Arkansas wide receiver Jared Cornelius, injured for much of last season, was glad to be back on the field with the Hogs’ new offense he said is regularly faster than previous two-minute unit.
Morris pleased after Hogs’ first practice day
Razorbacks’ coach Chad Morris liked what he saw at the start of fall practice Friday, saying the team got better over the summer from the end of spring practice.
Photos from Razorbacks’ first practice of fall Friday
Here are the Hogs as fall practices opened Friday on the practice fields behind the Fred W. Smith Football Center.
Hogs pick up commitment from another Texas lineman
Arkansas added to the defensive line Friday, picking up the commitment of Mansfield, Texas, Legacy lineman Enoch Jackson, who committed with a Twitter video.
Enoch Jackson Jr on Twitter
100% committed.???? @NikkiChavanelle https://t.co/R1sk8R3ehp
Jackson is now the 17th commit in the 2019 class and the sixth commit out of the state of Texas. The 6-foot, 280-pound lineman was on Chad Morris’s radar since his time at SMU.
Women’s basketball headed to Italy for 10-day tour
FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas’ women’s basketball team is ready to test themselves against international competition as the Razorbacks travel to Italy for a 10-day tour.
Arkansas will travel throughout the country and take part in sightseeing tours, local culture and food, and they will face three international teams in their home gyms.
The Razorbacks begin their adventure landing in Naples, Italy, Aug. 7. The long flight drops Arkansas in country in the late afternoon with a meal and a little free time to round out the day.
Wednesday and Thursday morning will be filled with sightseeing events in Sorrento, the Amalfi Coast and Pompeii before the team heads north to Rome.
The Razorbacks will check into their hotel but jump back on the bus for their first game of the trip against Deep 3 Select.
The weekend is filled with more sightseeing including the Colosseum as well as a fun event called “Amazing Race Roma,” a task-oriented scavenger hunt-style activity in the city.
In addition to the Colosseum, Arkansas will experience the Roman Forum, Campidoglio, the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, Piazza Navonna and Villa Borghese.
A half-day trip to Vatican City will wrap up Arkansas’ experience in Rome. The team continues North, through the middle of the country to Florence as the tour continues. Florence is the capital of Italy’s Tuscany region and features masterpieces of art and architecture.
It is also just a short bus ride away from Arkansas’ second game against the Italian Select team.
The final leg of the journey takes Arkansas to Lake Como, the most famous lake in Italy. Here the team will be in the shadow of the Italian Alps and on the shores of crystal clear water. It is also near the location of the team’s final game against the International All-Star Team.
Arkansas concludes its tour with some free time on the last night in country before returning to the states the next morning. Players have 13 days to prepare for the start of the fall semester on May 29.
The trip to Italy is the second in program history with the 2013-14 team experiencing a similar tour. That program won three games defeating the Italian Select, the All-Star Vicenze and the Chemcats Chemnitz programs. The Razorbacks have also taken foreign tours to Australia in 199 and Canada in 2007.
Deifel adds second Arkansas native to softball roster
FAYETTEVILLE — For the second time this summer, Courtney Deifel welcomes an Arkansas native back to the Natural State with the addition of rising junior Lauren Graves to the Razorbacks’ roster.
Graves comes to Fayetteville after spending the first two seasons of her collegiate career at Maryland.
Graves returns to the state where she was a standout prep performer for White Hall. In 2014, she helped lead the Bulldogs to the 5A state title. Along with the team successes, Graves was a three-time All-State selection.
She was also named to three All-State Tournament teams and earned four all-conference honors. Graves was a state all-star pick as a junior and senior and was named to the 2014 Southeast Arkansas All-First Team as a pitcher.
During her time at Maryland, Graves made 27 appearances in the circle including seven starts. She turned in a career-best outing with 3.1 innings and three strikeouts against Northwestern during her freshman season.
In addition to her efforts on the field, Graves was an Academic All-Big Ten performer in the classroom.
Graves joins Braxton Burnside, a Paragould native, as the latest members of the Arkansas softball team. Burnside joined the program in June after two years at Missouri where she totaled 15 home runs, 80 RBI and two NCAA Tournament appearances.
The Razorbacks are coming off a season in which they posted a 42-17 record and advanced the program’s first-ever NCAA Super Regional.
Individually, Arkansas had a program-high four NFCA All-Region selections with Hannah McEwen, Mary Haff, Autumn Buczek and Katie Warrick.
Haff was also a top-three finalist for National Freshman of the Year.
Bud Light Morning Rush Podcast: Friday
Live at Hardees, John and Tommy hit on the tough topics like Arkansas as a basketball school, best RB’s in SEC and grape jelly on sausage biscuits.
After a long while, Nick Mason finally rejoins the program.
To relief of most, football season is finally starting
Arkansas fans haven’t had much of a summer to kick back, relax and just enjoy some downtime before another season.
The magical run of the Razorbacks in the College World Series brought fans to July, SEC Media Days in the middle of the month kicked things off and now, about two weeks later, football practice is starting.
Along with it more of a semblance of what I consider football weather. Maybe it’s remembering two-a-days in the sweltering heat and humidity of Southeast Arkansas high school football, but THAT is football weather.
If you were lucky you needed long sleeves by the end of the season.
Razorback fans had a June filled with emotional swings, going from the height of excitement to the depths of despair in the length of time it took a high foul ball in Omaha to fall harmlessly to the ground in the middle of three players.
That is emotionally draining.
Add to that the fourth football coach in 10 years and folks are just now starting to ramp up some enthusiasm for the season that will now accelerate to the Sept. 1 opening against Eastern Illinois.
It will be a month of predictions, guesses, hopes and fears all wrapped into about 27 days.
The truth is none of knows. We may think we know, but we don’t really even know what we don’t know at this point.
But that’s part of the fun, right?
A record recruiting year
As of this writing, the Hogs are ranked No. 21 in the country in the 247Sports.com composite recruiting rankings.
The number of top 500 players Arkansas has committed is the second highest in school history and those who were questioning Chad Morris and his staff’s ability to recruit are having to re-think that now.
Now they aren’t all signed, sealed and delivered just yet, but this staff is doing it differently.
“This staff is more aggressive in recruiting,” tight ends coach Barry Lunney said this week.
If you’ve paid attention to Razorback football, that is as clear of a statement as anything that’s ever been said. No one ever accused Bobby Petrino of being a great or aggressive recruiting, John L. Smith was insignificant and Bret Bielema started off dazed and confused, which turned to bewilderment as the entire landscape of the recruiting game was changing as he was coming to a league he knew nothing about.
Morris goes hard and fast at everything.
And it’s paying off with just a few months to go before the first signing date.
High school coaches have done pretty well moving up
Since Morris’ hiring in December, there have been a few in the national media taking shots at his comments about being a high school coach.
Well, there have been a few, including one who took his high school system all the way into coaching immortality.
In 1931, a high school turned to one of their own and 24-year-old Paul Brown did things his way, creating a lot of what is now considered standard practice in football.
That was where the coach calling offensive plays by shuttling players in with the new play started. He emphasized quickness over strength and over, recruiting players from within the school and he invented something many considered baffling — a playbook.
His last six years, they lost one game, took six state titles and outscored opponents 2,393-168.
He left for Ohio State, where he took a playbook, focused on quickness and even adopted the 40-yard dash as a means of measuring speed of football players.
They improved the first year, going 8-1-1 and won the national title their second year, then World War II interrupted everying, Brown ended up in professional football and pretty much created the foundation of the game played today from junior high to the NFL.
High school coaches can move up the ladder, but only special ones are successful. Art Briles and Gus Malzahn may be the two most recent ones to do it successfully.
We’ll find out if Morris gets added to the list.
Players report with team-wide reduced body fat
FAYETTEVILLE — Head coach Chad Morris welcomed his football team back to campus Thursday with The BIG Weigh-In.
The weight check serves as the start of fall camp for the Razorbacks, who will hit the field for the first time Friday at 6 p.m.
The beginning of fall camp brings a close to a summer that saw numerous Hogs transform their bodies thanks to strength coach Trumain Carroll and his staff. Several players saw their body fat percentages shrink while adding muscle and weight while becoming more explosive.
Some of the biggest improvements of the summer:
McTelvin Agim – The big D-lineman made a big jump over the summer, literally, seeing his broad jump increase 10 inches.
Kamren Curl – The sophomore is making the move to safety and taking a bulked up frame with him, he checked in at an even 200 pounds on Thursday afternoon.
Johnny Gibson Jr. – One of many offensive linemen to transform over the summer, Gibson dropped his weight to 319 thanks in part to dropping his body fat by 3.5%.
Dre Greenlaw – One of the defense’s leaders dropped his body fat percentage from 12.6% to 9.2%.
Cole Kelley – The QB checked in at 255 on Thursday and added some explosion over the summer, increasing his broad jump by a full foot.
Jalen Merrick – The junior shed nearly 30 pounds and 3.0% body fat over the summer and checks in at 316 heading into camp.
Jonathan Nance – The Razorbacks’ deep threat from a year ago has added muscle to his speedy frame, tipping the scales at 190 without losing a step.
La’Michael Pettway – The big wide receiver’s summer work pushed his body fat percentage down to a minuscule 7.1%.
Santos Ramirez – The senior dropped his body fat percentage to a razor thin 3.7% and upped his broad jump an impressive seven inches.
Randy Ramsey – The speedy rush end bulked up to 234 pounds.
Ty Storey – The body fat percentage for the QB fell to just 10.9% over the summer.
Brian Wallace – The O-lineman lost a few pounds over the summer but saw his body fat percentage fall 5.0%, which means there’s a lot more muscle on that 6-6 frame heading into his senior season.
Devwah Whaley – The junior running back shrunk his body fat by 4.5% and pushed his broad jump out by eight inches.
Neighbors sets Hogs’ non-conference basketball schedule
FAYETTEVILLE — A 14-game non-conference schedule featuring teams from the Pac-12, Big 12, ACC and Big Ten highlight an exciting start to Arkansas coach Mike Neighbors’ second season at the helm of his alma mater in 2018-19.
This season’s home opponents include Northwestern State who tips off the season with the Razorbacks’ annual Elementary Day game. Arizona State and Nebraska also make appearances in Bud Walton Arena this season.
Both teams advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament a year ago. Arkansas also hosts Oral Roberts, Tennessee Tech, Prairie View A&M and Jackson State before the start of Southeastern Conference play.
The Razorbacks have some challenging road games as well with trips to UT-Arlington, Iowa State as part of the Big 12/SEC Challenge, Abilene Christian and Tulsa this fall.
Arkansas will also take part in a Thanksgiving weekend tournament in Nashville, Tennessee, facing Wisconsin, Pittsburgh and host Tennessee State.
Top Five Reasons To Come To Razorback Women’s Basketball Games
• Mike Neighbors and the Razorbacks return four of the five starters from last season and are loaded with talent for 2018-19.
• Arkansas returns its leading scorer, Malica Monk, and top rebounder, Kiara Williams, and welcomes five newcomers this season.
• Arkansas hosts Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Mississippi State, Missouri, Ole Miss, South Carolina, and Texas A&M. Five of those teams advanced to the NCAA Tournament with Mississippi State reaching the Final Four. A sixth, Alabama, played into the WNIT Quarterfinals a year ago.
• Teams from the Pac-12 and Big Ten, along with the Southland, Summit, Ohio Valley and Southwestern Athletic Conference travel to Bud Walton Arena this season.
• Forty-one winning seasons including eight in a row, in the Basketball Palace of Mid-America.
The SEC
The 2019 Southeastern Conference home-and-away opponents for Arkansas have been released. The home schedule includes games with Alabama, Auburn, Mississippi State, South Carolina and Vanderbilt.
Arkansas will travel to Florida, Kentucky, LSU, Tennessee and Texas A&M. The Razorbacks have home-and-away series with Missouri, Georgia and Ole Miss in 2019.
Dates and times for the 2018-19 SEC schedule will be released later this fall.
Seven of the Razorbacks’ 13 SEC opponents reached the NCAA Tournament last year with an eighth team taking part in the WNIT tournament. Mississippi State, who reached the Final Four for the second consecutive season, faces Arkansas in Bud Walton Arena in 2019.
South Carolina, who won the 2018 NCAA Championship and reached the quarterfinals a year ago, is also a home opponent this season.
The Schedule
| Day | Date | Opponent | Arena | Site |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thursday | Nov. 1 | Exhibition (TBA) | Bud Walton Arena | Fayetteville |
| Friday | Nov. 9 | Northwestern State | Bud Walton Arena | Fayetteville |
| Wednesday | Nov. 14 | UT-Arlington | College Park Center | Arlington, Texas |
| Sunday | Nov. 18 | Arizona State | Bud Walton Arena | Fayetteville |
| Friday | Nov. 23 | Tennessee State ! | Gentry Center | Nashville, Tenn. |
| Saturday | Nov. 24 | Pittsburgh ! | Gentry Center | Nashville, Tenn. |
| Sunday | Nov. 25 | Wisconsin ! | Gentry Center | Nashville, Tenn. |
| Wednesday | Nov. 28 | Oral Roberts | Bud Walton Arena | Fayetteville |
| Sunday | Dec. 2 | Iowa State # | Hilton Coliseum | Ames, Iowa |
| Tuesday | Dec. 4 | Tennessee Tech | Bud Walton Arena | Fayetteville |
| Saturday | Dec. 8 | Abilene Christian | Moody Coliseum | Abilene, Texas |
| Sunday | Dec. 16 | Prairie View A&M | Bud Walton Arena | Fayetteville |
| Tuesday | Dec. 18 | Nebraska | Bud Walton Arena | Fayetteville |
| Thursday | Dec. 20 | Tulsa | Reynolds Center | Tulsa, Okla. |
| Sunday | Dec. 30 | Jackson State | Bud Walton Arena | Fayetteville |
| Wed.-Sun. | March 6-10 | SEC Championship | Greenville, S.C. | |
| Monday | March 18 | NCAA Selection Show | ESPN | 6 p.m. |
| Fri.-Mon. | March 22-25 | Campus Sites | TBA | TBA |
| Fri.-Mon. | March 29-April 1 | NCAA Regional Championships | Albany, Chicago, Greensboro, Portland | TBA |
| Friday | April 5 | NCAA Semifinals | Tampa, Fla. | |
| Sunday | April 7 | NCAA Championship | Tampa, Fla. |
Bud Light Morning Rush Podcast: Thursday
John, Tommy and Tyler tackle the recruiting dynamic of the new staff, hit on the Urban Meyer news and more!
Tommy also caught up with former Arkansas QB and current TE’s coach Barry Lunney Jr.
