Arkansas coach Chad Morris named Ty Storey as the starting quarterback for this week’s game at Auburn and it appears he will go the entire game unless something falls apart.
Chavis on some of problems in North Texas loss
Razorbacks defensive coordinator John Chavis met with the media Monday and talked about the problems they had against North Texas last Saturday and the game against Auburn this week.
Bud Light Morning Rush Podcast: Monday
John and Tommy are joined by former Hog QB Tyler Wilson to discuss another loss, former players commenting on the program, interview Tom Murphy and more!
Doyle’s goal, Friars’ response forces draw between Hogs, Providence
FAYETTEVILLE — Junior Stefani Doyle’s 79th minute goal broke open a scoreless match between Arkansas and Providence on Sunday night and seemed to be enough to push Arkansas ahead for the win.
However, the Friars scored their only goal five minutes later and forced a 1-1 draw at Razorback Field.
Doyle’s score was her second of the year after she a deflected shot from sophomore Taylor Malham, finishing at the right post just past the outstretched arms of the Providence keeper.
Doyle is now one of seven Razorback players with five or more points on the year and she now has 13 goals for her career.
Even though Providence equalized shortly after, the Razorbacks continued an offensive onslaught, taking 18 of their 31 shots in the second half and four more in the first overtime.
Unfortunately, the Razorbacks were unable to finish those chances and had to settle for a draw for the second time this year (vs. West Virginia – Aug. 19).
Arkansas still remains undefeated at home at 4-0-1 and has earned two ties after going to overtime three times this year (vs. West Virginia, McNeese State, Providence).
How It Went Down
52nd minute – Arkansas opened the second half with a deep shot from Haley VanFossen that was tipped high by the keeper in front of the net. The deflection provided a rebound shot for Taylor Malham that was covered up quickly.
56th minute – The Razorbacks had another opportunity to find the net when Parker Goins sent a shot from 15 yards toward the post that almost squeaked by the goalie. Malham tried to capitalize on the rebound, but was blocked by the keeper.
78th minute – Doyle provided the first goal of the match when she placed a missile in the lower left portion of the net from roughly 10 yards out for her second goal of the year.
94th minute – Providence turned up the pressure offensively after Arkansas’ goal and found the equalizer from Amber Birchwell, who received perfect service from Elayna Grillakis off the end line to Casey Estey just inside the box. Birchwell one-timed the ball past Rachel Harris for her third goal of the season.
Up Next
The Razorbacks return to Razorback Field in their first SEC home match of the season on Thursday when it hosts Texas A&M at 6 p.m. That match will be televised on the SEC Network.
Was loss to North Texas a ‘bottoming out’ for this team?
It’s obvious something is disconnected somewhere with this Arkansas team.
Exactly what that is, though, I’m not really certain.
Seeing only about 20 minutes, twice a week, of some routine individual drills that are a half-step above jumping jacks it’s hard to get a good read on things.
It is, however, so clear Stevie Wonder can see it is all of this started heading downhill when Sam Pittman left after the 2015 season. We’d heard he wasn’t particularly happy with things in Fayetteville, particularly after his good friend Jim Chaney left after the 2014 year.
Pittman was stood up on two separate occasions by Bret Bielema on visiting a recruit that came in from another state on different weekends. Pittman wanted to offer the recruit, a highly-regarded offensive lineman who had an interest in Arkansas because one parent is from the state.
Bielema told Pittman to hold on until he could meet the recruit and his family. Pittman arranged an unofficial visit with the family driving in over a weekend.
When they got there, the family received a tour of the new football facility and visited extensively with Pittman. Bielema left without meeting anybody and Pittman had to give a flimsy excuse.
The family came back a time later for another visit, this time specifically to meet with Bielema. Pittman greeted them with the news Bielema, who had okayed the visit, had left that morning with his wife to Las Vegas for the weekend.
That recruit has now been on another SEC team’s roster for three years.
Meanwhile, back in Arkansas, Pittman left to join Chaney on Kirby Smart’s staff at Georgia and within two years had a team in the national championship game that they lost in overtime.
The Razorbacks’ offense continued to slide downhill with zero development of anybody, particularly offensive linemen. Bielema had hired the equivalent of an NFL graduate assistant to be the Hogs’ line coach.
The results were predictable. For the last two years, Arkansas’ offensive line was coached down, not up.
Overall, Bielema’s recruiting mantra of avoiding problems also didn’t deliver any leaders. There was less accountability from the coaching staff and almost no accountability within the team.
Look inside any championship-caliber team, there is leadership within the team that takes care of many problems. Those leaders create the accountability within the team.
That disappeared from the Razorback football program. Chad Morris has instilled accountability from the coaching staff, but there doesn’t appear to be any accountability within the team.
No one seems to be either capable or willing to hold his teammates accountable. Morris has his leadership group, but whatever they are trying isn’t translating into much success on the field.
Being kept at a certain arm’s length from the team, no one in the media really knows what’s going on. Some get bits and pieces from this player or that parent, but nobody really knows.
What is evident, though, is there is a serious disconnect within this team.
Cheyenne O’Grady saw his first game action of the year Saturday. While generally regarded as maybe the most talented tight end on the roster, he didn’t even dress for the first two games and, reportedly, it had nothing to do with an injury or major rules violations.
No, there hasn’t been any sort of leadership within the team. Senior Jared Cornelius, who has been around for what seems like forever, came close to flashing some leadership in the wake of Saturday’s 44-17 loss to North Texas.
“It’s really easy to pick one guy to point a finger at, and for the majority of the first half, I think that guy was Cole … at least by the outside world,” he said. “Like Hjalte (Froholdt) said, the receivers could run better routes. The offensive line could protect better. The running backs could get out on the checks and chip the defensive ends.”
Cornelius pretty much confirmed they heard the boos of the snall number of fans that remained after halftime.
“When you come out of the locker room in the second half and your starting quarterback is getting booed? By the home team? When is that right?” Cornelius asked after the game. “How is that right?”
If there was any doubt about his feelings, he removed them.
“And I feel like I’ve been kind of holding this in for a minute, but at the end of the day, that’s somebody’s son, that’s somebody’s brother,” he said. “That’s my brother. And I’m not going to sit around like that’s going to be OK. When a guy comes out after the first half and we’re in middle of the football game — at that point we’re still in the game — and you’re booing him.”
He was not happy. Nobody was.
But you do wonder if an internal group of leaders are ready to step up for this team.
We may not find out for a few weeks. With a stretch of games against Auburn, Texas A&M, Alabama and Ole Miss coming up, it may get worse before it gets much better.
Fans don’t want to hear that. They want wins now.
The guess is they don’t want it more than Morris, his coaches or this team. Some of us didn’t realize just how bad things were towards the end of last year.
Two years of almost coaching players down extracts a toll. I’ve seen it before at all levels. When Jimmy Johnson took over the Dallas Cowboys in 1989 he discovered he’d left more talent at Miami … the university, not the Dolphins.
It took a year to wash out all of the sludge that slowly built up the last two years of Tom Landry’s stumbling and bumbling. It took another year to get things pointed in the right direction.
Two years later was the first of back-to-back Super Bowl wins.
Morris inherited a situation worse than what many of us thought He’ll get a chance to clean it up. That’s never a particularly pretty job, by the way.
The mind-numbing debacle against North Texas may be the bottoming out of a path set in motion over two years ago.
But we won’t even know that for awhile.
How Arkansas’ highest-ranked teams fared this week
How the teams ranked in the Arkansas Sports Media High School Football Poll fared on Friday:
Overall
1. North Little Rock (3-0) defeated Memphis Whitehaven, 46-35
2. Bryant (2-1) lost to No. 3 Fayetteville 36-35
3. Fayetteville (3-0 defeated No. 2 Bryant 36-35
4. Conway (3-0) was off
5. FS Northside (3-0) was off
6. Pulaski Academy (2-1) lost to Bossier City (La.) Parkway 30-22
7. Cabot (2-1) lost to Benton 56-41
8. Greenwood (2-1) defeated Sand Springs (Okla.) Page 49-13
9. Springdale (3-0) was off
10. Warren (2-0) defeated Dollarway 43-0
Class 6A
1. Greenwood (2-1) defeated Sand Springs (Okla.) Page 49-13
2. West Memphis (3-0) defeated Wynne 21-0
3. Benton (2-1) defeated Cabot 56-41
4. Pine Bluff (0-2-1) lost to Springdale Har-Ber 27-18
5. Searcy (3-0) was off
Class 5A
1. Pulaski Academy (2-1) lost to Bossier City (La.) Parkway 30-22
2. LR Christian (3-0) defeated Greenbrier 56-13
3. LR McClellan (3-0) defeated LR Fair (52-0)
4. Harrison (3-0) was off
5. Texarkana (2-1) was off
Class 4A
1. Warren (2-0) defeated Dollarway 43-0
2. Joe T. Robinson (2-1) defeated Camden Fairview 41-12
3. Nasville (3-0) was off
4. Rivrcrest (3-0) defeated Osceola 16-14
5. Southside Batesville (2-1) defeated Pocahontas 28-8
Class 3A
1. Booneville (3-0) was off
2. Clinton (3-0) defeated Central Ark. Christian 48-28
3. Prescott (3-0) defeated Hope 46-13
4. Mayflower (3-0) defeated Parkers Chapel 52-8
5. McGehee (1-2) defeated Crossett 8-6
Class 2A
1. Mount Ida (3-0) defeate Magnet Cove 28-7
2. Foreman (2-0) defeated Horatio 34-0
3. Hazen (2-0) defeated Marked Tree 51-0
4. Junction City (1-2) lost to Haynesville, La., 33-0
5. Mineral Springs (3-0) defeated England 35-0
Chad doesn’t want to admit it, but he’s got a rebuild to do
This one is going to take awhile for Arkansas fans to get over.
Even though many fans weren’t holding out a lot of hope after last week’s fourth-quarter meltdown against Colorado State, nobody was thinking the Razorbacks would lose 44-17 to a Conference USA team.
As we said, many didn’t show up (slightly over 44,000 actually attended) and things went downhill in an ugly, ugly fashion.
Chad Morris said in the post-mortem later that he wasn’t calling this a rebuild, but that’s exactly what it is.
“No one in that locker room wants to hear the word ‘rebuild,’ especially if you’re a senior that’s invested time in this program,” he said.
They may not want to hear it. He may not want to say it.
But he better believe it and if he wants to reclaim a large part of the fan base, Morris might want to admit it and start building for the future.
He can look in the mirror until it falls off the wall, have the players stare a hole into every mirror in the multi-million dollar facilities and it’s not going to change anything.
That goes for some in the media, too, starting with me. I thought this team had a shot at getting seven, maybe eight wins. I reserved the right to revise and extend my preseason prediction and now I’m saying if this team gets three wins you might want to start checking for lightning bolts.
It starts with the most prominent position. Quarterback is a train wreck. No matter what Cole Kelley does in practice, he’s not a gamer. For whatever reason, when the lights come on, the band starts playing, he appears as lost as a goose in this offense.
“(The players) do want to hear the fact that you’ve got to get better and improve and find ways to improve,” Morris said.
He sounded as baffled by what happened in a game where the Hogs couldn’t do anything right against a Mean Green team that shouldn’t be 27 points better, but was on Saturday.
Morris said several times in the postgame everyone has to look in those mirrors.
“There are some guys that are playing especially hard,” he said. “We’ve just got to continue to develop and, again, like I said you’ve got to go back and look in the mirror.”
Again, though, like Razorback fans have done for years, it all starts with the quarterback and for this game that was going to be Kelley, who threw three interceptions in the first half and appeared several times to not be familiar with the same page of the playbook as his receivers.
“I was trying to get to the point of staying with one guy as long as we could with the hopes to give the entire game to Cole,” Morris said, trying to explain what no one can really explain. “Cole had the better week of practice, so we made the decision to go with Cole and made the decision to stay with Cole in the second half.
“I wanted to see if he could rally us back.”
In other words, Morris wanted to see if he could pull off the same thing he did against Ole Miss last year in engineering that comeback. It was also a matter of showing some confidence in him.
“We got in there at halftime and had some good adjustments and talked and let him know that, ‘hey, we’ll go right back with you,'” he said.
Kelley started the second half and promptly threw an interception and that ended his day. Connor Noland was next, not Ty Storey, who had battled Kelley throughout fall camp and started last week.
“I didn’t want to put Ty in that situation with them being down that far,” Morris said.
Noland couldn’t do much, primarily because the offensive line couldn’t block a North Texas defense that at times was rushing only three people … and getting them to Noland almost as fast as the snap.
It was the same thing with John Stephen Jones later. Both of the freshmen threw an interception so the Hogs ended up giving the Mean Green six gifts.
At least the Hogs didn’t fumble a single time all day, which really may be the only positive you can see looking at the numbers.
Arkansas ended up with 336 yards of total offense, just 40 behind North Texas. That is a little deceptive, though, because the Hogs got 91 of those in the fourth quarter when the Mean Green were just sorta trying to get the game over with.
Where does Arkansas go from here?
We won’t know for awhile, but it’s going to get worse before it gets better. They start a stretch of games against Auburn, Texas A&M and Alabama in the next three weeks.
Unless something unseen happens, you don’t have to be an expert to know what direction things are headed.
Ramirez, Cornelius, Froholdt after Hogs’ blowout loss
Arkansas players Santos Ramirez, Jared Cornelius and Hjalte Froholdt didn’t hold back talking about fans that showed displeasure with some of the Razorbacks in the 44-17 blowout loss at home.
Morris talking about Arkansas’ 44-17 loss
Razorbacks coach Chad Morris after the loss to the Mean Green and how he was wanting to go with one quarterback in this game, but glad to see freshmen get some game reps.
Don’t be nervous about Hogs against North Texas today
Nervous yet? You shouldn’t be.
Just because a former Washington quarterback got hot on the Razorbacks defense in the second half should not create the urgency to smack your hand onto the panic button.
Instead let’s focus upon how the Hogs will turn the season around this weekend as it welcomes North Texas to Fayetteville.
The defense can only desire to build upon the first half from last week’s game while hoping the second half has gone the way of my Dad’s short-term memory.
This will be no cakewalk as some have stated Mason Fine, the starting quarterback for the Mean Green (which may be the lamest mascot in NCAA D-I), is the best passer in Texas.
Personally, I think it is a bandwagon of “small school hype”. However, if we learned anything last week it’s that we cannot take ANYONE lightly.
North Texas does like to throw the ball around the field though, and Arkansas did give up almost 400 yards passing to Colorado State.
Therefore, it will be a strong concern for Razorbacks fans as kickoff nears knowing Fine has thrown for over 400 yards in his first two games, including against Morris’s previous school, SMU.
On second thought, maybe I should not have used the word “hype”
Well, Dre Greenlaw is back, even if it may be in limited action, and North Texas’ second game was against Incarnate Word, so maybe the numbers are a little askew early in the season.
Wait, at the risk of sounding blasphemous, who did you say the Mean Green played last week?
Offensively who knows where Arkansas stands?
At the time of prosing this masterpiece prediction I am uncertain exactly what will be the plan for the signal caller(s) throughout the game.
However, we’ve said it before, and we will probably say it again: the offensive line must afford whomever takes the snaps for the Hogs more time in the pocket. Does that devoid our quarterbacks any responsibility for making bad throws? Absolutely not.
If the run works like it did versus Colorado State, Morris and his staff would be foolish to stray away from it like they did late last week. Even the 64-yard pass credited to Cole Kelley was nothing more than a front-flipped handoff to TJ Hammonds.
There is a lot of solid (but not standout) talent for the Razorbacks in the running back position needing to be utilized. And call it “Netflix Celebrity Status” if you will, but I am anxious to see Rakeem Boyd get more touches.
Punting, placekicking, and all things on the special aspects of football strategy must improve. Word has it Jared Cornelius had difficulty finding punts from the Rams due to the scoreboard lights in the thin Colorado air.
Fortunately, Deon Stewart was able to step in and contribute. There is a level of curiosity as to which one of these two (if not both) will be the primary returner against North Texas.
Conner Limpert may be a key to the momentum in Saturday’s contest early.
Being at home will boost the young man’s confidence, and there’s a piece of instinct proposing his name may be called in being the deciding factor late in this contest.
Across the field, his former teammate, Cole Hedlund, will head up the placekicking duties for the Mean Green. You guys remember Hedlund? Reports say he has fully recovered from his injuries sustained in Bret Bielema’s Under the Bus Tour.
Furthermore, let’s forget about the fact that our early season loss was against Colorado State.
Yet on a contrary thought, you might get ready to depress the aforementioned panic button. And if we happen to lose to the Mean Green, there will be an emphasis on the word “depress.”
Final thoughts: I have a feeling one quarterback will turn the page today. The defense must pressure Fine in the backfield all afternoon (and the evening as well if any of the defensive players are reading) to prevent him from having a field day in Donald W Reynolds.
And. lastly, to quote a certain CBS color commentator: “Arkansas, run the dang football!”
“We shall not fail.” Arkansas 38-24.
The contest between Sir Andy Hodges and myself rolls on. With last week being a push, he retains the overall season lead. Let’s rock these SEC picks to rightly establish myself at the top of the heap. What type of heap you ask? No comment.
- Middle Tennessee State at (3) Georgia – Bulldogs by 38
- Murray State at Kentucky – The hot Wildcats by 28
- University of Texas – El Paso at Tennessee – Vols in a close 21
- Vanderbilt at (8) Notre Dame – The Fighting Irish fans will boast a 12-point victory over the SEC
- (12) LSU at (7) Auburn – LSU’s momentum ends here in a 17-point loss to the “Eagles”
- Colorado State at Florida – Can the Rams do it two weeks in a row? No. Gators by 20
- (1) Alabama at Ole Miss – No hope for a Rebs upset this season. Bama by 34
- Louisiana (Who?) at (16) Mississippi State – Bulldogs by 30
- Missouri at Purdue – Vegas agrees with us. Tigers by 22
- University of Louisiana Monroe at Texas A&M
Two weeks in a row with no “Upset Alert” … have I lost my gutsy edge? Maybe.
On a side note, I am somehow reminded that I need to pick up my Metamucil this weekend. Fingers crossed that Andy picked LSU over the Plainsmen. Oh, and Go HOGS!!!
