Hogs’ center Daniel Gafford and forward Ardio Bailey talked with the media before the start of the first official practice of the year Monday and on some of the new faces on the team.
Neighbors ready to open second season with Razorbacks
Arkansas women’s coach Mike Neighbors talked Monday about getting the team ready for his second season and the big-time improvements they’ve made, including the Italy trip.
Monk, Zimmerman talking about opening fall practice
Razorback players Malica Monk and Bailey Zimmerman met with the media Monday and talked about the coming season and how improved the team is, particularly shooting.
???? Monday Halftime Pod — Featuring Brett Goode
Phil and Tye discuss Trey Knox’s commitment, moral victories, and 3 up 3 down segment with Brett Goode in studio.
Morris recaps loss to A&M; looking ahead to Alabama
Arkansas coach Chad Morris met with the media Monday to talk about the upcoming game with the Crimson Tide and last week’s loss to the Aggies.
Chavis on defense playing together during season
Razorbacks defensive coordinator John Chavis talked Monday about the play of linebackers Dre Greenlaw and De’Jon Harris in addition to looking ahead to game with Alabama.
Craddock on analyzing team’s issues on third down this year
Hogs offensive coordinator Joe Craddock talked Monday about looking deep into what is causing the team’s issues on third down and it’s caused by first down.
Bud Light Morning Rush Podcast: Monday
John and Tommy discuss Arkansas falling short against Texas A&M, Penn State’s 4th down call, Tom Murphy and more!
ROUNDUP: Time to stop playing A&M in Arlington?
To some, the headline above might sound like heresy.
Let’s face it, the Jerry and Gene Jones family has given a lot to the University of Arkansas. No one’s arguing that. Nobody’s arguing playing a game in AT&T Stadium, which come to be known as Jerry’s World, is an important tool in recruiting.
But it may be time to make a non-conference game. It’s no secret that Texas A&M wants out of the deal. They want the series with Arkansas to be a home-and-home series.
Considering the declining attendance, it might be something Jerry’s at least open to discussing now. The attendance for Saturday’s eight meeting in Arlington was 55,383 … or about the equivalent of a Texas Class 5A high school football playoff game.
That may be the biggest problem. Let’s face it, when you turn the lights on you have 30,000 people show up to see what’s going on.
Oh, Jerry can keep the Southwest Classic marketing monitor. Just not have the game against the Aggies every year. As we said, they’re already wanting out of the deal and, from the looks of things, their fans don’t have a great deal more interest in going there than anybody else.
Shoot, the Hogs could probably get 55,000 in that stadium against Baylor, Texas Tech, Houston, TCU or even SMU. Throw Texas and Oklahoma in there on an occasional basis and you get a larger crowd.
In an area growing by leaps and bounds — just over 7.5 million this year — there are more than a couple of Hog fans living there and always has been.
There won’t be any change soon. These things take some time.
But the guess is 55,383 got Jerry’s attention.
A light at end of tunnel?
It was Lou Holtz in 1977 that said the light at the end of the tunnel is sometimes an oncoming train and this week for the Hogs that may, indeed, be the case.
It’s Alabama week and the Hogs’ worst team in years is playing the Crimson Tide’s best in years. Sorry, Nick Saban, but I don’t work for you so I’m not going to make up some negative about the backup long-snapper.
Alabama right now may be the best team in college football history.
ESPN’s Power Index gives Arkansas just a 2.3 percent chance of winning.
My Power Index gives the Hogs just a 1.432 chance of being in the game at the end of the first quarter. Sorry, but the Crimson Tide’s AVERAGE score through five games is 54-13.
That’s actually not a true indicator of how big these blowouts have been for Bama. If the game ended at the end of the third quarter, the average score would have been 51-7. If you just called it off at halftime, the average score would be 39-4.
I can remember teams that strong defensively in college football, but never one as strong on offense and defense.
Big recruiting weekend
From what I’ve heard, there will be an awful lot of Razorback recruits at Saturday’s game and many assume they are there to watch Alabama.
There may be some truth in that, but if you want to play quickly in the SEC, they’ll see there are opportunities all over the field at Arkansas.
How many in attendance could have a shot at starting next year at Alabama?
The guess here is maybe a couple, but that’s a BIG maybe.
They all likely could see the field quickly for the Hogs.
That’s just the way it is right now.
WATCH: Highlights of Hogs’ 24-17 loss to Texas A&M
Via WoodlandsAggie
Hogs’ special teams improved … except for one big play
Texas A&M returned the opening kickoff 100 yards for a score and most Arkansas fans probably thought, “oh, here we go again,” after last week’s meltdown against Auburn.
But that’s not really what happened.
“The issues we had were fixable,” Chad Morris said of the problems last week. “We fixed them with a few personnel changes. And then we fixed them with some fundamentals that we needed to continue to work on.”
He also made some personnel moves, getting starters on the coverage teams, particularly the punt return where it was getting embarrassing.
De’Jon Harris, among others, were on the punt return and it made a difference. It helped they moved some folks around and the protection for Reid Bauer helped him average 43.2 yards a kick. A&M had negative return yards on punt returns.
“Your fundamentals have to hold up under pressure,” Morris said. “That’s what we challenged our guys with and they saw it.”
Bauer was also hitting it well, mainly because he wasn’t pressured like he was at Auburn.
“That was one of the reasons why, that you saw, that the punting was better,” Morris said. “He had a lot of confidence in those guys.”
Yes, the special teams weren’t all that bad if you take away one very important play that proved to be kinda critical.
But maybe the most eye-opening was the play of the defense that limited the nation’s top offense to less than the Aggies’ 500 yards-plus they have been average. It wasn’t close, they were 134 yards below their per-game average this year.
“One of these games we’re going to find a way to get a W,” linebacker Dre Greenlaw said later. “We’re not going to stop until we get that W. We just got to keep fighting.”
Greenlaw combined with fellow linebacker De’Jon Harris for 29 tackles and Greenlaw added a couple of interceptions and a sack. Those are monster numbers.
“Unbelievable,” Morris said later. “I don’t know if I’ve ever been a part of two guys that were that productive in one game, very much just all over the field and very impactful.”
Anyone who doubted John Chavis’ effect on this defense, well, he has made a huge difference. Whether you think anything else is better or not, it’s hard to dispute that.
Having a pair of experienced linebackers making plays like Greenlaw and Harris helps.
“We came in the game with a lot of confidence,” Harris said later. “We figured we could get the win, just the small things on special teams probably hurt us, but I feel like we build more confidence from week to week.”
Greenlaw echoed that.
“We continue to get better and better and push ourselves through practice and our work habits,” he said. “We just continue to keep getting better and hopefully that will result in a win.”
The bad news, though, is it’s going to get worse for a week before things may start to improve.
Top-ranked Alabama comes to Fayetteville next week, so progress may be tough to see.
Morris was asked about that and while some may put it off as coach-speak, considering the talent difference between the two teams, it may be the best way to look at it.
“It’s about us getting better every week,” he said “That’s the only thing we can control. We’re going to get back on the plane, and we’re going to go get better. That’s what we’re going to do.”
After next week’s game, the schedule goes downhill.
The Hogs will play their third straight team that’s been ranked in the Top 25 this season. A&M was there until they were hammered by the Crimson Tide last week.
Only one of Arkansas’ last six opponents (LSU) has been ranked this season.
And the schedule sets up with the next five games over six weeks to be played in the state (there is that Little Rock game with Ole Miss a couple of weeks down the road).
We’ll see how the improvement plays out.
