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Hogs’ soccer picks up pair of national television appearances

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — With the 2018 season set to begin this weekend for Razorback soccer, fans will have the opportunity to not only catch a great slate of matches at Razorback Field, but also on television and online via the Watch ESPN app.

Arkansas’ home matchups against Texas A&M (Sept. 20) and Missouri (Sept. 27) will both be broadcast on the SEC Network, as well as online via the Watch ESPN app. The Razorbacks also picked up a regional audience via Cox Sports for their match at McNeese State (Aug. 26).

With the two SEC Network pickups, the start time for both matches against the Aggies and Tigers will have new start times, both at 6 p.m.

Other home matches will be televised online only via SEC Network+ with the exception of the match against Nebraska-Omaha (Aug. 24).

Most, if not all, of the road conference slate will be on SEC Network+, the online-only arm of the SEC Network, which can be accessed via WatchESPN.com or the Watch ESPN app.

Those schedules will be released by each school as the season draws near.

2018 Television Schedule | all times central
Sun, Aug 26 – Arkansas at McNeese State, 4 p.m. (Cox Sports)
Thu, Sept. 20 – Texas A&M at Arkansas, 6 p.m. (SEC Network)
Thu, Sept. 27 – Missouri at Arkansas, 6 p.m. (SEC Network)

This year marks the second year in a row that Razorback Field has hosted at least two nationally televised matches. The first match this year is set for Thursday, Sept. 20 against Texas A&M, a rematch of last year’s SEC Tournament final.

A week later, Arkansas will host the Missouri Tigers on Thursday, Sept. 27, with first kick at 6 p.m. on the SEC Network. The Razorbacks and Tigers have not faced each other since 2016, but Arkansas has come out victorious in four of its last five dating back to 2012.

The league office also unveiled that the entire SEC Tournament held in Orange Beach, Alabama, will once again be televised on the SEC Network. The tournament runs from Oct. 28 – Nov. 4, at the Orange Beach Sports Complex.

Razorback volleyball picks up six television appearances

FAYETTEVILLE — As part of this week’s broadcast release by the SEC, Arkansas is scheduled to make six national television appearances during the upcoming season.

wo of the six dates will originate from Barnhill Arena with eight additional SEC Network+ home broadcasts available through the WatchESPN app.

2018 Television Schedule | all times central
Wed, Sept. 19 at Texas A&M – 7 p.m. (SEC Network)
Wed, Oct. 17 vs South Carolina – 7 p.m. (SEC Network)
Wed, Oct. 24 at Mississippi State – 7 p.m. (SEC Network)
Sun, Nov. 4 at Florida – 3 p.m. (SEC Network)
Wed, Nov. 14 vs Kentucky – 5 p.m. (ESPNU)
Wed, Nov. 21 at Georgia – 5 p.m. (SEC Network)

An additional television appearance could be added with a wildcard pick to be decided at the discretion of the SEC Network.

The late-season home date—Nov. 18 against Tennessee—allows for the league to select those compelling matchups that could influence league standings or postseason status at that point in the year.

2018 Arkansas Volleyball Schedule

The Razorbacks open their 2018 campaign Aug. 24 with a home match against Kansas. First serve of the season opener is slated for 6 p.m. at Barnhill Arena.

Including the Jayhawks, Arkansas is scheduled to face seven opponents that played in last year’s NCAA Tournament.

Arkansas will cap its second week of preseason camp Saturday afternoon with an exhibition match at Oklahoma. The two teams will play at McCasland Field House in Norman at 3 p.m.

Coach Jason Watson enters his third season at the helm of the program and off a year in which he led Arkansas to a 19-11 record.

The team returns 11 members from last year and will be bolstered by an incoming class that earned Highest Honorable Mention accolades — just outside the top 30 — from PrepVolleyball.com.

Cross on competition at wide receiver positions

Hogs wide receiver talked after practice Wednesday about the group looking better and how much he’s enjoying the offensive style with the new look and speed.

Pettway on how wide receivers looking in fall camp

Arkansas wide receiver La’Michael Pettway talked with the media after Wednesday’s practice about how the group is coming along and who has looked good in the workouts and scrimmage.

Gibson on offense’s development after practice inside Wednesday

Offensive lineman Johnny Gibson talked with the media after Wednesday’s indoor practice that gave the players a break in preparation for Saturday’s scrimmage.

Storey just working on what he can improve in his play

Hogs quarterback Ty Storey wasn’t getting into comparisons on the quarterback competition and is only focused on his performance as well as getting the offense smoother.

Kelley talking about quarterback competition

Cole Kelley is one of the five quarterbacks competing for the starting job with the Razorbacks and he talked about that and how the offense is speeding up after practice Wednesday.

Bud Light Morning Rush Podcast: Wednesday

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John and Tommy are joined by former Arkansas QB Tyler Wilson as they talk about another day of fall camp, taking criticism on the field, WHAT’s YOUR BEEF WEDNESDAY and more!

 

Embracing rainy weather, no answers from Morris … yet

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You get the idea from Chad Morris that no matter what the weather, he’s going to wish it would get worse than what it is.

That’s a change.

With a multi-million dollar indoor workout facility, Morris uses it for warmup. Then he gets the team out into the elements, no matter what they are.

That, folks, is old school.

To me that’s something that’s been missing in college athletics, but then again I came up in an era where that was the normal way coaches did things.

In spring practice when it was cold and rainy, Morris said he wished it was colder and the rain coming down harder. When it was hot starting fall practice he wanted it hotter.

The little fit he threw early in Monday’s practice didn’t appear to surprise the players and Morris might have been waiting for it.

“I had to push a little yesterday, but that’s okay,” Morris told the media Tuesday. “That’s to be expected.”

We suspected he was counting on it. I’ve had many Hall of Fame coaches tell me for 40 years their little fits in practice are close to being orchestrated. The truth is they’ve planned it and it’s part of the psychology all winning football coaches use in a manner professional psychiatrists admire.

“You can tell a lot about a football team by how they respond,” he said Tuesday. “Yesterday, the energy was very low and it was evident when they came out of the locker room.”

As he said, he was expecting it.

“I was waiting on that day to come,” Morris said. “I didn’t know when it was going to be here, but it showed up yesterday and it was evident. It was evident when they came out of the locker room.”

The guess here is he knew fairly quickly the time had come.

“That’s not our style,” he said. “That’s not what we’re about. We challenged them really hard yesterday.”

It’s a good thing they picked it up or they might have been on that practice field until the lights came on. It was not uncommon for old-school coaches years ago. They simply stopped practice, went back to warming up and starting it all over again, regardless of the period things dropped off.

“We were going to get our 22 periods of work in,” Morris said. “Now that might have taken us six hours to get it in, but we were going to get it in regardless. My message was you either push or I will.”

Morris got the response he was wanting.

“They responded well today and I was excited about that,” he said Tuesday. “Had much better energy today. That was good to see. We’re obviously making some progress, but we’ve still gotta keep pushing. We’ve got a long way to go.”

That’s because things change dramatically next week. The coaches’ contact will be restricted again.

“This is essentially the last week of camp before we break and get into school mode next week,” Morris said. “We’ve still got a lot of work today between now and our scrimmage on Saturday.”

Remember, I don’t think Morris’ “long way to go” is a reference to just breaking even in wins and losses. He’s talking about being ready to compete for championships. He told us that was the goal in his very first press conference back in December when he was hired.

“The guys are moving in the right direction,” he said. “I’ve been pleased with the progress of some of our young guys.”

But he’s still dancing all around the question of who the quarterback is going to be on this team.

That’s the biggest question Razorback fans always have.

And Morris isn’t giving up anything, citing positives for all of them on Tuesday and even throwing walk-on Jack Lindsey into the mix and why he was held back in Saturday’s scrimmage.

“No separation,” he said when asked if anyone was stepping up after Saturday’s scrimmage.

In that scrimmage, freshmen Connor Noland, John Stephen Jones and redshirt freshman Daulton Hyatt were full live contact. Ty Storey, Cole Kelley and Lindsey were not.

Lindsey was held back not necessarily for the quarterback battle, which is rather congested right now.

“He’s an older guy,” Morris said Tuesday. “Obviously, he’s holding for us (on kick placements) and he was going to be in some live field goal situations, but as far as putting him back there at quarterback and making him live, he’s an older guy that understands the offense and with him being our starting holder we just didn’t want to take a chance on him.”

Morris stressed again his offense is a two-back, run-oriented offense that will take shots down the field. That two-back set he refers to is just about always a quarterback and running back.

The knee-jerk reaction when he was hired was that his offense would be flinging it around like during the Bobby Petrino days of 2010-11.

Nope.

With five running backs he likes and a scheme that creates running lanes, you get the idea Morris is going to be running the ball a lot more than people think. He wants to have a lot of plays, but he wants it equally divided between run and pass.

“It’s who we are,” Morris said. “We’re going to run the football.”

Like we’ve said, he’s more of an old-school football coach than maybe Arkansas has seen in at least a decade. In the way he handles players maybe go back a couple of more decades.

You see that in the way he embraces bad weather.

“Any time you can put them in those type of situations and conditions and see how they respond, that’s what it’s about,” he said of the rain that was heavy at times. “You couldn’t have scripted a better day today.”

Right now rain is in the forecast through Monday next week with the exception of Thursday.

He may get some more chances to work in wet weather.

And, as always, he’ll probably wish it would rain harder.

Morris didn’t like rain stopping at end Tuesday

Arkansas coach Chad Morris said after practice he wished the rain would have been harder as he kept the team outside during the downpour, which didn’t let up until the end.

Easley returns to Razorbacks as volunteer assistant coach

FAYETTEVILLE — Shana Easley, a four-year starter behind the plate for Arkansas from 2003-06, is set to return to Fayetteville as the program’s volunteer assistant with Tuesday’s announcement from coach Courtney Deifel.

Easley has spent the past six seasons at the helm of the Northern Colorado program.

In her final season with the Bears, Easley led her team to a 28-28 record and a spot in the 2018 Big Sky Championship title game.

During her tenure at Northern Colorado, Easley was named the 2014 Big Sky Coach of the Year, collected 110 wins and guided her players to 13 All-Big Sky honors.

Easley’s teams also excelled in the classroom with more than 60 Big Sky All-Academic Team accolades while Lauren Paige became the program’s first Academic All-American in 2018.

Prior to joining Northern Colorado, Easley spent four years as an assistant coach at UMKC. With Easley on staff, the ‘Roos played their way to the Summit League regular-season championship in 2011 with a spot in the conference tournament final that same year.

During her time with Kansas City, Easley coached 11 all-conference performers including the league Player and Pitcher of the Year in 2011.

Behind a standout career as Arkansas’ catcher, Easley still ranks among the program’s career top five in fielding percentage, chances, putouts and runners caught stealing.

In her senior year, Easley led the team in home runs and total bases. In the classroom, she was a four-time member of the SEC Academic Honor Roll.

The Loveland, Colorado, native graduated from Arkansas in 2006 with a bachelor’s degree in marketing and spent the 2007 and 2008 seasons on Arkansas’ staff as graduate assistant and director of operations.

The program earned a trip to the NCAA Tournament in 2008.

Easley played two seasons of professional softball, beginning that phase of her softball career with the Arizona Heat of the National Pro Fastpitch league in 2006.

She continued her playing days with Reggio Emilia in Italy the following season.