Arkansas players A’Tyanna Gaulden and Chelsea Dungee talked with the media for the first time after transferring and sitting out last year about the 115-53 win over Southwest Baptist.
Arkansas begins quest for first SEC soccer tournament title in Orange Beach
ORANGE BEACH, Ala. — The 24th-ranked Razorback soccer team begins its quest for its first SEC Tournament title on Tuesday when it takes on fifth-seeded Ole Miss in the tournament quarterfinals at the Orange Beach Sportsplex.
First kick is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. and will be televised on the SEC Network.
Arkansas enters the tournament with an 11-4-3 overall record with six of its wins coming in conference play. It’s the sixth appearance in the conference tournament in seven years under head coach Colby Hale.
Match 19 Info
Opponent: Ole Miss Rebels (SEC Tournament Quarterfinals)
Date: Monday, Oct. 30th
First Kick: 7:30 p.m.
Live Stats: http://bit.ly/2AzXyKi
TV: SEC Network
The Razorbacks (11-4-3, 6-3-1 SEC) were able to secure the four-seed in the tournament after finishing tied for third in the league at the end of the regular season.
Ole Miss (12-6-1, 6-3-1 SEC) earned the five-seed in the tournament after knocking off regular-season champion Vanderbilt on the season’s final day.
This will be the second-straight year that Arkansas has opened the SEC Tournament against the Rebels and it’s the second time the two teams have faced off this season.
If Arkansas advances past the Rebels, it will face the winner of top-seed Vanderbilt and eight-seed Florida, which advanced past nine-seed Auburn on penalty kicks on Sunday.
Arkansas enters the tournament after a regular season filled with results against top-25 opponents coupled with an unbeaten record in Fayetteville.
The Razorbacks earned draws against No. 9 West Virginia and No. 25 Mississippi State, while also defeating No. 2 Texas A&M and No. 21 Auburn. Those four results this year is more than any other team in the SEC.
Even though this week’s slate of matches won’t be inside the friendly confines of Razorback Field, Arkansas has been tough to beat in Orange Beach over the last two seasons.
The Razorbacks have reached the SEC Tournament final in each of the last two years and are coming off a spectacular run one year ago that saw them become the lowest-seeded team to ever reach a tournament final.
Juniors Kayla McKeon and Tori Cannata continue to lead the squad offensively as both are tied for the team lead in goals (7) and points (16). Tuesday’s match will be the first for Cannata after she was named to the All-SEC Second Team.
It’s her first postseason honor in her career as she is the only player on the team with two or more multi-goal games.
Junior Stefani Doyle was also named to the All-SEC Second Team and sophomore Haley VanFossen represented the Razorbacks on the All-SEC First Team.
Doyle is the fourth Razorback ever to be named to an All-SEC team and the SEC All-Freshman team in a career.
VanFossen is in the midst of one of the best seasons for a Razorback defender as she has been crucial to Arkansas’ six clean sheets this year and has been a part of 16 shutouts in her career.
She’s played 90 or more minutes 12 times this year and has helped limit opponents to an average of 5.6 shots on goal per game.
Quick Kicks
• Arkansas secured the four-seed of the SEC Tournament after going 6-3-1 in the SEC. It’s the second-highest finish for the Razorbacks in program history and they will face five-seed Ole Miss in the quarterfinals on Tuesday.
• This will be the second time Arkansas has faced Ole Miss this season, the last match coming on Oct. 7 in Oxford. However, the Rebels won that match, 3-1. This is also the second-straight year Arkansas has started the SEC Tournament against Ole Miss.
• Arkansas concluded an unbeaten regular-season record at home two weeks ago with a 3-1 win over No. 21 Auburn. It’s the first time in program history a Razorback team has completed an unbeaten home record in the regular season.
• Sophomore Haley VanFossen, as well as juniors Tori Cannata and Stefani Doyle, were named to All-SEC teams over the weekend. VanFossen was named to the first team on defense, while Cannata and Doyle earned second-team honors.
• Since Colby Hale became the head coach in 2012, the Razorbacks have only missed the SEC Tournament one time.
• With a win over No. 21 Auburn two weeks ago, Arkansas has more results (wins or ties) against Top-25 teams than any other team in the SEC this season (No. 9 West Virginia, No. 2 Texas A&M, No. 25 Mississippi St., No. 21 Auburn).
• In last year’s SEC Tournament, Arkansas became the lowest-seeded team (8) to ever reach the final, winning three matches in five days. It was the team’s second-straight tournament final appearance.
• Juniors Kayla McKeon and Tori Cannata continue to lead the team in scoring heading into the conference tournament. Both have matched each other with seven goals and 16 points. Both totals are career highs for Cannata.
• Arkansas has reached the SEC Tournament finals four times in its history, including each of the last two years. The four finals appearances ties for fourth-most in the SEC.
• Arkansas is in search of its first SEC Tournament championship in program history. This will be its 12th appearance overall and third straight.
???? Monday Halftime Pod- Featuring Matt Jones
Phil and Tye interview former Arkansas QB Matt Jones, 3 up 3 down, and Boston as the best sports town in America.
Fans may get three spring games rest of this season
After Arkansas’ 45-31 loss to Vanderbilt last Saturday, apparently Chad Morris had finally reached his limit on getting beat by teams that shouldn’t be doing that.
Publicly, he took the blame.
“It’s on me,” he said in the post-mortem after the game.
Before that he had reportedly blistered the team in the dressing room. With no bowl game possible now, Morris may be putting every scholarship and roster spot on the team on the line.
In other words, there could very likely be a four-week audition for scholarships. it very likely could be a case of if you want to play for the Razorbacks, you better earn it over the next four weeks.
That’s not just on the field, either. This next month wouldn’t be a good time to miss classes, workouts, tutoring sessions or anything else. The players might be well-advised to follow the old theory my Marine Corps father preached that “if you’re 15 minutes early, you’re really 15 minutes late.”
Morris has some options open to him now going into the final month of the season in terms of juggling roster spots for the future.
The guess here is these last three games and this week of pure practice is going to more closely resemble a spring practice than anything else. It wouldn’t be completely surprising to see a level of physicalness not normally seen during the regular season.
In 1963, Arkansas had fallen from a 34-10 run over the previous four seasons to a 4-5 record heading into the last game of the season against Texas Tech. On the trip back to Fayetteville from Dallas, seniors approached Frank Broyles and said they wanted to scrimmage the following week in practice.
Though surprised by the request, it was a measure of leadership Broyles agreed to and the Hogs beat Texas Tech the following Saturday to finish the season 5-5.
There will be no magical storybook finish like that for this team, even if they go out and do nothing but line drills and the old Oklahoma drill every day. It’s a different day and age.
But Morris is right about the fact this team has lost four games now to teams they should have beaten.
Colorado State, North Texas (running third in their own division in Conference USA right now), Ole Miss and Vanderbilt are games this team should have won if the players had played up to their ability level.
Instead, we’ve seen the effects of two years of a lack of accountability, an apparent lack of direction and zero player development at many key positions on the field (the offensive line is the first exhibit).
Morris and his staff came in and appeared to have given players the benefit of the doubt. With today’s extremely limited amount of practice time and direct work with the players, there is only so much coaches can do.
They’ve all been taking the blame for it publicly and likely will continue to do so.
The reason for this mess, though, falls squarely on the players, in my opinion. Players can’t blow off classes, be late to practice, miss tutoring sessions, doze off in meetings and other things and still be a winning football team.
There will now be consequences.
Morris is doing what coaches have done since the beginning of time in this situation. They can’t come in and clean house. They feel every player on the roster has a chance to prove he belongs there.
With no bowl game for 15 additional practices, this staff likely will use these last four weeks as spring practice. The three games against LSU, Mississippi State and Missouri will be the equivalent of spring games that actually count.
Having a scholarship to play football at Arkansas is not a right … it’s a privilege.
The guess here is those that want to stay are going to have to earn that privilege.
LSU starting time won’t be known until Saturday
The SEC has basically done the equivalent of throwing the ball out of bounds to stop the clock with league games for Nov. 10.
That includes Arkansas’ final home game of the season against LSU.
Alabama’s home game against Mississippi State has been chosen for the 2:30 p.m. slot on CBS, but that network will have a doubleheader that day and Arkansas-LSU is under consideration for the 11 a.m. first part of that doubleheader.
That game would give the Hogs a national television exposure, but with ESPN’s SEC Network in town that day for SEC GameDay, that could be a mildly interesting lead-in to go from a show live on one network to another network’s game.
Vanderbilt at Missouri will be the 11 a.m. game on the SEC Network.
The other league games that day:
• South Carolina at Florida
• Auburn at Georgia
• Kentucky at Tennessee
• Ole Miss at Texas A&M
The full list of times and networks available (excluding the 11 a.m. SEC Network game and CBS’ 2:30 matchup):
• 11 a.m., CBS
• 11 a.m., ESPN
• 2:30 p.m., SEC Network
• 6 p.m., ESPN
• 6:30 p.m., SEC Network
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Bud Light Morning Rush Podcast: Monday
John, Tommy & Tyler Wilson discuss the collapse against Vanderbilt, interview Tom Murphy, and the big problem with Arkansas right now!
Chad can’t fix what’s wrong with Hogs in one year
It’s crystal clear now the situation Chad Morris inherited back in December was one that couldn’t be fixed quickly.
Or even in one season.
Now I’ll be the first to admit I was dead wrong about this team. Based on what limited availability we have with the team, I felt they had bought into what Morris and the new staff was selling.
Obviously, that one missed the mark by about a mile or two.
Morris inherited a program that has bounced all over the map for a decade now. Arkansas football hasn’t really found a sustaining identity that’s lasted more than a couple of years.
Bobby Petrino had a plan. It worked pretty well for a couple of years, but a lack of interest in recruiting had things headed in a downhill direction before he flew through the handlebars back on April Fool’s Day in 2012.
John L. Smith may have had a plan, but he was the only one who knew it … or cared. Nobody viewed him as more than comic relief in a year where expectations exceeded reality for fans, players, coaches and administrators.
Bret Bielema had a plan that was never going to do more than provide some wild ups and downs and as the level of talent dropped, so did the wins and confidence in his plan.
The only constant over this Decade of Despair was an athletic director who was kicked out the door before Bielema a year ago.
Now it falls on Morris’ shoulders to clean up a once-proud program that has gone 69-66 in 10 seasons plus this year.
Arkansas Razorback football likely will finish this year at 69-69 at the end of this season for an 11-year winning percentage of .500 … or, basically, an average of 6-6 every season.
That’s not what fans expect or want. It’s the reason home games appear to have about as many empty seats as people in the seats.
In many respects, what has happened to Razorback football has some similarities in the decline of the Dallas Cowboys in the 1980’s.
Back then, Tom Landry had kept trying to win with a defense he designed in the 1950’s, an offense he sorta made up as he went along and drafting players in the first round nobody was really interested in until about the fifth round … at best.
Because he was maybe as smart as any coach that ever lived, he kept the program from bottoming out. Tex Schramm, who may have been as good as any marketing illustionist that ever lived, kept the public perception of an organization at the top of the game.
Jerry Jones bought the Cowboys and realized pretty quickly he had paid for an image that was losing money hand over fist.
Jimmy Johnson came in as coach and realized he had left better players at the University of Miami than what he inherited with the Dallas Cowboys.
The result was a 1-15 season that often resembled recess at playschool more than a professional football franchise. Shoot, they even traded the only superstar on the roster for some NFL cast-offs … and a bunch of draft picks.
Johnson basically did the professional equivalent of recruiting his way out of the situation he inherited. Three years later the Cowboys were in the playoffs, then won three of the next four Super Bowls.
All of that was in a seven-year period (including the two seasons Barry Switzer came in as coach after Jimmy and Jerry’s divorce after five years).
Morris has many of the same issues. At the NFL level if players don’t buy into a new coach’s system they get traded or retire if they know they’re at the end of the run.
College players can’t do it that easy.
But the constant is the coach has to bottom it out, then rebuild things from the ground up. It appears that what Morris is doing at Arkansas. Chip Kelly is doing the same thing at UCLA and Scott Frost at Nebraska.
None of those three inherited programs that were exactly stocked with title-contending talent. All three have seen players leave and the guess here is there will be plenty of players with eligibility left that leave all three programs after November.
It’s a process.
And it’s progress.
Fans can jump off the bandwagon if they wish. That’s their right. Boosters can stop writing the checks if they want. That’s certainly their right.
If they do, though, don’t expect your old seat in a couple of years when you want back on.
PHOTOS: Our big gallery from Hogs’ loss to Vandy
Arkansas lost to Vanderbilt on Saturday at Razorback Stadium and here is our big gallery of pictures from the game.
Photos by Ted McClenning | HitThatLine.com
Morris vows to ‘find out who’s on board’ after Vandy loss
It was clear from the moment Chad Morris finally arrived for the post-mortem after a 45-31 loss to Vanderbilt on Saturday he was definitely not happy.
For a coach that is usually looking on the bright side of everything, he made it clear after this one there wasn’t a lot of bright spots to focus on.
He knew they were a better team than the Commodores but kept messing it up. That’s the simple way to put things.
“It’s very disappointing, but we didn’t play well enough to win,” Morris said later. “You get what you deserve, and we didn’t deserve to win.”
In Morris’ first year at SMU, he went 2-10. He’s mentioned that first year a couple of times since being at Arkansas, but made it clear that’s over.
“We can reference back only so many times,” he said. “At some point we have to make a step. We’ve got to do something to get us out of that rut. There’s a lot of similarities that I’ve shared this year, but that’s no excuse.”
He appeared as frustrated as anyone has seen him since the season started. If you read between the lines of his comments, this is one where the Hogs didn’t play as well as they are capable of playing.
“We didn’t play our best,” Morris said. “Make no bones about it, we didn’t play our best. In front of our home crowd, we didn’t play our best. We have to play our best to have a chance.”
The game Saturday actually started off pretty well.
The Razorbacks took the opening kickoff and on first down Ty Storey, back from a concussion two weeks ago against Ole Miss, found tight end Cheyenne O’Grady for a 16-yard completion.
Rakeem Boyd ripped off runs of 27 and 8 yards to get the Hogs into the red zone. Storey scrambled up the middle on a designed draw to get the ball to the 7 and two plays later Boyd got it int the end zone from 5 yards out and the Hogs were up, 7-0.
That lasted for 3:53.
Linebacker Dre Greenlaw missed the first play for the defense because, as Morris said, “some team rules,” then was injured chasing a play out of bounds.
Vanderbilt running back Ke’Shawn Vaughn ran right past Greenlaw’s replacement, freshman Bumper Pool, for a 63-yard jaunt down the left sideline and the game was tied with 8:02 left in the first period.
Using runs from Vaughn and some nifty screen passes that took advantage of Arkansas’ aggressive defense, the Commodores took the lead with 13:46 left in the second quarter on a 1-yard pass from quarterback Kyle Shurmur to Jared Pinkney.
Arkansas answered two possessions later as Chase Hayden broke through a hole roughly the size of an 18-wheeler for a 38-yard sprint to tie the game with 6:45 left in the second period.
And Vandy needed just three plays to take the lead again, on a 40-yard pass to Pinkney. That gave them a lead they weren’t giving up.
“They wanted to run the football, and they executed very well,” Morris said “They had an experienced quarterback. Obviously getting Ke’Shawn Vaughn back, he’s as dynamic a back as we’ve seen.”
In the first half, Arkansas had zero turnovers. Two interceptions of Storey in the second half led to 14 points for Vanderbilt and put the Hogs in a hole they couldn’t climb out of.
“We have to protect the football,” Morris said. “That’s been the message all year long. When we needed to have drives and put drives together, we couldn’t get it done.”
Statistically, it wasn’t that bad of a game.
Storey was 23-of-36 for 240 yards and a pair of touchdowns. Boyd had 113 yards rushing and Hayden added 70 with Storey adding 24.
But it was not making THE play when it was needed that hurt the most. A pair of illegal formation penalties where wide receivers didn’t line up properly also were killers.
“We’re right there and it’s on our sidelines,” Morris said. “It’s a formation we had. He called it, we’ll go back and look at it. Our guys went out there and stated that they were on and that’s the way we communicate with the officials. We’ll look at it and move forward from there.”
That’s the message for Morris. If there was a positive, it was this team didn’t quit.
After Vandy put together a seven-play, 29-yard drive after Storey’s second interception when the Hogs couldn’t stop the run, they went 75 yards in seven plays with Storey passing to O’Grady for a 12-yard score with 14 seconds left for the final margin.
“We thought we could run the football,” Morris said about the offense. “That’s one thing, that when we went in we thought we could get to the edge. Team’s that have played them have done a good job running the ball against them. That was our game plan coming in.”
The Hogs did have some success on the ground, but not enough. It forced them into passing and this team simply doesn’t have enough playmakers catching passes to be a serious threat.
“We knew we were going to have to pass the football, but we’re not a very good football team when we have to throw the ball 36 times,” Morris said. “It’s hard to get into that and a lot of the circumstances at the end dictated us throwing the ball more than we wanted to; but we’ve got to be more balanced than that.”
Now it’s an off week. Morris is going to give the players Sunday and Monday off, then get back to work. LSU comes to town Nov. 11.
“We know that our goals of getting to a bowl game are not attainable,” Morris said of the record now 2-7 on the season. “As I shared with our players, our culture is not going to change. I’m not changing. Our coaching staff’s not going to change.”
Read between the lines on that isn’t that difficult.
“We’re going to find out who’s on board,” Morris said.
This may be an interesting two weeks before the game with the Tigers.
