he’s being recruited as an athlete).
They also want pass rushers. The Tigers’ Burrow — who finished the night 15-of-21 for 195 yards, a touchdown, but no interceptions and no mistakes — didn’t get a lot of pressure.
It was Curl, of all things, who had the only quarterback hurry all night for the Hogs. Curl also had the only pass break-up of the night for the secondary.
In the recruiting class, the Hogs are also loading up on defensive ends. That is an indicator they need more pressure on the quarterbacks.
But, back to my original point of finding out about some players. At this point, nobody is going to lose a redshirt by putting them on the field. That includes Noland, Jones and some other players across the entire team.
Storey has proven he can handle the pressure of being a quarterback in the SEC. His numbers haven’t been particularly impressive with the exception of the number of times he’s gotten back up after being decked.
Has the time come Morris is going to put some players out there in SEC games to see what he’s got?
Morris was asked last week what Noland has to show to get on the field more and he said it was a consistency issue.
You wonder if that’s something that could be gained by getting some experience in games. Yes, Morris feels like he still has to shoot for wins and that’s something Razorback fans would like to see in these last couple of games against Mississippi State and Missouri.
They won’t be favored in either game and the Bulldogs have a pretty stout defense that’s been in the Top 20 all season in terms of numbers.
This Arkansas team is either going to be the worst in modern history or tied right there with some of the worst. There’s no way around that sitting at 2-8.
Why not play the youngsters? To many fans, hope for the future is about all they have right now.
It’s an interesting question.
Anderson recapping loss to Texas, game with UC-Davis
Arkansas coach Mike Anderson met with the media Sunday and talked about losing to the Longhorns on Friday night and looked ahead to Monday night’s game in the Hardwood Showcase.
Razorbacks get commitment from four-star cornerback Sunday
Arkansas’ record this year is a lousy 2-8, but Chad Morris and the staff continue to put together what is shaping up to be the best recruiting class ever in the modern area.
And it improved again Sunday with Devin Bush, a four-star cornerback from New Orleans Edna Karr tweeted his commitment to the Razorbacks on Sunday.
????COMMITTED???? pic.twitter.com/d8uyJIRP9b
— Devin C. Bush7️⃣ (@Dev_Bush1) November 11, 2018
Bush was reportedly a silent commitment to the Hogs before making his first visit to Fayetteville this weekend for the LSU game. He also held offers from Auburn, Clemson, Florida State, Georgia, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Tennessee and several others.
He is the 24th commitment to a class ranked No. 16 in the 247Sports.com composite rankings, 10th by Rivals.com and No. 20 in the ESPN rankings.
Bush is the third cornerback to pledge a commitment to the Hogs, along with Rison athlete Malik Chavis and Adonis Otey of Murfreesboron, Tennessee, Blackman.
Hogs’ offense stays frozen early against ninth-ranked LSU in loss
Everyone thought the cold weather would affect LSU on Saturday night, but it was Arkansas’ offense that was frozen through three quarters.
Still, though, the Razorbacks had a shot at a fourth-quarter comeback that fell one score short as the seventh-ranked Tigers came away with a 24-17 win that really didn’t feel as close as the final score indicated.
“We got within a score, and just needed one more stop but we couldn’t find a way to get that ball back,” Hogs coach Chad Morris said later.
Going into the fourth quarter against LSU on Saturday night, Arkansas’ offense had generated just 91 yards as the Tigers were dominating through the first three quarters.
The biggest positive at that point was it wasn’t a shutout.
And there was the fourth quarter where the Hogs made it 24-10.
The Razorbacks avoided that with a 24-yard field goal by Connor Limpert just before the first half ended.
And that was set up on a 24-yard fumble return by Dre Greenlaw that set up the offense at the Tigers’ 33-yard line.
Jared Cornelius then made a return, catching a 27-yard pass from Ty Storey to reach the LSU 6, but there was only six seconds left in the half and a field goal was the best option then to avoid a shutout.
LSU led 14-3 at halftime and added 10 more points in the third quarter for the lead going into the final period.
The Hogs mounted a drive to start the fourth quarter with passes from Storey to La’Michael Pettway, then Grayson Gunter that moved the ball to the 23 and a facemask penalty against the Tigers moved it to the 11.
With Rakeem Boyd after suffering an apparent leg injury to start the final period, but they couldn’t gain a yard on three pass attempts with the only completion to Cheyenne O’Grady for zero yardage.
On fourth-and-10 from the 11 following a timeout, Storey found O’Grady in the corner of the end zone and he out-muscled JaCoby Stevens for the ball and a score with 12:37 left that cut it to 24-10.
Arkansas’ defense forced an LSU punt on the ensuing series, giving the offense back after it had finally gotten to 156 yards on the night.
Storey underthrew a deep route to Deion Stewart that was intercepted by Kary Vincent, Jr., at midfield and the Razorbacks’ defense stepped up again as McTelvin Agim and Santos Ramirez smothered Clyde Edwards-Helaire on a fourth-and-1 at the 25.
This time, Storey directed a drive down the field hitting key passes to first Deon Stewart, then Jared Cornelius. LSU’s Vincent then was hit with an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty that moved it to the Tigers’ 32.
Storey found O’Grady again for a score and it was a one-score game. The biggest issue was the junior tight end celebrated too hard and got hit with a 15-yard penalty that gave LSU good field position and Arkansas never got the ball back.
“The touchdown before was close to being unsportsmanlike,” Morris said later. “I addressed it with him, I said ‘you have to play smart’, my exact words were ‘you’ve got to be composed.’ I knew that if there was anything remotely close that he was going to get called.”
It got O’Grady’s attention.
“That’s not gonna happen again,” he said later. “That was just an immature move on my part and it’s definitely not gonna happen again.”
Limpert had to shove Edwards-Helaire out of bounds on the ensuing kickoff at the LSU 41. Facing third-and-6, Tigers quarterback Joe Burrow, who played an unspectacularly error-free game, hit a pass for a first down, then ran around right end on a bootleg for 16 yards and the Hogs were done.
Nick Brossette did a slide twice to keep from scoring and giving the Hogs the ball back. Why that was the choice when it would have given LSU a two-touchdown lead was mystifying, but it did keep Arkansas’ offense on the bench.
“It was ours against theirs and they just won their matchup,” Hogs defensive lineman McTelving Agim said later. “We won most of the matchups all night, but when it came down to the clutch moment we gave one up. We just have to go back to the drawing board.”
With only road games left against Mississippi State and Missouri, the chances for this team to avoid having the worst record in program history are disappearing fast.
“Losing isn’t fun at all,” senior linebacker Dre Greenlaw said later. “I wish the season would’ve been better than what it is, but we just have to continue to fight.”
That was the recurring theme from everyone.
“I saw a lot of fight in our team tonight,” Greenlaw said. “There was plenty of times we could’ve given up. Guys were banged up. I’m just proud of the way we fought and battled.
“Just going out there in my last game in that stadium, I felt like we fought hard and I’m really proud of that.”
It was the last game in Razorback Stadium for a group that has had fewer wins over the last two seasons than they had in any of their previous years.
“It’s very, very important that we recognize these seniors and the hurt and the fight that they’ve been through,” Morris said. “It started with 27, down to 15. They love the Razorbacks with all their heart and we love them.”
He just wants to get another win with this group.
“Just the fight in all our group, it’s just an opportunity that these men have been coming back in this building and fighting every day,” Morris said. “That’s our message right now, we’ve got to come back in and continue to fight.”
Morris on Hogs’ slow start, fighting back against LSU
Arkansas coach Chad Morris addressed the Razorbacks’ sluggish offense in the first three quarters against the Tigers on Saturday night and the team coming back in a 24-17 loss.
